THE ROYAL ACADEMY AND ITS MEMBERS 111 THE ROYAL ACADEMY AND ITS MEMBERS 1768= 1830 BY THE LATE J. E. HODGSON, E.A. LIBRARIAN AND PROFESSOR OF PAINTING IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY AND FRED. A. EATON, M.A. WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YOEK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1905 Printed in Great Britain. DEDICATED BY GRACIOUS PERMISSION TO HIS MAJESTY KING EDWARD VII. BY WHOSE ANCESTOR, KING GEORGE If}. THE ROYAL ACADEMY WAS FOUNDED. 252602 PREFACE A CONSIDERABLE portion of the matter contained in this volume has appeared in the pages of the Art Journal, the proprietors of which magazine have kindly given their sanction for its use. The approval which the articles in their original form met with from members of the Academy and others, encouraged me to think that, with certain alterations and additions, they might meet with acceptance from the public as an authentic history of the Royal Academy and its members for the first sixty years of the existence of the Institution. Although the actual history does not go beyond the year 1830, many of the changes that have taken place in the Con- stitution and Laws of the Academy down to the present time are noted throughout the volume, and the information contained in the Appendices, which it is hoped will be valuable for reference, is completed to the end of the year 1904. The greater number of the articles referred to were written in collaboration with the late Mr J. E. Hodgson, R.A., Librarian and Professor of Painting to the Royal Academy. At his death Mr G. D. Leslie, R.A., kindly consented to take his place. Roughly speaking the joint authorship of Mr Hodgson extends to the end of Chapter XIV., while Mr Leslie has a share in the remaining chapters. All that part which treats of art in general, and of the art of the members of the Royal Academy in particular, is by Mr Hodgson and Mr Leslie. For so much as deals with the vi PREFACE history of the Royal Academy as an institution, and for the editing of the work in its present form, also for the compilation of the Appendices, I am responsible. My endeavour has been to avoid as far as possible treating the subject in any contro- versial spirit, and simply to put together a statement of facts taken from the original sources. No attempt has been made to give complete biographies of the members or lists of their works ; these may be found elsewhere and would occupy too much space here. With the exception of a few prejudiced and untrustworthy accounts of its early history, such as are to be found in Sir Robert Strange's pamphlet, and Benjamin Haydon's autobio- graphy, the only work dealing with the Royal Academy and its members, hitherto published, has been that of Mr William Sandby, which appeared in 1862, and from which much of the information contained in the present volume has been derived, though in every case it has been verified, and where necessary corrected by reference to the original authorities. My grateful thanks are due to the Council of the Royal Academy for their kindness in giving me permission to make free use of the archives of the Academy, and to reproduce certain portraits and documents. I have also to express my obligation to Mr C. Mallord Turner for allowing me to include among the illustrations his portrait of J. M. W. Turner, R. A. F. A. E. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE FOUNDATION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY PAGES London in the eighteenth century ; early art in England ; miniature painting ; Jonathan Richardson ; his influence on Reynolds ; first establishment of Art in England ; Sir James ThornhilPs Academy ; Hogarth's Academy in St Martin's Lane ; plans for the establishment of an Academy ; exhibi- tions of pictures started ; Societies of Artists formed ; memorial to George III.; his approval of the scheme pro- posed; signs the "Instrument" of the foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts ; first meeting of the Royal Academy, and first Discourse of Sir Joshua Reynolds as President . 1-13 CHAPTER II THE FIRST PRESIDENT, SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS Early life of Sir Joshua Reynolds ; the choice of a profession ; pupil of Hudson ; returns to Devonshire ; goes with Commodore Keppel to the Mediterranean ; stay in Italy ; returns to London and settles in Leicester Fields ; his life there ; the " Discourses " ; his opinions on Art ; his pictures and methods of work ; his note-books ; sitter's chair ; is knighted ; his many-sidedness ..... 14-27 vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTER III THE FIRST PRESIDENCY PAGES The share of George III., Reynolds, and Sir William Chambers in the foundation of the Academy; George III.'s personal interest in it ; gives it financial aid and rooms in Somerset House ; draws up the form of diploma of which Cipriani de- signs the head-piece ; election of Reynolds as President ; his assiduity in the discharge of his duties ; rejection by the Council of a picture by Nathaniel Hone ; Hone's quarrel with Angelica Kauffman ; Gainsborough's quarrel with the Academy ; Reynolds' resignation, and the cause of it ; his opinion of the behaviour of the Academy to him ; public opinion on the matter ; reconciliation effected, and resumption by Reynolds of the Chair ; his last appearance as President . 28-43 CHAPTER IV THE FIRST EXECUTIVE OFFICERS The " Obligation " or Roll of Institution ; election of President and Council, Visitors, Secretary, and Keeper ; appointment of Treasurer and Librarian ; composition of the Council Sir William Chambers, first Treasurer ; his early life ; his con- nection with the Court ; his influence in the Academy ; his work as an architect Francis Milner Newton, first Secretary ; his performance of his duties ; his life and works George Michael Moser, first Keeper ; his merits as a teacher ; the system of teaching in the Academy schools Francis Hayman, first Librarian ; his art ... 44-55 CHAPTER V THE FIRST PROFESSORS The productive and the critical faculties compared ; the uses of teaching by lectures ; election of the Professors of Painting, Architecture, Perspective, and Anatomy ; their duties ; their CONTENTS ix diplomas Edward Penny, first Professor of Painting; his PAOKS pictures ; influence among his fellow-artists Thomas Sandby, first Professor of Architecture ; his early life ; his work as an architect and as professor Samuel Wale, first Professor of Perspective ; early water-colour art in England ; Wale's work as an illustrator Dr William Hunter, first Professor of Anatomy ; his lectures .... 56-67 CHAPTER VI THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A. Reynolds and Gainsborough the two greatest artists of the eighteenth century ; early life and education of Gains- borough ; he studies art in London ; his portrait ; his marriage to Margaret Burr ; establishes himself in London ; his letter, when dying, to Reynolds ; his character compared with that of Reynolds ; his letters to William Jackson, the musician ; his merits as an artist compared with those of Reynolds ; their different methods of working ; his land- scapes ; Ruskin's opinion of them ; how they differ from the work of the present-day landscape painter ; final apprecia- tion of him ....... 68-83 CHAPTER VII THE REMAINING FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS Francesco Bartolozzi ; his birth and art education ; comes to England ; his reputation as an engraver Giovanni Battista Cipriani ; designs the diploma and gold and silver prize medals Agostino Carlini ; succeeds Moser as Keeper Francis Cotes ; his pictures ; his death causes first vacancy in the Academy George Dance ; his work as an architect ; his services as an auditor of the Academy accounts Nathaniel Dance ; his work ; resigns ; is made a Baronet Mary Moser, flower painter Angelica Kauffman ; her a 2 CONTENTS claims as an artist ; her early life and first marriage ; her PAOKS second marriage, and residence in Rome ; her death and funeral ; the character of her art John Inigo Richards ; elected Secretary Dominic Serres ; elected Librarian ; his sea-pieces Richard Wilson ; the neglect he experienced ; his place as a landscape painter ; his visit to Italy ; elected Librarian ; his unhappy life ; " Peter Pindar's " lines on him Joseph Wilton ; elected Keeper ; executed many public monu- ments John Baker, painter of flower pieces and heraldic subjects on coach panels George Barret, landscape painter Charles Catton, landscape and coach panel painter Mason Chamberlin, portrait painter John Gwynn, architect Nathaniel Hone, portrait painter and caricaturist Jeremiah Meyer, miniature painter ; proposes the establish- ment of a Pension Fund Peter Toms ; paints draperies and hands for Reynolds and others William Tyler, architect ; appointed Trustee and Auditor Richard Yeo, medallist Francesco Zuccarelli, landscape painter Paul Sandby, land- scape painter ; his water-colours William Hoare, portrait and historical painter Johan Zoffany ; birth and early life ; rescued by Garrick from obscurity ; his portrait of Garrick as Abel D rugger ; his art; his visit to India .... 84-109 CHAPTER VIII ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS First proposal for filling up vacancies in the list of Academicians ; institution of Associates ; Associates' form of obligation and diploma ; Associate-engravers ; first election of Associate-engravers and Associates Edward Burch, gem sculptor ; appointed Librarian Richard Cosway ; his birth and early life ; his remarkable career ; the art of miniature painting ; wherein Cosway differs from the early minia- turists ; his private life and marriage ; last years and death Joseph Nollekens ; his success as a sculptor ; his marriage and life, as told by John Thomas Smith James Barry ; his early life and character ; friendship with Edmund Burke j his aspiratipns ; life in Italy ; ideas on Art ; his CONTENTS xi pictures ; elected Professor of Painting ; abuses the members PAGES of the Academy ; is expelled and his name struck off the Roll by George III.; his last years and death William Peters ; gives up painting as a profession, and is ordained ; appointed Chaplain to the Academy ; resigns it and his Academicianship ; later years and death . . . 110-131 CHAPTER IX ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS continued John Bacon, first gold medallist in sculpture John Singleton Copley ; his origin ; his art Philip James de Loutherbourg ; his impress on English Art ; the qualities of his art ; his "Eidophusikon" Edmund Garvey, landscape painter John Francis Rigaud, historical painter Thomas Banks, gold medallist and travelling student in sculpture ; his art and character James Wyatt ; his work as an architect ; President- elect Joseph Farington ; his active share in the manage- ment of the Academy John Opie ; is brought by Dr Wolcott to London, and becomes the fashion ; his art ; his proposal for a naval monument ; elected Professor of Painting ; his private life James Northcote ; becomes a pupil of Reynolds ; his pictures and character William Hodges, landscape painter John Russell, portrait painter in crayons William Hamilton, portrait and historical painter Henry Fuseli ; his history ; elected Professor of Painting, and Keeper ; his accomplishments and art John Yenn, gold medallist in architecture ; appointed Treasurer John Webber, landscape painter Francis Wheatley, painter of rural and domestic subjects Ozias Humphrey, portrait painter . . .132-150 CHAPTER X ASSOCIATES ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS WHO DID NOT BECOME ACADEMICIANS The Associate-engravers : Thomas Major, the first elected Simon FranQois Ravenet Pierre Charles Canot John xii CONTENTS Browne Thomas Chambers Valentine Green, very dis- PAOW tinguished mezzotint engraver ; his works Francis Haward Joseph Collyer James Heath, distinguished line engraver. The Associates : Edward Stevens, architect George James, portrait painter Elias Martin, oil and water-colour painter of various subjects Antonio Zucchi, painter of classical subjects ; marries Angelica Kauffman Michael Angelo Rooker, landscape painter ; did views of the Colleges at Oxford for the Oxford Almanac William Pars, painted portraits and made drawings of old temples Nicholas Thomas Dall, landscape painter Biagio Rebecca, decorated some of the Academy rooms at Somerset House William Tomkins, landscape and still-life painter Stephen Elmer, dead game and still-life painter Edward Edwards ; painted scriptural and classical subjects ; elected Teacher of Perspective William Parry, portrait painter John Hamilton Mortimer, portrait and subject painter ; his picture at the Academy James Nixon, portrait and miniature painter Horace Hone, miniature painter George Stubbs ; his sporting pictures ; his drawings for the "Anatomy of the Horse"; elected Academician, but never received diploma Joseph Wright (of Derby) ; his portraits and subject pictures ; his differences with the Academy ; elected Academician, but declined Joseph Bonomi, architect .... 151-166 CHAPTER XI THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST Death and funeral of Sir Joshua Reynolds ; English Art in the eighteenth century ; the position of the Academy at the death of Reynolds ; its exhibitions, schools, and charities ; address to George III. on its twenty-fifth anniversary; the dispute between Henry Tresham, R.A., and the Academy ; his appeal to George III., and the latter^ decision; law as to the constitution of the Council ; dispute between the Council and the General Assembly as to the appointment of Committees; George III. appealed to; his decision in favour of the Council ; the episode of West's picture of CONTENTS xiii "Hagar and Ishmael"; the finances of the Academy; PAaES pensions to members and their widows ; donations to exhibitors (non-members) and their widows ; control over finances of George III.; changes in the schools; period of studentship ; the Exhibition and " Varnishing Days " ; Prince Hoare and his Academic Annals j the British Institution ; the Water-colour Society ; Dulwich Picture Gallery ; its con- nection with the Academy ; estimation in which the Academy was held .... ... 167-184 CHAPTER XII BENJAMIN WEST AND THE ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING HIS PRESIDENCY Election of a successor to Reynolds ; West's birth and ancestry ; his early life in America ; settles in London ; is patronised by George III. ; his pictures ; his intercourse with George III. ; refuses knighthood ; his popularity as President ; his resig- nation and subsequent re-election ; story of Fuseli and Mary Moser ; West's funeral Robert Smirke ; his works ; rejection by George III. of his election as Keeper Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois, landscape painter ; donor of the Dulwich Gallery pictures Thomas Stothard ; his character and works ; elected Librarian ; designed the reverse of the prize gold medals Richard Westall ; his work as an illustrator ; taught Queen Victoria drawing John Hoppner, portrait painter ; his birth ; merits as a painter Sawrey Gilpin, painter of horses Sir William Beechey, portrait painter Hemy Tresham ; claims his seat on the Council ; elected Professor of Painting Thomas Daniell, painter of Indian subjects John Flaxman, sculptor ; a native-born artistic genius ; his art as affected by his personality ; his merit as a designer ; Wedgwood pottery ; Flaxman's early life and marriage ; sojourn at Rome ; his works in sculpture ; elected Professor of Sculpture ; Flaxman and Turner compared . . . 185-210 xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER XIII ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST continued PA on Joseph Mallord William Turner ; his first exhibited drawing ; his personal appearance ; his early art training ; his conception of the true relation between Nature and Art ; illustrations of this in his works ; the variety of his imagination, especially as shown in his water-colour drawings ; his later works ; their exaggerated effects of light; "The Fighting TMraire" ; his last days, death, and funeral ; was he a disappointed man ? his affection for the Royal Academy ; his love of mystery ; his will ; its original provisions ; the codicils ; decision of the Court of Chancery ; employment by the Royal Academy of the sum allotted to it . . . . . . 211-227 CHAPTER XIV ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST continued Sir John Soane, architect ; the Soane Museum ; obtains the travelling studentship in architecture, and goes to Italy ; his work as an architect ; elected Professor of Architecture ; his dispute with the Academy about his lectures ; his treatment of his son ; his offer to contribute towards the purchase of Sir T. Lawrence's old-master drawings John Charles Felix Rossi, gold medallist and travelling student in sculpture ; his monuments in St Paul's ; gets into difficulties and receives a pension Henry Thomson, historical painter ; elected Keeper ; his letter on his retirement ; his gifts William Owen ; his success as a portrait painter ; his art Samuel Woodforde, historical painter Henry Howard, gold medallist in painting ; elected Secretary and Professor of Painting ; his academic art ; gains one of the Westminster CONTENTS xv Cartoon premiums Thomas Phillips ; his portraits of PAQES eminent men ; elected Professor of Painting ; the character of his art Nathaniel Marchant, gem engraver ; his diploma work . . 228-246 CHAPTER XV ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST continued Sir Augustus Wall Callcott ; his connection with Kensington ; abandons music for painting, first portraits, then landscape ; his success as a landscape painter ; Lady Callcott Sir David Wilkie ; his early life in Scotland ; arrival in London, and success ; his early pictures ; visits Spain ; change in his method of painting ; his personality ; death and burial at sea James Ward ; his early life ; influence on him of Morland ; his pictures ; his account of two Welsh fasting women ; his contributions to Exhibitions Sir Richard Westmacott ; his work as a sculptor ; elected Professor of Sculpture Sir Robert Smirke ; his work as an architect ; character of modern architecture ; appointed Treasurer ; resigns office and Academicianship Henry Bone, enamel and miniature painter ; the series of portraits executed by him Philip Reinagle, painter of portraits and sporting subjects ........ 247-268 CHAPTER XVI ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST continued William Theed, sculptor George Dawe ; his early life and great industry ; becomes a portrait painter, and executes many commissions abroad, especially at St Petersburg ; his character William Redmore Bigg ; the subjects of his pictures Edward Bird ; his pictures and rapid success Sir Henry Raeburn ; his early life in Edinburgh j marriage xvi CONTENTS and visit to Rome ; return to Edinburgh, and election to the PAOBS Academy ; his portraits, and rank as a painter William Mulready ; his early years ; devotion to study, and rapid rise ; proposes the abolition of the " Varnishing Days " ; his pictures Alfred Edward Chalon ; his early life and work ; founds with his brother the Sketching Club ; personal char- acteristics John Jackson ; his early life ; his portraits, and rapid method of work Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey ; his birth and early life ; comes to London ; marries ; his work as a sculptor ; his will ; the Chantrey Bequest William Hilton; subjects of his pictures; elected Keeper Abraham Cooper, painter of horses and battle pictures ; known as "Horse Cooper "William Collins ; his early life and trials; his pictures ; elected Librarian ..... 269-293 CHAPTER XVII ASSOCIATES ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST WHO DID NOT BECOME ACADEMICIANS John Downman, portrait painter Anker Smith, engraver George Garrard, animal painter James Fittler, engraver Joseph Gandy, architect Theophilus Clarke, portrait painter John Landseer, engraver ; urges the claims of engravers to full membership Archer James Oliver, portrait painter Samuel Drummond, portrait and subject painter George Arnald, landscape and marine painter William Westall, landscape painter George Francis Joseph, portrait painter William Ward, engraver Washington Allston ; his parentage and early career ; comes to England ; his return to America William Bromley, engraver .... 294-302 CHAPTER XVIII SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE AND HIS PRESIDENCY Sir Thomas Lawrence ; his parents and early life ; his precocity ; portrait painting at Bath as a youth ; comes to London, and enters th^ Academy schools ; becomes the fashionable CONTENTS xvii portrait painter ; difficulties over his election as an PAGES Associate ; full member at twenty-five years old ; ladies' dress at beginning of the nineteenth century ; historic portraits in the Waterloo Gallery at Windsor Castle ; is elected President ; illness, death, and funeral ; his portraits and method of painting ; the election of Lawrence as President ; presentation of gold medal and chain by George IV. ; urges the formation of a National Gallery ; takes a great interest in the endeavours to establish the Royal Hibernian and the Royal Scottish Academies ; great supporter of charitable societies for artists ; his collection of old- master drawings and architectural casts ; changes during his Presidency ; the Honorary Officers ; the annual dinner . 303-314 CHAPTER XIX ROYAL ACADEMICIANS, AND ASSOCIATES WHO DID NOT BECOME ACADEMICIANS, ELECTED DURING THE PRESI- DENCY OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE Royal Academicians : Edward Hodges Baily, gold medallist in sculpture ; his work ; is placed on the retired list Richard Cook, painter of classical subjects W. Daniell, landscape painter Ramsay Richard Reinagle, landscape and animal painter ; is required to resign Sir Jeffry Wyatville, architect ; his work at Windsor Castle George Jones, battle painter ; elected Librarian and then Keeper ; acts as Deputy-President ; story of him and the Duke of Wellington William Wilkins, architect; his works Charles Robert Leslie; his early life in America ; comes to England ; the subjects of his pictures ; is appointed Drawing Master at the West Point Military Academy, but soon returns to England ; his share in the business of the Academy ; elected Professor of Painting ; his literary skill ; tribute to him by Thackeray Henry William Pickersgill, portrait painter ; elected Librarian William Etty ; his early years ; his work in the schools as student and then visitor ; his pictures and their subjects John Constable ; his choice of a profession ; his early pictures ; the prices paid to xviii CONTENTS him for his pictures and those now obtained in the auction PAOES room ; his tardy promotion ; mortification at want of success, and sensitiveness to criticism. Associates : Henry Edridge, miniature and landscape painter George Clint, dramatic portrait painter ; his resignation Francis Danby, landscape painter ; his art Richard James Lane, engraver Charles Turner, engraver Speech of the Prince Consort at the annual dinner in 1851 ; continued patronage of the Academy by the Crown . . . . . -315-341 APPENDICES ........ 343398 INDEX ......... 399 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS H.M. KING GEORGE III., BY SIR J. REYNOLDS, P.R.A. Frontispiece SIR J. REYNOLDS, P.R.A., BY HIMSELF . . . to face page 14 THE DIPLOMA OF SIR J. REYNOLDS 30 SOMERSET HOUSE IN 1781, showing the part of the building occupied by the Royal Academy, from an Engraving by T. Malton ........ 48 THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A., BY HIMSELF 68 ENGRAVING OF RAMBERG'S DRAWING OF THE EXHIBI- TION OF 1787 . . . . . . 1 10 THE ROYAL ACADEMICIANS IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY, UNDER THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST, IN 1802, BY HENRY SINGLETON ....,,166 KEY TO THE ABOVE ...... to face the above BENJAMIN WEST, P.R.A., BY HIMSELF . . . to face page 184 JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER, from the Portrait by Charles Turner, A.E.R.A., in the possession of Mr C. Mallord W. Turner . . . . 200 SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A., BY HIMSELF . . 304 xix HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY CHAPTER I THE FOUNDATION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY ART, as George Henry Lewes says, to reach the height of perfection, must have the co-operation of the nation with individual genius. When it became acclimatised in this country and began to be practised by Englishmen in the eighteenth century, it certainly had no such co-operation. That eighteenth century, so admirable and yet so ridiculous, so amusing, so instructive, so irritating, and so contemp- tible, so paradoxical and contradictory, so provokingly clever and so engagingly wicked, of which Carlyle speaks as " massed up in our mind as a disastrous wrecked inanity not useful to dwell upon," would seem to have possessed none of those delicate and sensitive fibres of thought, no traces of the luxurious aesthetic contemplativeness which we imagine to be necessary for success in the Fine Arts. We contem- plate it from this distance of time and its scenes pass before us as in a diorama. We see old London with its narrow streets and noisome kennels, its signs, its coffee-houses and clubs, its theatre at Drury Lane, its bull-baitings at Smithfield, the ladies on the Mall, the fops in sedan chairs being conveyed to Button's or to Ranelagh, the watchmen with their poles and lanterns, the Mohawks scouring the streets, and roll- 1 A 2 FOUNDATION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY ing old women in tubs down Ludgate Hill, the orchestras of marrow-bones and cleavers, the Lord Mayor going to Guildhall in his coach, and the highwayman with a nosegay in his hand journeying in a cart to Tyburn to be hanged. There is my Lord Harvey yearning in Kensington Palace for his club, as isolated as if he were on a rock in mid-ocean, between him and London an impassable sea of mud. Thousands of interesting scenes and amusing incidents have been preserved for our con- templation in the most fascinating literature in the world ; and the general impression they convey is of frivolity, coarseness, and brutality. Art with all its refining influences, its sublimities and its gran gusto> was much discussed by connoisseurs, but it was considered the exclusive product of Italy ; Guido, Guercino, the Carracci, and Raphael, though according to Horace Walpole he was inferior to Luca Giordano in draperies, were considered to have said the last word on that subject, and all that was necessary to pass for a man of refinement was to be able to talk about them. No one seems to have dreamt that Art could be what it once had been, the natural and spontaneous expression of the ideas which were uppermost in men's minds, which every one was thinking ; that in fact a nation had once " co-operated with individual genius." When a man was required to express himself elegantly and artistically, he imported his style from abroad ; when he spoke naturally he did it quite differently. Sir John Vanbrugh when on the high horse built Blenheim ; in his natural and homely way he wrote the " Relapse, or Virtue in Danger." In polite circles the works of Dutch painters, of Ostade and Teniers, were held up to execration as vulgar and degrading by men who did the most horrible things, who began their dinners with pudding and ended them with fish, who ate veal pie with prunes, and mixed beer, punch, and wine together, and who moreover were always carried home to bed. In short, we may say that at the commencement of the eighteenth century in England, there was no taste or feeling for Art whatever ; that the nation had not reached that particular EARLY ART IN ENGLAND 3 degree or kind of refinement, which makes Art a natural and spontaneous expression of ideas. Writers on Art will not let us alone with it, in its most simple and obvious function, as an imitation of some concrete reality, as a language for expressing ideas ; that is not exalted or intel- lectual enough. It must be the handmaid of religion, the outcome of the sense of the beautiful, or, confusion worse confounded, the expression of philosophical ideas. In its origin in this country, at all events, it was none of these things. Our hard-swearing, hard-drinking ancestors of the time of William III. and Queen Anne cared little for religion, it is to be feared, and less for the beautiful or the philosophical ; the beauty they worshipped was not of the abstract kind, and their philosophy came to them as a sorry compensation for satiety. But they loved to see themselves reproduced by the hand of the artist. It was a source of satisfaction to them to think that this skilful hand could make visible to posterity the features of a certain knight of the shire, custos rotulorum, or justice of the peace, as he lived and moved amongst men on earth, and they were ready to pay him golden guineas to realise that laudable aspiration. From the days of Elizabeth, England had been a fertile field for the portraitist, and as native artists were wanting foreigners had stepped in. As late as the middle of the eighteenth century, it appeared consistent to Horace Walpole to pen these lines, " It would be difficult perhaps to assign a physical reason why a nation that produced Shakespeare should owe its glory in another walk of genius to Holbein and Vandyke." Native artists, however, and artists of eminence, had not been wanting since the days of Elizabeth. There were the limners who practised miniature painting, a beautiful art which has, alas ! been asphyxiated by collodion and nitrate of silver. Nicholas Hilliard, William and Francis Segar, Isaac and Peter Oliver, Sir Nathaniel Bacon, Sir Robert Peake, and Samuel Cooper, are all noteworthy names ; the works of Hilliard, Isaac Oliver, and Cooper are of great beauty. 4 FOUNDATION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY When Van Dyck was painting at the Court of Charles I., his attention was attracted by a picture he saw in a shop in Snow Hill ; its merit appeared to him so great that he took the trouble to seek out the artist, whom he found at work in a miser- able garret : this man's name was William Dobson. Van Dyck, to his great honour be it recorded, rescued this man of genius from the penury and obscurity in which he was struggling, introduced him at Court, and procured him employment. Dobson succeeded his generous patron as sergeant-painter to the king. Both the king and the office of sergeant-painter were done away with, as we know, and Dobson, so it is said, took to drinking and died. Isaac Fuller, who died in 1672, studied in France, and copied plaster casts, acquiring thereby a hard manner ; he was the first Englishman to attempt the grand style, and painted altar-pieces for two or three colleges at Oxford. John Riley, his pupil, is highly spoken of by Walpole ; he was a diffident, retiring man, and did not get on as well as he might have done ; he got the length, however, of being court- painter to William and Mary, and had Jonathan Richardson for a pupil, of whom there is more to be said. In fact, there is a very great deal that is pertinent to this subject to be said of this man Jonathan Richardson. He was in every sense a fine fellow, lived a noble life, was wise, sober, industrious, and God-fearing. The example of that life, his sound sense, his stubborn refusal to dissociate the beautiful from the good, his zeal for Art, the honest bursts of enthusiasm which escaped in his writings all the influence, in fact, which he spread around, were destined to fall like seed upon the stream of time, and eventually to revive in more splendid growth. He stands to Reynolds as cause to effect. It was reading the " Treatise on Painting " which fired the ambition of the Plympton schoolmaster's son, and fixed the bent of his inclinations. The " Discourses," with a wide difference in experience and culture, are one and the same thing with the Treatise as far as inspiration goes ; some passages are identical FIRST ESTABLISHMENT OF ART IN ENGLAND 5 in both, and we may also fairly trace the virtues which adorned the life of the first President of the Royal Academy to influences derived from the same source. But this is not all : when young Reynolds came up to London, a mild and very good boy, he was put under Thomas Hudson ; we can imagine that his placid temperament was stirred up to an unusual red glow of excite- ment to find that his master was a pupil, his master's wife actu- ally the daughter, of the great prophet whose words had sent him forth on his enterprising journey : in his master's studio he must have heard a good deal about Richardson, and that, about one who even lives in history as a good man, was doubtless not thrown away. The artistic grandfather of the greatest of Eng- lish portrait painters boasted that in his day England already possessed the best school of " face painting " then existing, and ventured to predict that English painters would some day become eminent in other branches of the Art. Peace be to the shade of honest Jonathan ! If it be permitted to the eyes of the just made perfect to pierce the circumambient ether to where this insignificant planet swings round upon its orbit, though he may have attained a state of perfect existence where all vanity shall have passed away, it may gratify him to observe that his prediction has been fulfilled. Art may be said to have been permanently established on English soil when George I. took possession of the throne. It was essentially a graft and not an indigenous product : it had had no childhood. Unlike the arts of Italy, which passed from the pure symbolism of Cimabue and Giotto, through the nai've and artless realism of the fifteenth century, and then attained through the influence of the antique to its ultimate union of symbolism with realism, to the most imaginative, the most erudite and highly-organised phase that Art has ever attained to namely, that of the Renaissance English Art at its com- mencement started on a highly-organised basis. It derived from Van Dyck, an eclectic who had seen and studied every- thing, who had subdued his realism into subjection to arbitrary 6 FOUNDATION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY canons of criticism, who had learnt the ultimate lesson, the password of grand-master namely, what was essential and to be rendered, and what unessential and to be omitted. The English art of painting in the eighteenth century was nothing less than realistic : it was not exactly artificial, though it had a smack of it it was artisticated, to coin a horrible word. Hogarth, who painted scenes of actual life in London things he had seen did not paint them as he had seen them ; he artisticated them, he made them pass through an infusion of Watteau and Callot, and in the same way the landscapes of Gainsborough and Wilson had evidently been subjected to Rubens and Claude. The dilettanti and the connoisseurs had in reality nothing to do with the foundation of English Art ; all they did was to talk big about Italians indiscriminately. English art grew up out of the necessities of the hour, obeyed the laws of supply and demand, and was thoroughly healthy and sound ; but the big talking had some effect. It was long before Nature was taken into confidence, before she was trusted to impart anything worth knowing more than a century ; and now it has come to pass such are the strange oscillations of the human mind we take everything the garrulous old dame says as gospel. During the greater part of the eighteenth century, English artists had no analytic training ; they attacked their artistic problem as a whole, looked at pictures, inspired themselves and tried to do like them. They were not built up in sections, neatly fitted, such as the drawing from the antique section, the drawing from the life section, the composition section, and so forth : the Art was not dissected before them into its constituent parts ; they failed to acquire a very great deal, but it must be confessed that they managed to retain a very great deal of vitality. The want of scientific training was felt on all sides, and various efforts were made to supply it. The first was by Sir James Thornhill in his house in the Piazza, Covent Garden. Hogarth had in his early days worked for him, but, having HOGARTH'S ACADEMY 7 committed the enormity of eloping with his daughter, had been cut and seen no more until the publication of the " Harlot's Progress" softened the big man into a reluctant toleration of the impudent young painter of low life. Time, the incorrigible old mower, must stride along with Ihis tongue in his cheek ; here was big-wigged, pompous Sir James Thornhill, knight of the shire for Melcombe Regis, and sergeant-painter to the king, indignant beyond measure because his daughter had married a low engraver, whose sisters kept a shop for dimity, fustian, and other horrible things in Little Britain : and, lo and behold ! but for that circumstance we at this distance would never have heard of him. He died, did Sir James Thornhill, and his academy with him. He was probably a man of talent, but his mistake was one not peculiar to England or the eighteenth century ; he attempted to be a great artist by programme, not by the way of nature and the ordering of circumstances. In his case perhaps it made little matter, but later, as we shall see, the same error ruined a man of real genius, namely, Benjamin West. After the death of Sir James Thornhill a new school of Art, or academy as it was called, was opened in St Martin's Lane, in 1734. Hogarth was a prime mover in this new undertaking ; it was supported by annual subscription and governed by a com- mittee, and it continued to flourish as a school for the study of the nude figure for thirty years. Meanwhile the Dilettanti Society started a project for creating " a public academy for the improvement of painting, sculpture, and architecture," which was to "have a certain number of professors, with proper authority, in order to making regulations, taking subscriptions, etc., erecting a building, in- structing students ; " and proposed to elect " thirteen painters, three sculptors, one chaser, two engravers, and two architects, in all twenty-one, for the purposes aforesaid." This scheme fell through. Hogarth wrote a very characteristic letter on the subject, given in Ireland's " Hogarth Illustrated." " Portrait- 8 FOUNDATION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY painting," he says, "ever has and ever will succeed better in this country than in any other. The demand will be as con- stant as new forces arise ; and with this we must be contented, for it will be vain to attempt to force what can never be accomplished, at least by such institutions as royal academies on the system now in agitation." Wait a bit, Mr Hogarth, you are running on a little too fast with your " never." He then proceeds to describe all the obstacles to success in the arts in England among others its religion, which forbids the worship of images ; and follows with this, to us astounding reason, that " Europe is already overstocked with the works of other ages " ; these, with the copies, he considers quite sufficient for the demands of the curious. It was evidently not given even to one of the shrewdest men of the eighteenth century to project his spirit into the future, and to guess what might possibly be the capacity for absorption on the part of the curious or for production on the part of the artist. What are all the old masters, with the copies, compared with the "modern pictures" with which Europe is now infested ; and who shall say that the final limit has yet been attained ? But artists appear at all times to have been a genus irritabile vatum. Have we not heard them complain that the world in general was carried away by the desire of making fortunes, to the great detriment of Art, which requires that people should sit still and contemplate the beauti- ful on bread and cheese and beer, no doubt ? But in spite of Hogarth's jeremiads, Art went on spreading. Essays were published insisting on the necessity of a Royal Academy ; busybodies, who had something to suggest or had not, made themselves audible on every side ; committees were appointed, one in 1755 which numbered among its twenty-five members, Francis Hayman, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Sandby, G. M. Moser, Louis F. Roubiliac, and F. M. Newton as Secre- tary. This plan, which proposed the establishment of a " Royal Academy of London, for the improvement of painting, sculpture, FIRST EXHIBITION IN ENGLAND 9 and architecture" to consist of "a president, thirty directors, fellows, and scholars," also failed ; the Dilettanti Society would have nothing to do with any scheme unless they "bossed" it, as the modern phrase has it, and the public was apathetic. The Duke of Richmond opened his gallery of antiques to artists, under the management of Cipriani for drawing, and Wilton for modelling ; but this too came to an untimely end. The difficulty in the way of all these undertakings had been the old and familiar one of want of means ; state subsidy was not prac- ticable, there seemed no way of making a National academy self-subsisting, and it was accident which at length revealed the secret. An exhibition of pictures got together for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital attracted such crowds of spectators, that the idea suggested itself to the British artists to hold an annual exhibition of their works, and charge for admission. The pro- blem was solved. That charitable exhibition in Great Coram Street was the germ of the Royal Academy. It made clear at once that there was no occasion for state subsidy, for subscrip- tions, or for any complicated machinery ; the pictures could pay for the teaching : and the first experiment, the exhibition held in 1760 in the rooms of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, in the Strand, opposite Beaufort Buildings, where nothing was charged for admission, but a price of sixpence for a catalogue, enabled the artists to invest as net proceeds one hundred pounds in the three per cent, consols. One hundred and thirty pictures exhibited by sixty-nine artists produced a net profit of one hundred pounds. That was a very remarkable sum of one hundred pounds, one of the most remarkable recorded in history ; it revealed a new source of wealth, a money-making power hitherto unknown. Annual exhibitions of pictures under such promising circum- stances were continued, and have gone on until they have attained the present portentous results an exhibition of some two thousand works of Art, by more than one thousand two 10 FOUNDATION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY hundred artists, which is visited on an average by some three hundred thousand people, and from which there is, moreover, a mournful procession of some ten thousand works of Art for which no place can be found : and this to speak of the Academy exhibition alone without counting the numerous smaller ones both in London and in the provinces, which have sprung up of late years. A careful study of the statistics of these exhibitions might throw considerable light on the history of British Art, and supply abundant food for moralising to those who are so inclined. In the following year, 1761, we find two exhibitions. The artists had come to loggerheads ; the main body, styled hence- forth the Society of Artists, continued its triumphant career, and was eventually reconstructed and absorbed into the Royal Academy ; the seceders formed a separate body, styling itself the Free Society of Artists. They continued to hold exhi- bitions in the rooms of the Society of Arts, in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, in Mr Christie's rooms in the Haymarket, in Pall Mall, and in St Alban's Street, until 1778, when the Free Society closed its books, divided the spoils, and vanished from history. The main body, the Society of Artists, in 1761 held an exhi- bition in Spring Gardens. Hogarth executed two plates for the catalogue one representing Britannia watering three healthy plants, labelled " Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture," the other, a monkey in full "macaroni" costume, contemplating three withered stumps which represented the Old Masters. The receipts from this exhibition were 650. In 1762 they instituted the charge of one shilling for admission. Dr Johnson wrote a preface to the catalogue ; in his usual style, he fired off double-shotted guns of the heaviest calibre, and went to the very ground-work of human nature to justify the exhibi- tion. One remark is singularly pertinent even in the remote days in which we live. "All," he says, "cannot be judges or purchasers of works of Art. Yet we have found by experi- INCORPORATED SOCIETY OF ARTISTS 11 ence that all are fond of seeing an exhibition." Most wise Dr Johnson ! Thou art a very Daniel come to judgment over the arts ! This Society of Artists continued to prosper exceedingly so much so that in 1765 they were granted a Royal charter, as the Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain. Their Roll Declaration contained two hundred and eleven names, those of Reynolds, Gainsborough, Zoffany, Wilson, and West amongst them. The original document bearing their signa- tures is preserved in the archives of the Royal Academy. The Incorporated Society was prosperous, but not united. Pale discord showed herself at their banquets, and as a result we find in 1768 a number of the original members and directors formally tendering their resignations. These seceders were the most eminent artists of their day ; they were driven to this course by finding that a number of men who were by no means an ornament to their profession, and were doing nothing to further the cause of Art, were endeavouring by intrigues and jobbery to turn the management of the institution to their own profit : the old story of the great man who has no time for trifles and the little man who lives by them. On 28th November 1768, these seceders presented a memorial to the king, beseeching him to found a Royal Academy on a plan which they had laid down. It was to be a "school or academy of design for the use of students in the arts," with an annual exhibition. "We apprehend," said the memorialists, " that the profits arising from the last of these institutions will fully answer all the expenses of the first ; we even flatter our- selves they will be more than necessary for that purpose, and that we shall be enabled annually to distribute somewhat in useful charities." An aspiration which has been fulfilled to the letter. At the present day there are more than two hundred students passing through their term of studentship in the schools of the Royal Academy, enjoying an elaborate education free of charge ; and more than twelve hundred pounds a year 12 FOUNDATION OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY is given away in charity, entirely out of the proceeds of the annual exhibition. The king, George III., received this memorial graciously, and matters seemed in a fair way only one obstacle presented itself: Reynolds held aloof from either party, and without him it was felt that nothing could be done. Here was a grave dilemma. The king was waiting to receive the plan, and had appointed the hour. Thirty artists assembled at Mr Wilton's, and sent Benjamin West to see what he could do with Reynolds. For two anxious hours they waited, when at length West returned, and Reynolds with him. They rose, and with one voice hailed the latter as " President." Reynolds was much affected, thanked them, and asked for time to consider and to consult his two great friends, Burke and Johnson. He was a fortnight before he gave his consent. In the meantime the scheme was laid before the king, approved of, and finally, on the loth December 1768, the docu- ment known as the " Instrument " was signed, and the Royal Academy of Arts came into existence. In this document thirty- six persons are named as the original members, viz. : Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin West, Thomas Sandby, Francis Cotes, John Baker, Mason Chamberlin, John Gwynn, Thomas Gains- borough, J. Baptist Cipriani, Jeremiah Meyer, Francis Milner Newton, Paul Sandby, Francesco Bartolozzi, Chas. Catton, Nathaniel Hone, William Tyler, Nathaniel Dance, Richard Wilson, G. Michael Moser, Samuel Wale, Peter Toms, Angelica Kauffman, Richard Yeo, Mary Moser, William Chambers, Joseph Wilton, George Barret, Edward Penny, Agostino Carlini, Francis Hayman, Dominic Serres, John Richards, Francesco Zuccarelli, George Dance, William Hoare, Johan ZofTany. This original " Instrument" has never lost its authority; it contains virtually all the laws which govern the Royal Academy, and no changes or modifications have been made in it without the sanction of the sovereign, which sanction is communicated THE "INSTRUMENT" OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY 13 to the President in a personal interview. The gist of it may be summed up in the following fashion. The sovereign, on his part, undertakes to provide the Society with rooms, sedes statioque, to patronise, or, as George III. did, to call it "My Academy." In return, the artists undertake to instruct students in painting, sculpture, and architecture, gratis ; to endow pro- fessorships, to give prizes for merit in the schools, to provide a library of art books for the use of students, and to give away certain sums for charitable purposes ; the funds for such purposes to be provided by them out of the profits of an annual exhibition of works of Art selected for the purpose by themselves ; and to this time, both parties have been true to their engagements. The first public assembly of the Royal Academy was held on the 2nd January 1769, at their temporary rooms in Pall Mall, a little eastward of the site now occupied by the Senior United Service Club, where, losing no time, they had already established and opened their schools. On this occasion Rey- nolds, as President, delivered the first of his celebrated "Dis- courses," beginning with these words : " Gentlemen, an Academy, in which the polite arts may be regularly culti- vated, is at last opened among us by royal munificence. This must appear an event in the highest degree interesting, not only to the artist, but to the whole nation." Reynolds' second Discourse was delivered on loth December 1769, and then annually on the same date, which was that of the foundation of the Royal Academy, up to 1772. After that biennially, as has been the custom with his successors. What is called his ninth Discourse is merely a short speech delivered on 1 8th October 1780, on the removal of the Royal Academy to Somerset House. CHAPTER II THE FIRST PRESIDENT SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS THE last chapter relates strictly to historical matters. We traced the stream of English Art, we noticed its early trick- lings in the miniature line, the affluents from abroad which swelled its volume, until we brought it down to the latter half of the eighteenth century, when it represented an important river, fed from East, West, North, and South by native waters. In this chapter, at least at the outset of it, we must request our readers not to think of the course of English Art, or of such a phenomenon as a Royal Academy, but to allow the docile bent of their imaginations to turn indolently and curi- ously in the direction we would have it go ; to mark while we describe an interesting domestic scene which occurred in the little town of Plympton, in Devon, in the house of the master of the Grammar School, the Rev. Samuel Reynolds. He was from all accounts a worthy man, a good scholar, very guileless, simple, and also absent-minded ; did other probabilities coin- cide, we might consider him to have been the prototype of Fielding's Parson Adams. Besides him there are present his wife Theophila, a friend of the family named Craunch, and his youngest son Joshua, then aged sixteen, having been born on 1 6th July 1723. The occasion is a very solemn one; it relates to nothing less than the choice of a profession for the said youth. The Rev. Samuel inclines towards that of an 14 . ^/ $& ' /y ////// -"//. REYNOLDS 1 CHOICE OF A PROFESSION 15 apothecary, which in those days corresponded to what we call a general practitioner in medicine a useful, honourable, and lucrative calling ; but his mind is much harassed. The boy has been reading a book by a certain Jonathan Richardson, A Treatise on the Art of Painting, which has set him dreaming on becoming an artist. He has, moreover, executed a drawing of the arches of Plympton Grammar School, in which he has represented the arches getting smaller and smaller as they do sometimes in nature, and which he learnt the secret of in a curious book called the " Jesuit's Perspective." These things appear to his father to be truly wonderful ; so much so, that he has thought it worth while to take a long ride to the residence of his trusted friend Mr Craunch and has invited him to come over and advise on the matter. The worthy man had started on this journey with a new pair of gambadoes, and had returned with only one, having been too preoccupied to notice the falling off of the other. If history spoke the truth, which it never does, we should probably find that all through this momentous interview, Mrs Reynolds was thinking more of her husband's lost gambado than of the prospects of her son, of the future Sir Joshua Reynolds, first president of the Royal Academy of Arts. In addition to the achievement of the school arcade, the lad had also painted a head in common ship's paints on a boat sail on Cremill Beach, near Mount Edgcumbe, and was always copying the prints in Jacob Gatz' " Book of Emblems," which his paternal grandmother is said to have brought with her from Holland. The case was put in this fashion. On the one hand there was Mr Raport, of Plympton, a good apothecary, to whom Mistress Reynolds had been much beholden thirteen times, who would take Joshua and bring him up to the profession ; on the other hand he had such a genius, those arches being truly wonderful, it were a pity if some good master could not be found to teach him the art of painting. Mr Hudson, the 16 THE FIRST PRESIDENT reverend gentleman said, was reputed the greatest painter in England now that Kneller was dead, who was a native of Devon also. Upon which young Joshua interposed and delivered himself of the first utterance which has come down to us. " I would rather be an apothecary," he said, " than an ordinary painter, but if I could be bound to an eminent master, I would choose the latter." There is certainly a smack of the father of English Art in that saying. Mr Craunch, everybody will be happy to hear, rose quite to the height of the occasion. He decided that as Mr Hudson was often " to Bideford," Joshua's drawings should be sent to Mr Cutliffe, the attorney, who was a mutual friend; and if needs were that Joshua himself should journey thither and see the great man ; that he (Craunch) who, thank God, did not want for means would defray expenses. And so it came to pass that Joshua Reynolds embraced the artist's profession. There is no doubt that the town of Plympton lost a very good apothecary, but as a set-off the world gained a great artist. Dr Johnson's definition of genius, as " a mind of large natural powers accidentally determined in some particular direction," applies admirably to the case before us. The accident is incontestable : Joshua was a younger son of a poor man, an opening for him had to be found ; they knew so little of Art down in Devon in those days that everything appeared wonderful. Mr Craunch was a good friend, and a substantial man, who pledged himself to the result, and so it came about. But we may well ask ourselves, in view of the strange phenomena of Art history, the delusive exhibitions of precocious achievement, the splendid imaginative equipments which become abortive, for want probably of some good ballast, some sound foundation of character what was there in the early performance of young Reynolds to justify a father and a trusted friend in determining him to the career of Art? Nothing, absolutely nothing. They were right, completely and triumphantly right, and we figuratively take off our hats to HIS APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER 17 them, but for all that it was a "fluke." "The mind of large natural powers" was accidentally determined in a certain direction, and it went the course appointed to it by Nature. Young Joshua journeyed up to London by stage-coach to begin his life's work under Hudson. A medallion portrait of him in his youth by Peter Falconet, represents a countenance of strange beauty, though not by any means conventionally beautiful. The eyes are small, and the upper lip rather long ; the general balance of proportions is not, perhaps, of the happiest, the mass of the forehead is small for that of the cheeks, and the nose, though faultlessly straight, hardly asserts itself enough to give an imposing character to the face, which has nevertheless a spiritual charm hard to define ; the delicate curve of the forehead, the arched brow and open eye, the straight nose, the lips rather full but compressed, and the massive chin, combine to produce an impression of gentleness, earnestness, and determination. And he had all those qualities ; never was a lad more in earnest and determined to do his best, more open to instruction, or more observant ; he paid to trifles the compliment which, at all events so far as they relate to Art, they thoroughly deserve, of considering them important. He seems to have been placid, of an equable temper ; and he possessed, moreover, a surprising stock of common sense. He only stayed two years with Hudson, that is till 1743, and returned to Plympton. In 1745, he was back again in London, painting portraits ; in the following year his father died, and he hurried down in time to take his leave of the good man. This event broke up the household at Plympton. Joshua removed with two unmarried sisters to a house at Plymouth Dock, and three barren years followed. Reynolds had learnt something with Hudson ; he had learnt his elements, hard, dry, and cold, as is the manner of such things ; and he was now looking abroad for his "humanities." William Gandy, B 18 THE FIRST PRESIDENT of Exeter, was the first to satisfy the craving, but only partially. He was stranded hard and dry at Plymouth Dock ; his genius was strictly eclectic, and without material to work upon he could do nothing ; so that during three years he seems to have produced little. Things must have looked very unpro- mising for this earnest young fellow ; it might all have ended quite differently, like Waterloo if Blucher had not come up ; but in Reynolds' case a Blucher did turn up, in the shape of Commodore Keppel, who put into Plymouth with his squad- ron to repair damages sustained in a gale. They met at Mount Edgcumbe, and the " rude and boisterous captain of the sea " was so taken with the modesty, the good sense, and possibly also with the sweet face, handed down to us by Falconet, of the young artist, that he offered him a passage on board his ship the Centurion to the Mediterranean. This was the turning-point of Reynolds' life; but for Keppel, but for that opportunity, in all probability Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., would not have been, and many other things besides. It is a long process to trace effects to their causes, we have not time for it, but indubitably amongst the causes of the glories of English Art is the benevolence of a certain Mr Craunch, a native of Devon, otherwise unknown to the world. He has already been introduced as taking part in a certain very important family conference ; we now become aware of his presence a second time. He supplied young Joshua with the funds necessary to prosecute his studies abroad ; after which act he disappears from history ; not, however, without having left his mark upon it ; to those who are not fascinated by names and titles, that mark may appear quite as important as if Mr Craunch had risen in his might and by the terror of that awful name had dispersed thousands on the field of battle. From this time forth it was all plain sailing ; on the nth May 1749, H.M.S. Centurion weighed anchor, shook out TRAVELS ABROAD AND LIFE IN LONDON 19 topsails and courses, and bore young Reynolds away to glory. Rubens was eight years in Italy, Reynolds three. The two great men who looked at Italian Art with the keenest and most appreciative eyes, who were the most completely developed and transformed by it, accomplished the process of education in very unequal periods of time. Reynolds does not appear to have got farther than analysing sources of effect. The depiction of the " Marriage of Cana," by P. Vero- nese in his Venetian note-book, is, from this point of view, a most wonderful performance ; he made blots of light and shade ; he observed and reasoned over all the little trifles which go to build up a picture, and came back passed master in picture-making. Rubens took his tuition differently, and imbibed more of the vital sap of Italian Art ; but with him we have at present no concern. The first pictures exhibited by Reynolds after his return placed him, ncuiine contradicente, at the head of his profession ; a tide of patronage set in which never abated ; life constantly expanded before him with more captivating show. He first took Sir James Thornhill's house in St Martin's Lane ; thence he moved to No. 5 Great Newport Street ; nine years after to Leicester Fields, where he bought a house, now occupied by Messrs Puttick & Simpson, library auctioneers. It has been said that the nation is happy which leaves no annals ; and the same thing may be said of individuals. After the year 1753 there is nothing to relate of Reynolds. The student of eighteenth-century literature meets him at every turn. His honest, kindly, genial face seems to beam out through an atmosphere which is not altogether wholesome. At the house of certain Misses Cotterell he makes a casual remark which awakens the esteem of another genuine crea- ture of that forlorn century, Dr Johnson, and begins a life- long friendship. Edmund Burke, impelled by the force of spiritual affinity, falls in and completes a triumvirate which 20 THE FIRST PRESIDENT stands in noble contrast with another that existed two hun- dred years before in Venice, where a great painter, Tiziano Vecellio, lived constantly in the society of Sansovino and Pietro Aretino. Through that door in Leicester Fields, or Leicester Square as we now call it, passed all the great, the wise, the good, and the beautiful of the latter half of the eighteenth century Waldegrave, Pembroke, North, Chatham, Newcastle, Lawrence Sterne, Horace Walpole, Gibbon, Selwyn, Langton, Garrick, Goldsmith, the Wartons, Sheridan, Colman, Barry, Percy, and all the brilliant members of the Turk's Head Club. Those stairs were ascended by the majestic Siddons, by all the loveliest women in the land, with their finery rustling round them ; Kitty Fisher tripped up them with her saucy nose upturned, and so did Nelly O'Brien. Joshua Reynolds was an important item in the social life of his time; in 1758 he had one hundred and fifty sitters. When he sat down to dinner with Miss Frances Reynolds, who appears to have been a bad manager, opposite to him, at a table laid for ten, he often had to accommodate fifteen, and there was a general scramble for knives, forks, and plates. There Johnson was wont to eat immoderately, and Burke often ravished the company with the coruscations of his transcendent wit. All that can be confidently said of Reynolds during the last thirty- nine years of his life, is that he painted a great many pictures, saw a very great deal of society, played hundreds, or more probably thousands, of rubbers of whist, and lost an almost equal number of odd tricks through bad play ; that before he died he was vexed by partial blindness, which pre- vented him from exercising his art ; that when life was over, a solemn procession, attended by thousands, followed his remains to St Paul's ; that at a meeting after the funeral Edmund Burke burst into tears, and became inarticulate for the only time in his life; and that is pretty nearly all there is to relate of Reynolds. THE "DISCOURSES" 21 His connection with the Royal Academy, with one short interval, as shall be related later on, lasted for twenty-four years, from 1768 to the time of his death in 1792. During that period he delivered fourteen Discourses ex cathedra, to the students, for the most part on the occasion of the distribution of the great prizes, the gold medals and travelling studentships. The first of his orations, to which allusion has already been made, and which is entitled Discourse I., in the printed edition of his works, was delivered at an inaugural meeting of the newly constituted society ; it related entirely to its manage- ment, and the details of its internal economy. Discourse II., which should more appropriately rank as No. I., was delivered to the students on the first occasion of the distribution of prizes on the nth December 1769. To all men of judgment and culture who were present on that occasion, it must have become at once apparent that a new light had arisen in literature. In this masterly Discourse, he passes over the wide domain of Art, characterises its highest excellencies, and points out what he considers the most profit- able system of education. He claims the right of offering some hints to the consideration of his hearers, from to quote his words "the long experience I have had, and the increasing assiduity with which I have pursued those studies." This Discourse, and all the others, give the words of a man who has a thorough practical knowledge of his subject : they give the results of earnest inquiry, diligent observation, and constant reflection, offered to us in short, pithy, epigrammatical and antithetical sentences. The " Discourses " conveys the impres- sion of one of the weightiest books in the language, its style rises at times to eloquence, at others it analyses minutely, and there is never the faintest suspicion raised that anything is done for effect : the thoughts seem to flow naturally and spontaneously from the author's heart ; they are at times couched in the phraseology of Burke, at others they roll out with something of the ponderous impressiveness of 22 THE FIRST PRESIDENT Johnson, but they always belong to Reynolds and to no one else. There are necessarily many things in this book which a modern reader is inclined to cavil at. In the second Dis- course, for instance, he points out Lodovico Carracci as the best model for style in painting. Our ancestors in the eighteenth century thought a very great deal of the Bolognese school ; they were educating their taste, and for their own good and that of their successors they stocked their picture galleries as they laid down port wine in their cellars. Full-bodied Guercinos and Carraccis, rich fruity Nymphs and fine tawny Satyrs were con- sidered to be quite the "grands crus." Time has mellowed these things and given them a fine crust, but they are not very much to the taste of the present generation. It becomes evident from a careful perusal of the Discourses, that Reynolds never freed himself entirely from the prejudices of his time. In his estimate of the greatest men, of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Titian, he never rose to the point of appreciating them on the score of their truth to nature : the phantom of the " grand style," the " gusto grande," floated ever before his eyes, and dimmed her true lineaments. He insists upon the ideal treatment of human form ; all objects presented to us by nature, he says, will be found to have blemishes and defects, and the painter by long laborious comparison arrives at the grand style, which consists in building up, out of the most beautiful parts of separate bodies, an ideal or perfect body. But it appears to us in the highest degree inconsequential when he asserts that this perfect form was arrived at by those artists, namely the ancient Greek sculptors, who were "indefatigable in the school of nature," seeing that this perfect form exists nowhere in nature, but only as an idea in the mind of the artist ; it is utterly independent of study and observation. Nature cannot suggest the perfect form : the artist must first conceive the idea of it and then go to nature to work it out. There are certain incongruities in Reynolds' Discourses, OPINIONS ON ART 23 which were forced upon him by his position as head of an Academy of Arts. Such institutions assume the function of elevating taste, and keeping alive the traditions of what is highest and most noble in Art ; and it must constantly happen that professors whose own Art, like that of Reynolds, is based upon the closest observation and imitation of nature, are found preaching doctrines which they are extremely careful not to practise. Reynolds' doctrines, in whatever light they may appear to us in the crude sunlit glare of present-day realism, appeared inefficient and subversive to the doctrinarians of his time. Raphael Mengs, who opined that Raphael Sanzio, his namesake, did not know the ideal, and that his Madonnas if they had been like the " Daughter of Niobe," would have been very much better, said that the book by the English Reynolds was likely to lead youth into error, as teaching them superficial principles, the only ones known to the author. Richard Cumber- land no doubt made careful note of this piece of impertinence, and when, in his Anecdotes of Painters in Spain, he found an opportunity for vengeance, he used it after this fashion. Speak- ing of a picture of the Nativity by the said Raphael Mengs, he says that the painter "exhibits an ineffectual and puisne bambino which looks as if it was painted from a bottle." Hazlitt has also come forward with a statement of " contra- dictions " existing in Reynolds' book, such for instance as that students are warned to put no dependence on their own genius, which is a delusive guide, that attentive study of the best examples is the only sure foundation ; and on the other hand that all the study in the world is of no avail without taste and genius, which cannot be communicated. There is no denying this impeachment ; this contradiction runs through all the fourteen Discourses ; it is obviously the result of a peculiar, and we may say very amiable craze of the author, in the pursuit of which he is led into all sorts of impossible and inextricable corners and false positions. It was an affectation of our good Sir Joshua to deny himself 24 THE FIRST PRESIDENT genius, and to attribute his success to industry and perseverance. It is not for us to quarrel with this delusion, if it gave him satisfaction, but it is a gross error on the part of the critic to take him at his word. Reynolds began by analysis : he was profoundly learned, he had noted everything connected with the construction of pictures, where the strong colours produced the best effect, how many lights should be introduced, and their relative proportions to the mass of shade. He had stored his mind with examples and precedents, had noted even how trivial accessories had been introduced with good effect ; and more than that, examples seem to have been necessary to him as a stimulus to invention. But dozens have done the same ; there have been artists no doubt quite as learned, who remained pedants and machinists. In certain of Reynolds' pictures, in a very few amongst the very many, we are too plainly reminded of Titian, L. da Vinci, and Murillo ; in the mass of them, all his extensive knowledge and his memory of examples are fused and blended inextricably with his own individuality, so as to constitute a new and living phase of Art, which we know and recognise as that of Reynolds ; and if that is not the result of genius, there is no meaning in the term, or we are arbitrarily restricting that meaning to suit some sectarian purposes. There are, moreover, indisputable gleams in his art of a strange imaginative faculty, the only counterpart to which is to be found in the " Mona Lisa " of Leonardo da Vinci. The " Nelly O'Brien " and the " Strawberry Girl " are conspicuous instances. What do they express ? We cannot tell, something that fascinates and haunts us, that we puzzle over and wonder about, that seems to tempt our imagina- tions into abstruse forbidden regions of speculation. No doubt his great, we may say his only rival, Gainsborough, had qualities which appear more directly spontaneous, and the gift of nature, and which we unhesitatingly ascribe to genius, but there is no denying the aptness of Johnson's definition of " a mind of great natural powers accidentally determined in a particular direction." PICTURES AND METHOD OF WORK 25 The mind of Reynolds was reflective, observant, and extra- ordinarily tenacious ; it never lost grip of anything once acquired. Throughout a long life of unceasing activity he gathered new facts daily, and these were added to the old, mixed up and fermented by a fine imagination, and regulated by an impertur- bable common sense. Reynolds was never led astray by dreams, never beguiled by enthusiasm to attempt the thing beyond his powers ; in the very fever-fit of conception he had coolness and presence of mind to turn upon himself, to take stock of his commodity of means, to ask himself, Can I carry this out ? how is it to be carried out ? There have been few men like him. Titian conceived things pictorially, he saw the scene before him as a picture, with its tones and colours ; Rubens' resources were equal to any strain, his knowledge was astounding, and his temperament was so ardent that, as he has said, his powers seemed to expand with the greatness of the undertaking before him. Reynolds had not equal ardour, his knowledge was less profound than that of Rubens, his imagination far inferior to that of Titian. But he had a fine playful fancy ; he had a solid fund of judgment and savoir faire ; he brought his whole mind to bear upon every- thing he did, and he did everything deliberately and thoroughly ; and the result is, he has bequeathed to posterity a legacy, accord- ing to the statement of Messrs Graves and Cronin in their monumental work, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., of some four thousand pictures, in which there are comparatively few traces of inequality. Though, as we have said, it is a great error to attribute Sir Joshua's success simply to his industry, there is no doubt that he was extraordinarily industrious. He said himself that " no industrious journeyman mechanic perhaps had laboured more incessantly for his daily bread than he had." It was a cause of grief to his friend, Dr Johnson, and a subject of delicate remon- strance, that he would not even rest on Sundays ; it is said that his only idle day was that on which he heard of the death of 26 THE FIRST PRESIDENT Oliver Goldsmith. The note-books in which he entered his appointments with sitters are preserved in the Royal Academy ; there are twenty-seven of them, extending from 1757 to 1790, seven years being missing. They are plain, shabby little volumes, uniformly bound and ruled after the fashion of diaries ; they are scrawled thickly with names of his sitters ; the paper is bad, the ink has turned brown with age, and the handwriting is villainous ; but as we turn the pages over and discern the familiar and illustrious names, the twentieth century seems to vanish, and we see before us the Court of the Georges, with its atmosphere of plots and intrigues ; we hear the rustle of silks and satins, we see the glimmer of gems and of pinchbeck ; the whole strange, enigmatical, and laughable world of the eighteenth century rises up before us. From one of the pages in these note-books it appears that Reynolds did not actually receive the accolade, the investiture of knighthood, till some months after the date of the foundation of the Royal Academy and his election as President, as on the opposite page, facing the entry " The King's Levee," on 22nd April 1769 is written "Knighted at St James's." One of the most cherished possessions of the Royal Academy is Sir Joshua Reynolds' " Sitter's Chair," which is placed in one of the Diploma Galleries. A tablet attached to it bears the following inscription, which well sums up its history : " This Chair was occupied in turn by the most illustrious Statesmen and Warriors, by the most eminent Lawyers, Poets, Philosophers, and Wits of the eighteenth century. The love- liest and most intellectual women of that time have sat in it. The majestic Siddons leaned her arms upon it as ' The Tragic Muse,' Kitty Fisher lounged in it as ' Cleopatra.' " It passed by purchase into the possession of each succeed- ing President of the Royal Academy, until Sir Frederic Leighton, in 1878, presented it to that body, and it has now found a permanent resting-place in this Gallery." To judge of Reynolds purely as an artist, unbiassed by either QUALITIES AS AN ARTIST 27 national or Academic proclivities, is a perilous and difficult enterprise. If we must venture, we will say that his greatness was not peculiar but cumulative. In composition, using the term as expressing the lifelike and vivid representation of a scene, he was not strong. His " Death of Dido " does not impress us with being exhibited exactly the way the thing occurred ; it is a picture, and the subject, the actual event, is subservient to pictorial treatment. In drawing he was weak, as he confesses himself: but only weak as compared to the greatest draughts- men. In chiaroscuro he was admirably dexterous and skilful, but not inventive ; he had not explored that realm of mystery and charm like Correggio and Rembrandt. Design and colour were his strongest qualities : in the former he was never wrong, his lines always flow right, his masses are always well balanced, the aspect of his pictures is always imposing ; and in colour, though he played on a very limited scale, and used but few tints, he was equally imposing, rich, and sonorous in tone. As an executant he was masterly and dexterous, but never reached the height of excellence attained by Titian, Velasquez, and Rubens. In no quality, as we have said before, did he transcend. In grace and elegance, in rendering the naivete of children, the unspeakable elegance which is imparted to women by an innocent mind, we might be inclined to concede that triumph to him, had he not been surpassed by his contemporary, Thomas Gainsborough. In every quality of Art others had gone beyond him, but none had combined so many qualities, and in such high degree ; he surveyed the domain of Art, and as far as he could see in every direction, he tilled and cultivated it till he left no spot barren. If others have penetrated farther on a given line of radius, to Reynolds belongs the glory of being the most complete all-round painter the world has ever produced.' CHAPTER III THE FIRST PRESIDENCY IN the last chapter we have dealt with Joshua Reynolds the artist ; in the present we propose to deal with Joshua Reynolds the President, or rather with the Royal Academy under his presidency. It may with truth be said of the Royal Academy that it was felix opportunitate originis, in that it had a king, George III., young, generous, and enthusiastic, for its founder and patron ; a Reynolds for its first President, who, besides being admittedly at the head of his profession as a painter, or to put it, if necessary, less strongly, primus inter pares, was a scholar, a gentleman, and a man of the world, full of tact and sound judgment ; and a man of business, William Chambers, for its first Treasurer. The last-named had more to do with the inception of the new undertaking than any one else; a fact which we find duly acknowledged by his fellow - members, who, at a General Assembly held on 2nd January 1769, at which every one of the twenty-eight Academicians originally nominated by the king was present, passed a resolution thanking " Mr Chambers for his active and able conduct in planning and forming the Royal Academy." We shall refer to Chambers farther on, but it may here be noted that, in addition to his business faculties, his having been tutor in architecture to George III., when Prince of Wales, and the favour in which he was held by the king, gave him exceptional opportunities for gaining the king's ear, and THE PATRONAGE OF GEORGE III 29 inducing him to give his patronage to the new society which Cotes, West, Moser, and himself were desirous of founding. Of the importance which was attached to this royal patron- age, some idea may be formed from Reynolds' remarks in his opening address at the same General Assembly an address termed in the thanks voted to him for it, " an ingenious, elegant, and useful speech." " The numberless and ineffectual consulta- tions," he says, " which I have had with many in this assembly to form plans and concert schemes for an Academy, afford sufficient proof of the impossibility of succeeding but by the influence of Majesty. But there have, perhaps, been times when even the influence of Majesty would have been ineffectual : and it is pleasing to reflect that we are thus embodied, when every circumstance seems to concur from which honour and prosperity can possibly arise. There are at this time a greater number of excellent artists than were ever known before at one period in this nation ; there is a general desire among our nobility to be distinguished as lovers and judges of the arts ; there is a greater superfluity of wealth among the people to reward the professors ; and, above all, we are patronised by a monarch who, knowing the value of science and elegance, thinks every art worthy of his notice that tends to soften and humanise the mind." George III.'s direct and personal interest in "my Academy," as he called it, was shown in many ways. He undertook to supply any deficiencies between the receipts derived from the exhibitions and the expenditure incurred on the schools, charit- able donations to artists, etc., out of his own Privy Purse, and actually did so to the amount of 5116, is. iifd. up to the year 1780, when the last payment was made, the financial independence of the Academy beginning from the following year. He furthermore gave them rooms in his own palace of Somerset House, to which the schools and the official depart- ments were removed in 1771, the Exhibition still continuing to be held in Pall Mall till 1780, when New Somerset House was completed, and in accordance with thd right reserved 30 THE FIRST PRESIDENCY by the king when he gave up the palace for Government offices, the Academy entered into possession of the spacious apartments expressly provided for them, including a large exhibition room at the top of the building. It is noteworthy that the Academy becoming self-supporting, and requiring no further aid from the royal purse, was synchronous with its taking possession of its new home. But though the king had no longer to render pecuniary aid to the Academy, he none the less carefully looked after its finances, the accounts being for many years audited by the Privy Purse. That he considered himself liable for any deficiencies is shown by the document containing the appointment of Venn as Treasurer in succession to Chambers, who died in 1796. It runs thus : " GEORGE R. " Whereas we have thought fit to nominate and appoint John Venn, Esq. (Clerk of the Writs at the Queen's House), to be Treasurer to our Royal Academy during our pleasure in the room of Sir William Chambers, Knight, deceased : Our will and pleasure therefore is, that you pay, or cause to be paid, unto the said John Venn all such sums as shall appear necessary to pay the debts contracted in the support of the said academy ; and for so doing this shall be to you a sufficient warrant and discharge. Given at the Queen's Palace, the 3ist day of March 1796, in the thirty-sixth year of our reign. " By His Majesty's command, (Signed} " CARDIGAN. " To our right trusty and well-beloved Cousin, the EARL OF CARDIGAN, Keeper of our Privy Purse." Any tendency on the part of the Academicians to spend money outside the express object for which the institution was founded was promptly checked by George III. Two memor- able instances of this are his refusing to sanction in 1791 the THE DIPLOMA OF SIR J. REYNOLDS. [Face p. 30 THE DIPLOMA 31 proposal to contribute 100 towards the monument to be erected to the memory of Dr Johnson in St Paul's, and his disapproval of the offer in 1803 f S towards the subscription for the relief of the sufferers by the war ; though with reference to this second occasion, which was connected with a very important incident in the government of the Academy, more fitly to be referred to subsequently, it would seem that his action was somewhat inconsistent with his previous approval in 1798 of a donation of 500 for " the use of the Government." Another proof of the personal interest taken by George III. in the concerns of his Academy, was the fact that he drew up with his own hand the form of diploma to be granted to each Academician on his election, retaining the right of approving of such election, and ordering that none should be valid till his sign-manual had been affixed to the diploma. Although Reynolds' diploma is dated the I5th of December 1768, as, indeed, were the diplomas of all the original members, the question of a diploma was not taken into consideration till May 1769, when Sir William Chambers was asked to draw one up, and after approval it was submitted by him to the king, who made many alterations and finally wrote out himself the existing form. Several designs were made for the head-piece, the members of the Council, the Visitors, and the Keeper having all been requested to furnish one. That of Moser, the Keeper, as appears from the minutes of the Council of 3Oth June, was first selected ; but at the next meeting, on loth July, Cipriani's, with certain specified alterations, was substituted for it, and ordered to be engraved by Bartolozzi. Three or four of the sketches sent in are preserved in the Academy archives, and judging from them there can be little doubt that Cipriani's was by far the best design. The formal election of Reynolds as President took place at the first General Assembly held on I4th December 1768, and was confirmed by the king on i8th December. In accordance with section 4 of the " Instrument " of foundation, the election 32 THE FIRST PRESIDENCY was to be an annual one, and to take place on loth December, or on the nth, if the loth was a Sunday. In 1769, 1770, 1771, and 1772, Reynolds was re-elected nemine contradicente, a special vote of thanks being given him in 1770 for "the many eminent and distinguished services he has in his late office rendered to the Royal Academy." But in 1773 a slight note of discord was struck, one vote being given for Charles Catton ; and the same thing again occurred in 1774. In 1775 West, Gains- borough, Chambers, Dance, and Hone each got a vote, and Edward Penny, the Professor of Painting, three votes, and the next year, 1776, he got two. Nemine contradicente was again the verdict for Reynolds in 1777, 1779, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1786, and 1790; Gainsborough, Dance, Peters, Penny, Chambers (twice), Catton, Northcote, Carlini, and West, each getting one vote in the $ other years. The number of votes for Reynolds in the years when there was opposition varied from 12 to 26. It is difficult to account for this constantly recurring note of discon- tent, except onithe supposition that it was intended as a protest against the re-election being considered a matter of course. His assiduity in the discharge of his functions as President both outside and inside the Academy was unwearied. On two occasions only was he absent from the meetings of the Council and the General Assembly (not including the meetings held during his temporary resignation), and the minutes of these meetings bear ample testimony to the reality of the work done by him. The opposition cannot have been prompted by any feeling that he shirked his duties : nor from all that is known of his character can it be for one moment supposed that he discharged them in any but the most kindly and conciliatory manner towards those over whom he ruled. Burke said of him, "In full affluence of foreign and domestic fame, admired by the expert in art and by the learned in science, courted by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated by dis- tinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and candour never forsook him, even on surprise and provocation ; nor was REJECTION OF HONKS PICTURES 33 the least degree of arrogance or assumption visible to the most scrutinising eye in any part of his conduct or discourse. . . . He had too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmity." The differences and quarrels in the artistic community which immediately preceded the formation of the Royal Academy show that the spirits over whom Reynolds presided, must have required very careful and judicious management, but there is no record of any serious friction until the famous occasion which ended in his temporary resignation. Occasionally some of the members seem to have given trouble as regards the pictures they sent for exhibition. In 1770 there is an entry in the Council minutes that Nathaniel Hone " be desired to alter the crucifix in his picture" the picture being a caricature of two monks carousing, to which request he replied in a satirical vein that he was " very sorry y e President and Council should fear that y e painted wooden cross in my picture (for it is not a crucifix) should lay them open to censure, when I have no fear of that kind about me respecting that article : indeed, I should think the poignancy (for I meant it as satire) would lose the best part of its effect, and therefore can have no thought of altering it, except," he goes on to add, "the President and Council refuse to admit it," and then he will not only alter it, but if hereafter he " should send another unintelligible picture shall beg y e favour of y e President and Council's opinion respect- ing y e composition before I send it to y e exhibition." The reply of the Council is drafted on the back of Hone's letter in Reynolds' own handwriting, and states that they " continue in the same opinion in respect to the cross. They are too dull to see the poignancy of the satire which it conveys. However, were the wit as poignant as you think it, it would be paying too dear for it to sacrifice religion. They confess they have that fear about them of offending against the rules of decency, and have no desire to ridicule religion or make the Cross a subject for buffoonery. You are therefore desired to send for C 34 THE FIRST PRESIDENCY the picture and alter it if you desire to exhibit it this year." The rebuke would have been still stronger had several words and sentences which are erased in the draft been retained. Hone was again an offender in 1775 with a picture entitled " Pictorial Conjurer displaying the whole Art of Optical Delusion." In it he represented a figure, so it was contended, of Reynolds as an old man with a wand in his hand and a child leaning against his knee, performing incantations by which a number of prints and sketches, from which Reynolds had, as it was intended to insinuate, plagiarised, were made to float in the air round his head. Among the sketches was one of a nude female figure, which some one seems to have suggested was intended for Angelica KaufTman. The picture had been already passed for exhibition, Reynolds and the Council no doubt treating the implied satire on him with the contempt it deserved ; but an indignant letter from Angelica Kauffman to the President put a new aspect on the case. At first, indeed, they endeavoured to appease her susceptibilities by inviting her to come and see the picture, and then they sent Chambers to try to persuade her to take no notice of the matter. But the lady was in no mood to treat it lightly, as evidenced by her letter to the Council, which was as follows : " GENTLEMEN, " I have had the honour of a visit from Sir Will. Chambers, the purpose of which was to reconcile me to submit to the exhibition of a picture which gave me offence. However I may admire the dignity of the gentlemen who are superior to the malignity of the author, I should have held their conduct much more in admiration, if they had taken into consideration a respect to the sex which it is their glory to support. If they fear the loss of an Academician who pays no respect to that sex, I hope I may enjoy the liberty of leaving to them the DIFFICULTY WITH GAINSBOROUGH 35 pleasure of that Academician, and withdrawing one object who never willingly deserved his or their ridicule. I beg leave to present my respects to the Society and hope they will always regard their own honour. I have but one request to make, to send home my pictures, if that is to be exhibited. " I am, Gentlemen, your most obedient servant, " ANGELICA KAUFFMAN. " Golden Square, Tuesday morn" Thus addressed, the Council hesitated no longer but resolved not to admit Hone's picture, and a letter was written to him conveying that decision, and it was further decided that if he should send for his other pictures they should be delivered to him. Hone in the meantime had tried to appease the lady's anger by declaring that he had not intended to represent her, and that nothing was farther from his thoughts than to insult a lady whom he esteemed as "the first of the sex, in painting, and amongst the loveliest of women in person," and by offering to put a beard and male attire on the obnoxious figure. But the lady no doubt thought he did protest too much, and declined to be convinced ; whereupon Hone wrote a sarcastic reply to the Academy's letter and desired that the rt Conjurer " might be sent back to him, and all his other pictures except " y e Spartan Boy historical, which I am willing to have hung up from y e great respect I owe y e king and his Academy." The quarrel of Gainsborough with the Academy in 1784, as to the hanging of his group of the Royal Princesses, was a very regrettable incident, which did not reflect much credit on either side, though no doubt the Council acted strictly within their rights in declining to be dictated to by any member, however distinguished ; a member who, it must not be forgotten, seems always to have regarded the Academy merely as an exhibition shop, and never to have taken any part in the business, or 36 THE FIRST PRESIDENCY taught as visitor in the schools; indeed, in 1775 the Council decided to omit his name from the list of Academicians eligible to serve on the Council or as visitor to the schools, etc., he " having declined accepting any office in the Academy, and having never attended " ; but his name |was restored by the General Assembly. Moreover, in the previous year, 1783, he had sent a letter to "the Committee of Gentlemen appointed to hang the pictures of the Royal Exhibition," in which he presents his compliments to them, and " begs leave to hint to them that if The Royal Family which he has sent for this exhibition (being smaller than three-quarters), are hung above the line along with full-lengths, he never more, while he breathes, will send another picture to the exhibition. This he swears by God" With it he sent a friendly letter to the secretary, Newton, and a sketch of how the pictures were to be hung. There is no mention of the matter, however, in the Council minutes, and we may conclude that the Council took no official cognisance of the letter, and humoured him by doing what he wanted. But when the next year brought a similar letter, couched, it is true, in less forcible terms, and begging pardon for giving so much trouble, but stating that " as he has painted the picture of the Princesses [a group of the Princess Royal, Princess Augusta, and Princess Elizabeth] in so tender a light, that not- withstanding he approves very much of the established line for strong effects, he cannot possibly consent to have it placed higher than five feet and a half, because the likenesses and work of the picture will not be seen any higher ; therefore, at a word, he will not trouble the gentlemen against their inclination, but will beg the rest of his pictures back again" it is hardly surprising that the Council decided to inform him that, in compliance with his request, they had ordered his pictures to be taken down and delivered to his order. Nor perhaps is it more to be wondered at that he never sent a picture again. There must, however, have been some sort of a reconciliation, for in the Council minutes of I3th September 1787, there is the follow- REYNOLDS' QUARREL WITH THE ACADEMY 37 ing entry : " Mr Garvey reported that Mr Gainsborough had promised to paint a picture for the chimney in the Council-room, in the place of that formerly proposed to be painted by Mr Cipriani " ; a promise which his illness and death in the following year prevented the fulfilment of. With a few slight exceptions, of which the above may be taken as specimens, no serious discord had arisen within the Academic ranks under Sir Joshua's rule. But in 1790 differences showed themselves which ended in his temporary resignation. The story is told at considerable length in Leslie and Taylor's Life of Reynolds, all the documents relating to it in the Academy archives having been carefully gone through by the former, and compared with Farington's account in his Life of Reynolds, which is adverse to Reynolds, and with the memor- anda made by Reynolds himself of the dissention and its cause. It is probable that, as is usually the case, there were faults on both sides, but it is difficult to escape from the conclusion that if Reynolds was in any way to blame, those members who, as Malone said, "have driven him from the Chair of the Academy," were much more deserving of censure for their conduct to one to whom the Institution to which they belonged owed so much. The quarrel first began by Reynolds giving his casting vote for Bonomi as an Associate against Sawrey Gilpin at the election on 2nd November 1789; the suffrages being ten for Bonomi and ten for Gilpin. He had for some time been urging the Academicians to fill up the professorship of Perspective, which had remained vacant for three years, and had recommended Bonomi as a fit man for the post. Bonomi, however, was not even an Associate, and the professors could only be elected from the Academicians. His election as an Associate was the first step towards what Reynolds desired ; but the fact that it had been accomplished by Reynolds' casting vote, and that Bonomi now stood on the same ground as Edward Edwards, another Associate whom a certain party in the Academy had determined 38 THE FIRST PRESIDENCY should be professor, made them extremely angry, and they resolved that the next vacancy in the ranks of the Academicians should be filled by Edwards, though they subsequently, as it appears, transferred their votes to Fuseli as a more likely candidate. In the meantime the Council had informed Mr Edwards, in reply to a letter of his demanding permission to give a specimen lecture in Perspective before the Academicians and Associates only, that it was their unanimous opinion that whoever was a candidate to be an Academician for the purpose of being hereafter Professor of Perspective, must produce a drawing, and the President acting on this decision, informed Bonomi that his drawings should be sent to the Academy on the day fixed for the election, loth February 1790. Edwards had previously declared in a letter to the President that if specimens were required, he was past being a boy and should produce none. Meantime, however, as we have said, the opposition had dropped Edwards in favour of Fuseli, and reinforced by the opinion and support of Sir William Chambers, had taken up the ground that it was not necessary to fill up the professor- ship of Perspective. Chambers had previously written to Reynolds reprimanding him for having given a " charge to the Academicians " as to their duty in filling the vacant chair, and subsequently informed him that he meant to join the malcontents. One can hardly help suspecting that Chambers, in taking this extreme step, must have been, more or less consciously, actuated by a feeling of professional jealousy of Bonomi, and also of irritation against Reynolds for not giving way to his opinion, he having been accustomed, as Reynolds himself used half jocularly to admit, to be master inside the Academy. He had previously complained of Bonomi being a "foreigner," and asked Reynolds why he would persevere in his favour "as though no Englishman could be found capable of filling a Professor's Chair'"; a sentiment which Reynolds heard with surprise and indignation and characterised as "illiberal and THE CAUSE OF THE QUARREL 39 unworthy," adding that "our Royal Academy, with great propriety, makes no distinction between natives and foreigners ; that it was not our business to examine where a genius was born before he was admitted into our society ; it was sufficient that the candidate had merit." And he further adds, " though this aversion to a foreigner may be justly suspected still to lurk in the bosoms of our Royal Academicians, yet it is kept under and uttered only in a whisper. I take, therefore, credit to myself that the Academy has not been basely disgraced by any act founded upon an open avowal of such illiberal opinions." These opinions, however, if entertained, were conveniently laid aside when it was found that Fuseli, also a foreigner, was a more likely candidate than Edwards to defeat Bonomi and so thwart Reynolds. The match was put to the smouldering flame of rebellion when, on the day of election, loth February 1790, Reynolds, noticing that Bonomi's drawings were in a dark corner, ordered them to be placed where they could be seen. He then stated the business of the meeting, and exhorted those present to " elect him who was qualified and willing to accept the office of Professor of Perspective, which had been vacant for so many years, to the great disgrace of the Academy " ; adding, " the question, Ay or No, is Is the author of these drawings, which are on the table, qualified or not qualified, for the office he solicits ? " Thereupon Tyler, who was the spokesman of the malcontents, asked who ordered the drawings to be sent to the Academy ; and on the President replying that he did, Tyler moved that they be put out of the room. Banks seconded the motion on a show of hands, and it was carried by a large majority, who, on the President wishing to make an explanation, refused to hear it, thereby showing what we must agree with Reynolds in calling " the rude spirit and gross manners of the cabal." The election was then proceeded with, and Fuseli chosen on the final ballot by twenty-one votes to nine given for Bonomi. The next morning Reynolds resigned, so at least 40 THE FIRST PRESIDENCY he says in the MS. account from which these particulars are taken, but the letter conveying his resignation is dated 22nd February, twelve days after the election at which the events we have narrated took place. It is as follows : " Leicester Fields, 22nd February 1790. " SIR, " I beg you would inform the Council, which, I under- stand, meet this evening, with my fixed resolution of resigning the Presidency of the Royal Academy, and consequently my seat as Academician. As I can be no longer of any service to the Academy as President, it would be still less in my power in a subordinate station. I therefore now take my final leave of the Academy with my sincere good wishes for its prosperity, and with all due respect to its members. " I am, Sir, " Your most humble and most obedient servant, "JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "P. S. Sir Wm. Chambers has two letters of mine, either of which or both he is at full liberty to communicate to the Council. " To the Secretary of the Royal Academy." These letters and the letter of resignation were read at the Council on 23rd February, and at the General Assembly specially summoned on 3rd March. It is probable that in the twelve days' interval already spoken of, Chambers had endeavoured to change Reynolds' resolution, as in the two letters which contain a statement of the motives of his action, and his reasons for resigning, he refers to the "gracious and condescending message which His Majesty has been pleased REYNOLDS' RESIGNATION 41 to send through you (Chambers), expressing his desire for my continuance as President of his Academy," which message he adds he received " with most profound respect and the warmest gratitude, as a consolation of my retreat, and the greatest honour of my life." All the same he adheres to his determina- tion to resign both the Presidency and his membership of the Academy. So far the malcontents were not disposed to make any overtures to him, as at the General Assembly, on 3rd March, they passed a resolution thanking him for the able and attentive manner in which he had for so many years discharged his duty as President, and also decided to summon a General Assembly for Saturday, 1 3th March, " to elect a President in the room of Sir Joshua Reynolds." The former resolution is alluded to by Reynolds in his MS., where he says he has "had the honour of receiving it, but," he adds, " as if some demon still preserved his influence in this society, that nothing should be rightly done, these thanks were not signed by the Chairman, according to regulation, but by the Secretary alone, and sent to the President in the manner of a common note, closed with a wafer, and without even an envelope, and presented to the President by the hands of the common errand-boy of the Academy, not as a resolution, but 'the Secretary was desired to inform.' Whether this was studied neglect or ignorance of propriety, I have no means of knowing, but so much at least may be dis- covered, that the persons who have now taken upon themselves the direction of the Royal Academy are as little versed in the requisites of civil intercourse as they appear to be unknowing of the more substantial interest and true honour of that society of which they are members." From which it may be inferred that Reynolds was thoroughly roused, and determined to stand upon his dignity. Meantime the public began to take part in the quarrel, and the newspapers attacked both sides, but the general feel- ing was strongly in favour of Reynolds. As Gibbon wrote to 42 THE FIRST PRESIDENCY him, " I hear you have had a quarrel with your Academicians. Fools as they are ! for such is the tyranny of character, that no one will believe that your enemies can be in the right." Lord Carlisle sent him a poetic address, beginning "Too wise for contest, and too meek for strife, Like Lear, oppress'd by those you rais'd to life, Thy sceptre broken, thy dominion o'er, The curtain falls, and thou art king no more." And concluding "Desert not then thy sons, those sons who soon Will mourn with me and all their errors own. Thou must excuse that raging fire, the same Which lights the daily course to endless fame, Alas ! impels them thoughtless far to stray From filial love and Reason's sober sway, Accept again thy power resume the chair Nor leave it till you place an equal there ! " An exhortation to both sides, which happily proved pro- phetic, for when the General Assembly met on I3th March, instead of proceeding to elect a President, they passed two resolutions, one stating that " on inquiry it was their opinion that the President had acted in conformity with the intention of the Council in directing Mr Bonomi to send in his draw- ings, but that the general meeting, not having been informed of or having consented to the new regulation, had judged the introduction of the drawings irregular and had ordered them to be withdrawn." And the second, that " Sir Joshua Rey- nolds' declared objection to his resuming the chair being done away, a committee be appointed to wait on him requesting him, that in obedience to the gracious desires of His Majesty, and in compliance with the wishes of the Academy, he would withdraw his letter of resignation." This committee consisted of Thos. Sandby, Bacon, Copley, Russell, Catton, West, Cosway, Farington, and the Secretary. He received them with every mark of satisfaction, expressed his pleasure in acceding to the HIS RESUMPTION OF THE CHAIR 43 request, and to cement the reconciliation in true British fashion, asked the committee to dine with him that day. Three days afterwards another General Assembly was held at which the delegates announced the success of their mission, and Reynolds himself attended and confirmed their report, but did not think he was authorised to resume the chair till he had obtained His Majesty's leave. This was soon received, and on i8th March he again appeared in the President's chair at the Council, and on the 3Oth at a General Assembly. But his resumption of the reins was not destined, alas ! to be of long duration, and he took his seat for the last time before his death on i/th July 1791. Nor was this short period without its troubles. On 25th June, Reynolds proposed to the Council that the Academy should contribute ;ioo towards the monument to be erected in St Paul's to Samuel Johnson, but the question was referred to the General Assembly. It met on 2nd July, and was the last that Reynolds attended. After the transaction of some preliminary business, a letter was read from Chambers expressing strong disapproval of the proposed grant, as being for an object outside those for which the Academy was founded, and in itself inappropriate "as well," he says, " propose the erection of a Triumphal Arch to Lord Heathfield, or a Mausoleum to the inventor of fire engines, or a statue to any other person whose pursuits and whose excellence lay wholly wide of ours." A sensible opinion, it may be, looking to the then state of the Academy funds and the requirements they had to meet, but an essentially narrow-minded one, and one which, under the circumstances, must have been peculiarly distasteful to Reynolds. The proposal was carried on the motion of West, whose reason for supporting it was not so much admiration for Johnson as the hope that the erection of monu- ments in St Paul's would "open a new field for the display of the abilities of our brethren." When, however, the proposal was submitted to the king for his approval, he, acting no doubt under Chambers' advice, declined to sanction it. CHAPTER IV THE FIRST EXECUTIVE OFFICERS THE first meeting of the newly-constituted Royal Academy was held on I4th December, four days after the " Instrument " of its institution had been signed by the king. Twenty-eight of the thirty-four nominated Academicians were present, and their first business was to severally sign what is called the "Obligation," which ran as follows: " His Majesty having been graciously pleased to institute and establish a society for promoting the Arts of Design, under the name and title of the ' Royal Academy of Arts/ in London ; and having signified his royal intention that the said society should be established under certain laws and regulations, contained in the Instrument of the establishment signed by His Majesty's own hand : " We, therefore, whose names are hereunto subscribed, either original or elected members of the said society, do promise, each for himself, to observe all the laws and regulations con- tained in the said Instrument ; as, also, all other laws, bye- laws, or regulations, either made or hereafter to be made, for the better government of the above-named society ; promising, furthermore, on every occasion to employ our utmost endea- vours to promote the honour and interest of the establishment, so long as we shall continue members thereof." This Obligation, which is written at the head of a large sheet of parchment, has been signed the signatures now ex- 44 THE "OBLIGATION" 45 tending to a second sheet by every Royal Academician down to the present day. The ceremony takes place at a General Assembly of the Academicians, to which the newly- elected one is introduced by the two junior members present. After hearing the Obligation read by the Secretary, he affixes his signature to it, and then receives his diploma, signed by the sovereign, from the President, afterwards entering his name in the attendance-book, and taking his seat in the assembly. As has been explained in a former article, the diploma was not in existence at the first meeting ; it was not decided upon till May 1769. The next business to which this first meeting proceeded was the election of the President and the Council, of the Visitors in the schools, and of those executive officers the Secretary and the Keeper who, in accordance with the terms of the Instrument, were to be chosen by ballot from among the Academicians, and subsequently approved of by His Majesty. The appointment to the treasurership the king retained in his own hands entirely. To quote the Instrument, " There shall be a Treasurer of the Royal Academy, who, as the king is graciously pleased to pay all deficiencies, shall be appointed by His Majesty from among the Academi- cians, that he may have a person in whom he places full con- fidence in an office where his interest is concerned." The Librarianship was not established till 1770, and the appoint- ment was then made direct by the king. This is not the time to speak at length of the various changes that have been made in the tenure of, and mode of election to, these different offices since their institution. But it may be stated briefly that the only one that has undergone no change, save in having become a salaried instead of an unsalaried post, is the Presidentship. The Council, on which every Academician serves in rotation for two years, consists of ten instead of eight members ; the Visitors, many more in number to meet the requirements of the various schools that have since been 46 THE FIRST EXECUTIVE OFFICERS established in addition to the original life school, are now chosen from among the Associates as well as the Academicians ; the Treasurer and the Librarian are no longer appointed by the sovereign, but like the Keeper are elected by the General Assembly of the Academicians, and approved of by the sovereign, and have, moreover, to present themselves for re-election every five years ; while the Secretary, though still elected by the General Assembly and approved of by the sovereign, is not a member of the Academy. It may seem fitting here to give some account of the men who first filled these chief executive offices of Treasurer, Secretary, Keeper, and Librarian Chambers, Newton, Moser, and Hayman. SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS, R.A. The fame and genius of Sir Joshua Reynolds as a painter and a writer have invested the first years of the Royal Academy with a splendour which, parvis componere magna, inclines us to look upon his presidency as the Augustan era of its history : but from what we have already written of the constitution and management of the Institution, the reader will have perceived that there were other agents who possessed an almost equal influence in its councils, who were responsible to an almost equal extent for its actions, and who must therefore bear an almost equal share of any blame which may attach to it and partake an almost equal share of its glory. Of those agents the principal was Sir William Chambers. He was in fact a prime mover in bringing about the foundation of the Academy, and continued till his death to exercise an enormous influence in its decisions. The following is a short outline of his history. There was once upon a time, say the biographers, a Scot- tish family living in France bearing the name of Chalmers ; a descendant of that family was a merchant and lent money and SIR WILLIAM CHAMBERS 47 warlike stores to Charles XII. of Sweden, by which he naturally lost In 1726 this Chalmers was in Stockholm endeavouring to obtain restitution, and there, in the same year, a son was born to him who was christened William. Subsequently, for no reasons stated, the family name was changed to Chambers. The father removed to Ripon, in Yorkshire, where the boy was educated. The connection with Sweden was, however, kept up, as we find William at the age of sixteen embarking as super- cargo on board a vessel of the Swedish East India Company. He made two voyages in its service and visited China, where he imbibed a strong taste for that peculiar kind of scenery which is so beautifully represented in the willow-pattern plate, and on his return published a series of sketches in illustration of it. At the age of eighteen he forsook the career of the sea, and devoted himself to architecture, but in spite of Vitruvius and the study of the works of the greatest architects of the Italian Renaissance, he never quite got rid of the crotchet he had picked up in the Celestial Empire. In the fulness of his maturity, when enjoying a great reputation, he published works on Chinese architecture, and when entrusted with the laying out of Kew Gardens he put his early predilections into practice. He was then Treasurer of the Royal Academy, Comptroller of the Office of Works, Surveyor - General to the king ; and was consequently con- sidered by an envious world as an eligible and deserving person to assail. To vindicate his taste he published his Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, which is certainly a worse literary sin than any he had committed horticulturally. It is an exaggeration of all the defects of Rasselas, and called forth a terrible rejoinder from the combined forces of Horace Walpole and William Mason, in the " Heroic Epistle," a mock heroic poem which is a travesty of all the bombastic passages in the work of Chambers. His connection with the Court began early. When George III. was Prince of Wales, a tutor was wanted for him in architecture, and Chambers was selected. He had every quali- 48 THE FIRST EXECUTIVE OFFICERS fication ; he was learned and very skilful as a draughtsman, he had travelled and mixed with all sorts and conditions of men, his manners were easy and engaging, and he possessed tact. When the Prince succeeded to the throne, Chambers was appointed royal architect, and subsequently Comptroller of the Office of Works and Surveyor-General. By his influence with the king he was mainly instrumental in bringing about the formation of the Royal Academy, as the reader has seen, and his business-like ability served to steer it successfully through its early difficulties. He was no doubt meddlesome and fond of having things his own way, but there is little doubt that he was to the Royal Academy what Omar was to Mohammedanism, and Napoleon to the Directory : the esprit organisatoire y without which it might not have got into working order quite so quickly. We have already spoken of the part taken by him in the quarrel which ended in the temporary resignation of Reynolds, and alluded to the further difference of opinion between them as to the subscription to Johnson's monument ; both episodes being significative of the influence possessed by Chambers both over the king and the members of the Academy. With these two exceptions, however, he and the President appear to have worked in perfect harmony, the latter, no doubt, being in the habit of very much deferring to Chambers in all matters of business. His greatest title to posthumous fame is the Treatise on Civil Architecture, which remains to this day an admirable digest of the proportions and methods of construction used by the great Italian architects of the Renaissance, and borrowed by them from Vitruvius and the Romans. It is a work of great research, and is animated by an enthusiasm for the subject which has a tendency to become contagious. Somerset House, where the Royal Academy had its home for so many years, is Chambers' principal work in archi- tecture. A noble and imposing edifice, and as complete and irreproachable probably as any public building in London, it * ' ii 5 *, Td M FRANCIS MILNER NEWTON 49 would be as unfair to blame Chambers for the monotony of it's wall spaces and the wearisome repetitions of rustication, which offend our eyes, as it would be for future generations to blame the architects of the past for the redundance of detail and the exuberance of terra-cotta which characterise our street archi- tecture at the present day. In this country, for some mysterious reason, the art had in the days of Chambers lost its vitality to all appearance irrecoverably. It had become an outcome of erudition and a combination of examples, instead of ministering naturally and spontaneously to the requirements of the builders. Chambers elected to design his building in the style of Palladio, as we elect to design a church in the style of William of Wyke- ham, or a private residence in the style of Queen Anne's time not having any style of our own ; and whatever may be the defects of Somerset House from the decorative point of view, it seems to be a comfortable and commodious building, admirably adapted to its purpose. The publication of the "Heroic Epistle" must have been very annoying to Chambers ; ridicule of such a pungent kind seems to have all the more sting when it attacks a reputation which is well deserved, as it is all the more popular when levelled against a man who occupies an exalted position ; but he no doubt soon forgot it, and solaced his last years of declining health with the society of the most eminent and intellectual of his contemporaries, Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, and Garrick. He died, having attained the Psalmist's appointed term of human life, in wealth and honour, in March 1796, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. FRANCIS MILNER NEWTON, R.A. Newton was the first secretary of the Royal Academy. It will be remembered that he filled the same post to the Incor- porated Society of Artists, that when that society was rent in twain by dissensions he had been deposed, and that his signature D 50 THE FIRST EXECUTIVE OFFICERS appears in the memorial which was afterwards presented to the king and led to the foundation of the Royal Academy. He was born in London in 1720, and was a pupil of the Nurem- berg artist Tuscher : he practised portrait painting exclusively. Exclusive portrait painting was in those days often forced upon artists by the conditions of patronage. In Newton's case, how- ever, that consideration could not have been all-powerful, and it is more probable that his genius supposing that he possessed one found its grave in the repeated legacies which it pleased capricious fortune to afflict him with ; her coup de grdce, which entirely extinguished him, being the possession of a handsome estate at Barton House, near Taunton, whither he retired to languish in opulence until his death in 1794. He performed the duties of secretary for exactly twenty years, and on his retirement in 1788 was presented by the Academy, on the motion of the Council, with a silver cup of the value of eighty guineas, as so runs the resolution in the minutes " an acknowledgment of their perfect satisfaction in the able, faithful, and diligent discharge of his duty as secretary." The way in which he kept the minute-books and other records shows evidence of great care and neatness, and of a certain terse, business-like power of expression. Dates are unsatisfactory things, and hard to master. New- ton's life overlapped that of Reynolds by two years at each end, and the mere figures 1720 to 1794 do not seem to convey anything very definite ; but we get a very different idea if we translate these dates into the language of events. He was born in the midst of the excitement of the South-Sea Bubble, and he died when the last tail of Robespierre's followers, the miscreants of the Terror, were being swiftly got rid of on the Place de la Revolution, in Paris. The humblest life, did we possess authentic annals, would probably be of surpassing interest. Newton's is not to be ranked in that class ; he was not a great artist, and is absolutely unknown to fame ; but he occupied a very honourable position and performed its duties worthily ; he lived in stirring GEORGE MICHAEL MOSER 51 times, with great men as his friends and associates ; we are bound to respect his memory, and can only regret that we do not know more of him. GEORGE MICHAEL MOSER, R.A. G. M. Moser, first Keeper of the Royal Academy, was born at SchafThausen, in Switzerland, in 1704. In an obituary notice of him by Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is described as " in every sense the father of the present race of artists." We beg very humbly to demur, in spite of the great authority we have quoted, that there is one very obvious and literal sense which must form an exception. This necessity will force itself on everybody's reason, and needs no discussion. What Reynolds meant, no doubt, was that Moser had exercised great influence in his day. His name, indeed, is connected with the earliest schemes for the formation of an Academy ; and as Keeper, his skill in teaching, his great influence over his pupils, and his " universal knowledge of all branches of painting and sculpture," had done much to mould the latest generation of artists. Farther than this the process of affiliation need not be carried. What we know for certain is that he had a daughter who was an artist, and that he and the said daughter, Mary, passed into the ranks of the elect without more ado on one glorious day of family apotheosis. At the outset, the ranks of the Royal Academicians had occasionally to be recruited from the byways of Art, but his claims and qualifications, as well as those of his daughter, would hardly have been considered valid a very few years after the foundation of the institution. In the little academy in St Martin's Lane, where Hogarth used to draw, Moser had been a busy and important man. He was manager and treasurer. He was clever, had a competent knowledge of the construction of the human figure, and may very probably have shown an aptitude for imparting that knowledge, so that, in the formation of the Royal Academy, 52 THE FIRST EXECUTIVE OFFICERS they naturally thought of him as an eligible man to fill the office of Keeper or head of the schools, an important post requiring artistic knowledge and skill, combined with that peculiar power which by no means universally accompanies knowledge, the power of imparting it. But although the Keeper's is the only will which can assert itself permanently in the schools, the education is really in the hands of the Visitors i.e., the Academicians and Associates elected to serve for one month in each school. This marks the most radical difference between the Academy of this country and that of other nations, where every department is under a permanent professor armed with full authority. Each system has its advantages and its corresponding dis- advantages, and it is in the nature of the case that no via media is possible. Under a permanent professor, there can be no vacillation or change of purpose, his will asserts itself equally and uniformly, and the progress made is more apparent. But it might be more apparent than real. It is asking too much of human nature, or asking what human nature only supplies in very rare instances, to expect that a teacher will be able to understand and sym- pathise with every idiosyncrasy, and throw himself into every student's point of view ; and it is also too much to expect that any system of education can be made elastic enough to adapt itself to all the changeful phases of natural ability. The professor is one man, he is round or he is square, and when he is in sole authority all his pupils, the round men and the square, must be made to fit into the same hole. The result is that in Paris, for instance, all the disciples of one professor have a family likeness, and one conversant with the matter can tell by a glance at their work who it was that educated them. On the other hand, the system of education by rotation of visitors, which was adopted by the Academy and is still con- tinued, is more likely to insure that each activity shall find its corresponding receptivity. Each student is pretty sure amongst THE TEACHING IN THE SCHOOLS 53 the number of visitors to find at least one who thinks and feels somewhat as he does, and from whom, therefore, he will receive much more valuable and fruitful instruction than he can from a man of a totally different turn of mind. Sympathy is the only medium by which ideas can be communicated ; it puts master and pupil on the same platform, and they see things bearing the same relation to each other. But it cannot be denied, that frequent changes among the teachers, and the consequent frequent presentation of different classes of ideas, may have the effect of puzzling and retarding the weaker minds ; and that the absence of one will authoritatively insisting upon one course, may cause students to loiter on the road ; and also that the influence of the students themselves upon each other, being constantly exercised, may become as powerful as that of the teachers. In the office of Keeper as established in the schools of the Royal Academy, we have a tolerable safeguard against these disadvantages, for although he is not directly responsible for the teaching, his authority does not cease, and his will is able to assert itself and keep things moving. Moser must have fulfilled the duties of the office very ably, or Reynolds would not have gone out of his way to write such a very comprehensive eulogium of him. He spoke of him as the first gold chaser in the kingdom, praise which we can only estimate the value of, when we have ascertained the quality of gold chasing in general at that time. Moser's first employment had been in chasing the brass ornaments in " buhl " cabinet work. He executed some enamels for the watch of George III., for which he was rewarded by a hat full of guineas, and he also designed the Great Seal of England, and is said to have been an excellent medallist. He died in 1783, and was buried at St Paul's, Covent Garden, his funeral being attended by the Royal Academicians and by the students, by whom, we are told, he was greatly loved. He left his daughter Mary, R.A., to write gushing letters, and to commit ineffectual flirtation with another Keeper of the Royal 54 THE FIRST EXECUTIVE OFFICERS Academy, the talented Fuseli ; as shall be related in due course. FRANCIS HAYMAN, R.A. Hayman was born in Devonshire in 1708, and studied under Robert Brown, portrait painter. Fifteen years senior to Reynolds, we may say his education was perfected and his style formed ere yet the light had dawned upon British Art ; when it was still in the condition to which Barry applies the word " disgraceful," Fuseli that of " contemptible," and Constable of " degraded." And of Francis Hayman himself we may say that he shines by no light that he emitted ; he is visible only by the reflected glare, often of a somewhat sulphurous character, which was shed upon the inane eighteenth century by its historians, its satirists, and by William Hogarth, whose work, whatever its artistic rank may be, is certainly more strictly illustrative of his times and surroundings than that of any artist that ever lived. Hayman, by his theory of Art, his habits and proclivities, belonged strictly to the age of Hogarth ; he was one of the "indifferent engravers, coach painters, scene painters, drapery painters," who used to meet of evenings to draw in the academy in St Martin's Lane. He was one of those who " follow the standard so righteously and so laudably established by picture-dealers, picture-cleaners, picture-frame makers, and other connoisseurs," by whom "the canvas was thrust between the student and the sky tradition between him and God." In some of the terrible scenes depicted by Hogarth's unspar- ing pencil, the portrait of Hayman might have been appropriately introduced, and may have been for all we know. In the nightly hurly-burly of London streets, when the Mohawks were abroad, and the miserable ineffectual watchman was not safe in his own box, Hayman and Quin can be discerned lying helpless but hopeful in the kennel, waiting to be " taken up." The " Mid- night Modern Conversation " depicted a scene which, from all accounts, must have been extremely familiar to the painter, who FRANCIS HAYMAN 55 was, at the same time, esteemed the best historical painter in the kingdom, but who preferred Figg the prize-fighter's amphi- theatre to the Academy. Hayman was no doubt a clever man, but without originality, with no consciousness of the responsi- bility of Art, no perception of the dignity of its mission, and he is chiefly interesting as reflecting the artistic barbarism of his age. Great and shining lights arose in his day, but he compre- hended them not. He was appointed Librarian of the Royal Academy under the presidency of Reynolds, and Thomas Gainsborough was his colleague as a member of the body, and had been his pupil. Hayman practised portrait painting, as everybody in those days did who had to earn a living by painting ; his likeness of himself in the National Portrait Gallery exhibits unmistakable vigour and a certain rude intellect and perception of character. He decorated Vauxhall, painted scenes for theatres and illustrated books ; all of which achievements have fallen into the limbo of oblivion, and at best only supply interest for the curious and the erudite, who love to trace the byways and the lanes which lead into the great highways of human progress and enlightenment. An excellent specimen of his work is to be found in a picture belonging to the Marylebone Cricket Club, which also possesses an engraving of the picture on which is written in ink, "The Royal Academy Club in Marybone Fields." Hayman was appointed librarian by the king in 1770. We are informed that he then had "bodily infirmities" and the small emoluments served as a consolation. He died in CHAPTER V THE FIRST PROFESSORS " EXAMPLE is better than precept." This is an old saying, and in all probability it contains as much solid kernel of truth as any of the proverbial nuts which the searcher after wisdom is called upon to crack, and it may at any rate be accurately and legitimately applied to the matter of Art education. There can be no doubt, that the most fruitful and valuable assistance which can be given to the progress of Art, is by pro- ducing fine pictures and statues. The productive and the criti- cal faculties are distinctly different animals, and although they may be seen occasionally to run evenly in the same team, they are certainly not housed in the same stable. Their union in practice may be compared to those abnormal teams which sur- prise the traveller in the East, where a camel is seen ploughing with a bullock : it is a makeshift which .enables the fellaheen to overcome the stubbornness of the soil, though it is fatal to the regularity of the furrow. Or to set metaphors aside, which like bills of exchange are very pleasant when drawn, but troublesome when they come to maturity, the productive faculty works un- consciously, and the critical consciously. The great productive genius cannot tell you why he did a thing ; he did it because it came to him to do it that way. He did not think about it, and moreover the moment he did stop to think, he hesitated ; he saw two or three possible roads instead of one inevitable one, and the odds are that he put down his brush for that day, and 56 THE FUNCTION OF TEACHERS OF ART 57 gave the matter up as hopelessly abstruse and complicated. This is marvellous, and to all but the few gifted sons of men who possess the divine faculty, it appears incredible. The creative faculty is first in order of generation, the critical is born of it, and without the one the other could not exist. Hence it is that the function of all teachers of Art of all academies resolves itself into reasoning about what others did intuitively and uncon- sciously. But, and here the matter becomes much more compli- cated, there is a presiding faculty which we call taste, which is evidently not intuitive, which has been built up gradually by the labours of the critic, and by which the artist and creator himself is guided. There is a vast storehouse of ideas expressed by Art, out of which the artist selects by assimilation, and his selection when completed constitutes his style. To guide him in his selection is what academies profess to do. Experience has proved that the best teacher is not always the best artist, and moreover that the best artists are often deficient in the critical faculty. It probably could never have been said of any man that he painted like an angel and judged like an ass. It is an absurdity to generalise and say that artists know less about pictures than many people do who have not studied the art practically ; but it is true, that very great artists who see with the eyes of enthusiasm and imagination, sometimes do not give themselves the trouble of going through the processes of comparison and reflection which are necessary to form sound judgment of the works of others : and it is also tolerably certain, that the great artist who does a thing, he does not know why, in obedience to some imperious impulse in his nature, is less able to instruct and help others, than he who is in the habit of accounting to himself for every step he takes. Rubens acquired only the defects of his style, his florid exaggeration, from a vigorous and original painter, Adam Van Noort ; the judicious equipoise, the magnificent completeness of his art, he owed to the teachings of a timid pedant, Otto Vaenius. 58 THE FIRST PROFESSORS Great, very great, and much to be admired is that mysteri- ous power given to a few men, to as few probably as is the more resplendent gift of genius the power to impart knowledge, to arouse curiosity, and to quicken enthusiasm ; to whom it is vouchsafed to utter the winged word which falls on the struggling brain like an inspiration, or like a shaft of light which pierces the dark chambers of thought, and reveals their disorder and their emptiness. Such men are as necessary to a great educa- tional establishment like the Royal Academy as are artists of genius who give a lustre to its exhibitions, and who stimulate students by their example. That it has not always been equally fortunate in the one case as in the other, is but natural ; it has uniformly and consistently followed the course ordained by its constitution and prescribed by reason. Each succeeding presi- dent has delivered his discourses ; in the chairs of painting, architecture, perspective, and anatomy, professor has succeeded professor. And though the echoes of their voices have died away, and their literary efforts have found a common grave in the oblivion of the waste-paper basket ; though the " Dis- courses" of Reynolds is still pronounced to be the most "stimu- lating " of Art books ; we may venture to hope that many have not been without success, that the words of honest advice clothed with the authority of experience and the utterance of profound conviction have not been thrown away, and that with its practical teaching the Royal Academy has for upwards of a century and a quarter disseminated lofty views and genuine maxims which have equally powerfully contributed to its funda- mental object, the furtherance of British Art. It was at its second meeting, on I7th December 1768, at which thirty members were present, that the Academy pro- ceeded to the election by ballot of four professors as provided for by the Instrument, viz., those of Painting, Architecture, Perspective and Geometry, and Anatomy, the first three to be chosen from among the Academicians. The choice fell on Edward Penny, R.A., for painting ; Thomas Sandby, R.A., for THE DUTIES OF THE PROFESSORS 59 architecture; Samuel Wale, R.A., for perspective; and Dr William Hunter for anatomy. The chairs of Painting, Archi- tecture, and Anatomy still remain, and to them have been added that of Sculpture in 1810, and that of Chemistry in 1871. In 1860 the professorship of perspective was turned into a teachership ; while in 1886 Associates were admitted to be candidates for the three chairs, the occupancy of which had been hitherto restricted to Academicians. The duties of the originally appointed professors were laid down in the Instrument. They were each to give six lectures annually. Those in painting were to be " calculated to instruct the students in the principles of composition, to form their taste of design and colouring, to strengthen their judgment, to point out to them the beauties and imperfections of celebrated works of Art, and the particular excellencies or defects of great masters ; and, finally, to lead them into the readiest and most efficacious paths of study." Those in architecture were to be " calculated to form the taste of the students, to instruct them in the laws and principles of composition, to point out to them the beauties or faults of celebrated productions, to fit them for an unpre- judiced study of books, and for a critical examination of struc- tures." The Professor of Perspective is enjoined to " clearly and fully illustrate all the useful propositions of Geometry, together with the principle of Lineal and Aerial Perspective, and also the projection of shadows, reflections, and refractions," and to " particularly confine himself to the quickest, easiest, and most exact methods of operation," while the anatomy lectures are to be " adapted to the Arts of Design." All the lectures, more- over, are to be " laid before the Council for its approbation, which shall be obtained in writing, before they can be read in the public schools." But this somewhat arbitrary and oppressive regulation does not seem to have remained long in force, and the only restrictions subsequently placed on the discretion of the professors was that no "comments or criticisms on the opinions or productions of living artists in this country shall be 60 THE FIRST PROFESSORS introduced into any of the lectures delivered in the Royal Academy." A separate diploma was given to the professors, or at any rate to those who were not members of the Academy. The original draft, signed I5th December 1769, of the one bestowed on Dr Hunter exists. It is addressed to " our trusty and well- beloved William Hunter, Doctor of Physick," and after the preamble as in the other form of diploma goes on, " and seeing that no liberal art can attain perfection without the concurrence and co-operation of other sciences, we have resolved to appoint certain professors to instruct the students in various branches of knowledge necessary to the arts. We, therefore, in considera- tion of your great skill in anatomy, do by these presents nominate and appoint you Professor of Anatomy in our said Academy of Arts, hereby granting unto you all such honours, privileges, and emoluments thereof as are consistent with the nature of the establishment, and compatible with the Instrument of Institution, and with the laws and regulations by which the said Society is governed." A similar diploma was also received by Dr Hunter's successor, as the President reports to the General Assembly on 3rd November 1783, that "His Majesty had been graciously pleased to approve the election of John Sheldon, Esq., as Professor of Anatomy, and to sign his diploma, dated i8th July 1783." That the outside professor, as we may call him, might be brought into touch with the general business of the Academy, it was resolved by the Council on 27th Decem- ber 1768, "that Dr William Hunter (as Anatomy Professor) have free access to all General Assemblys." Whether he ever availed himself of this privilege does not appear, nor do we know if it was continued to his successor, but it is not in exist- ence now ; nor are diplomas given to the non-member pro- fessors. Two other entries in the early minutes of the Council with reference to the anatomy lectures sound curious at the present day. On I7th March 1769, it was ordered " That the other EDWARD PENNY 61 lectures on the muscles be at such times as a body can be procured from the sheriffs, to whom he (Dr Hunter) recom- mended that application should be made." And on I5th January 1770, there is the entry, "the President was desired to make an application to the master of the Surgeons' Com- pany for a body to be dissected in the Royal Academy by Dr Hunter." We will now give some account of the lives of the men who were first chosen to fill these very important posts in the consti- tution of the new society. EDWARD PENNY, R.A., the first professor who occupied the Royal Academy chair of Painting, had, in the troublous times which the artists of England underwent before they found a haven of rest in royal patronage, occupied the post of Vice-President of the Incor- porated Society of Artists, and his signature appears amongst those of the seceders from that body. He was born at Knuts- ford, in Cheshire, in 1714, and was a pupil of Hudson, some years probably before young Joshua Reynolds made his timid entry into a studio which is now associated with his own imperishable fame. He afterwards studied in Rome under Benefiali ; which may be called a dumb fact, as neither Penny nor Benefiali are credited with possessing a voice which is audible at this distance of time. Penny is said to have been much admired for his portraits on a small scale, and some of his historical and senti- mental works were engraved. Amongst these was a " Death of General Wolfe," a popular subject in those days. Romney, Mortimer, and Barry tried their hands at it, and others might have continued had not Benjamin West given the finishing stroke to the hero of Quebec, and killed him so effectually that none has since dared to lift his brush against him. In two pictures Penny represented "Virtue Rewarded and Profligacy Punished " ; also a " Marquis of Granby relieving a sick 62 THE FIRST PROFESSORS Soldier," which does not seem to have perpetuated the memory of his lordship's benevolence and condescension. His influence among his fellow-artists would appear to have been considerable, as at the General Assembly of the 3rd January 1769, the third held, it was resolved "That the thanks of the General Assembly of the Academicians be given to Mr Penny for his activity in bringing several worthy members into the society." Of his lectures as Professor of Painting, which he continued to deliver annually till 1783, when his health failed, and he resigned the office, there is no record. He appears to have succumbed to the infirmity of so many of the noble minds of that period, and married a lady of pro- perty, which enabled him to end his days in luxurious retire- ment at Chiswick, where he died in 1791. THOMAS SANDBY, R.A. The life of the first Professor of Architecture offers the promise of picturesque materials and an opportunity for that sort of literary historical genre painting of which Carlyle's " Diamond Necklace " is so masterly an example. It passed through a great crisis in our history, greater perhaps than we are now aware of, and in the calm environments of its close it suggests the blessed relief from discord which this country attained to, more perhaps by luck than good guidance, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Thomas Sandby is by no means such an obscure personage as Henry Pitman, who is memorable as having left authentic records of his personal contact with great events, with the rebellion of Mon mouth and the " Bloody Assizes." Sandby came in personal contact with the invasion of the Pretender in 1745, an d had he written his autobiography giving all the details of his life, from the stormy scenes which surrounded his youth to the THOMAS SANDBY 63 final peaceful seclusion as Deputy Ranger of Windsor Park, he would have left a book of more permanent interest to mankind than his lectures on architecture, which were found too costly for the Academy to publish, are at all likely to have been. He was born in Nottingham in 1721, and is said to have been attracted to the profession of architecture by the fascina- tions of the science of perspective ; fascinations which about the same time were impelling the son of a Devonshire schoolmaster towards the profession of painting. In 1743 he was in London and was appointed draughtsman to the chief engineer in Scot- land. This brought him to Fort William, at the foot of Ben Nevis, in 1745. It would be worth many lectures on architecture to know what he saw there ; to have brought before us the tumultuous gatherings of tartaned ruffians, to hear the wild pibrochs, and the clashing and clattering of claymores, targets, and Lochaber axes. All we positively know is, that he was the first person to convey to the government authentic tidings of the landing of the Pretender in Glenfinnan. In return for this important political service he was taken good care of ever afterwards. H.R.H. William, Duke of Cumberland, appointed him his peculiar draughtsman ; though what the duties of a peculiar architectural draughtsman to a successful military commander of royal blood may be, we are not able to conjec- ture. And in the following year, when all the disturbances were over, when Lord Balmerino had wiped his spectacles for the last time and laid his poor foolish old head on the block on Tower Hill, as the last of the long series of decapitated traitors, Sandby was appointed Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park, where he created that placid expanse of tranquil water, belilied, if such a term is admissible, with white blossoms, whose banks are littered with shreds of morning newspapers, exuvice of picnics, known as Virginia Water. Freemasons' Hall, where whilom Art and Benevolence united were accustomed to exchange their festive greetings, was designed by him, as was 64 THE FIRST PROFESSORS the elaborate wainscotting around the altar of St George's Chapel, Windsor. The various abortive efforts which were made by the artists of England to form a properly organised institution for the encouragement of Art have been already described. Thomas Sandby had taken a part in the agitation, he joined the Incor- porated Society, and after the schism by which it was rent asunder he passed into the newly-formed Royal Academy as one of its foundation members. He exhibited great zeal in carrying out his duties as Pro- fessor of Architecture. His lectures were largely illustrated by beautifully executed drawings, many of which are still preserved. As we have already mentioned, they have never been published. The MS. was offered for that purpose to the Council of the Royal Academy, but declined on account of the great cost of reproducing the illustrations. It has since been presented by his descendant, Mr William Sandby, and is now preserved in the library. Towards the close of his life Sandby became incapacitated by ill-health from the labour of delivering his lectures, and for two years they were read by Edward Edwards, A. The even- ing of his life was passed in the peaceful retirement of the Deputy Ranger's Lodge in Windsor Park, and there he died, aged seventy-seven, in 1798, fifty-three years after the fortui- tous circumstance to which he owed his fortune and his social position. SAMUEL WALE, R.A. At the date of the foundation of the Royal Academy, its promoters found themselves somewhat in the position of the lord in the parable who had to search for wedding guests amongst the hedgerows and byways. There was no neglected talent pining for lack of recognition, no claims likely to be overlooked ; the difficulty was to fill up the ranks with repre- sentative artists when none such could be found ; men who SAMUEL WALE 65 practised any description of industry which could plausibly be included in the category of Art were considered eligible. Such a one was Samuel Wale, first Professor of Perspective. He decorated ceilings, illustrated books, painted signs, and in a promiscuous way turned his hand to anything which required a certain skill in drawing and a knowledge of the mechanism of painting. Those who pay attention to such things, must be familiar with a peculiar phase of water-colour art which is often found decorating the staircases and bedrooms in English country houses. Who does not know the dingy landscapes which the host points to apologetically as an old-fashioned picture which has been in the family for years and years ? It probably represents an old ruined castle, drawn in outline with a reed pen ; there is pretty sure to be a bridge spanning a river, and some men engaged in drawing a net in the foreground ; on each side is a tree trunk with rugged boughs, drawn more or less in a series of hooks with thick strokes of the pen, the whole washed over with a thin film of colour. Such was the water-colour art of the middle of the eighteenth century, the rude germ which developed into the magnificent works of Girtin, Turner, De Wint, and Copley Fielding. Samuel Wale practised that form of art largely, and exhibited his works at the Royal Academy. As an assistant to John Gwynn, the architect, he acquired a good knowledge of perspective, and was appointed to profess it on the foundation of the Royal Academy. At first it appears to have been the practice to deliver lectures on the subject ex cathedrd, a practice which Wale was obliged to discontinue on account of ill-health, and to resort to the much more practical system of giving a series of lessons at a table, which has since been universally adopted. Perspective is nothing if not precise, and its principles, to be understood, must be put into practice with the scale and parallel ruler. Wale, who was born at Yarmouth, was much employed in designing illustrations to books ; his best-known works E 66 THE FIRST PROFESSORS in this line are the engravings in the 8vo edition of Walton's Complete Angler, published in London, 1760, which are probably very familiar to all readers of the worthy old piscator's book. "The Morning Greeting," "The Milkmaid's Song," and " The Three Anglers at the Inn Door " giving the hostess the chub to cook, are things which we remember to have seen in our youth, and never have forgotten. In addition to these Wale illustrated an abridgment of Sacred History, 1766; Fables, by William Wilkie, D.D., 1768; and Raymond's History of England ; besides a number of other works. His historical plates are very curious in our eyes ; they show the utter carelessness and ignorance of appropriate costume and accessories which prevailed in the eighteenth century, when Garrick as Macbeth, in a bag wig with a small sword, made his audience tremble at the spectacle of " the ruin of a crime- entangled soul." There are two plates after Wale in Raymond's History ; one represents Canute reproving his courtiers, in the background of which there is a church with a spire of fifteenth- century architecture ; and another of Richard I. taken in dis- guise by Leopold Duke of Austria, where the Crusader is in knee-breeches, with a small sword at his side. In 1782, on the death of Richard Wilson, Wale was appointed Librarian, and held that office, in conjunction with the professor- ship, till his death in 1786. DR WILLIAM HUNTER, though his fame is cast into the shade by the singularly brilliant genius of his younger brother, John, must have been a very distinguished physiologist and physician, to judge only by the honorary degrees which were conferred upon him both in this country and abroad. And, from the testimony of his contem- poraries, we may surmise that the Royal Academy was both fortunate and discerning in having the opportunity of securing him as Professor of Anatomy, a post which, as we have seen, in DR WILLIAM HUNTER 67 its early days conferred the right of attending at General Assemblies, and made the holder in a manner an ex-officio member of the body. William Hunter was born at East Kilbride, in Lanark, in 1718; he studied for five years in the University in Glasgow, afterwards in Edinburgh, and finally at St George's Hospital in London. He early distinguished himself for his knowledge of anatomy; and when at the age of twenty-eight by a mere chance he was called upon to take the place of Mr Samuel Sharpe, and to deliver a course of lectures on operative surgery and anatomy, he brought to light, in addition to great knowledge, a peculiar aptitude for exposition, and great oratorical ability. It is said that his lectures differed from those of his contemporaries in the fulness and thoroughness of his teaching, and in the care he took to provide for his hearers the best possible practical illustrations of his discourse. His lectures were simple and yet profound, minute in demonstration, and by no means tedious, and he had a happy knack of enlivening them by anecdotical illustrations. He thoroughly enjoyed lecturing, and used to say that "a man may do infinitely more good to the public by teaching his art than by practising it," an unselfish sentiment which does honour to his heart, but which cannot logically be said to run on "all fours." Hunter also contributed many papers to medical journals. These were accused of being too controversial in tone, and he excused himself by saying that anatomists naturally got into that way, having been so " spoiled by the passive submission of dead bodies" that they are unable to brook any resistance. Like his brother, he was a collector : his house was a museum, filled with splendid anatomical and pathological preparations, ancient coins, medals, minerals, shells, and corals, together with a fine library of Greek and Latin classics. After his death, in 1783, these passed into the possession of the University of Glasgow. CHAPTER VI THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A. FOR more than a century and a quarter exhibition has suc- ceeded exhibition at the Royal Academy ; each returning spring during the whole of that long period has brought with it its special cares and anxieties to the artists of the country, its high hopes sometimes destined to be realised, its vaulting ambitions which missed the saddle and ended in the dust and ignominy of the other side. What a strange record it is of mad strivings after the unattainable, of futile efforts on the part of weak, inarticulate, human nature to express the unutterable, of hopeless struggles to vivify the material atoms of stone and pigment and to make them live with the life of the spirit of man ; a record of high aims gone astray, of sordid cares, of unavailing groans and blank despair; and perhaps more pitiable still, of inane vanity satisfied with half achievement, and revelling in its fool's supper of worthless praise. During those years, how many have been the reputations made ! in charity let us not count those that have been lost. False, partial Fame has stood blaring on her trumpet in the market- place, proclaiming, now this, now that as the greatest name in Art, and she is at it still ; and yet how stands the account ? Taking reputations at their current worth, at their market price both in amount of recognition and coin, and turning a deaf ear to the din of our mountebank's trumpet, it stands simply thus : the two greatest names are those of men whose 68 v>/Y > -//"//.. A ., 7 ./////////. '<"//. GAINSBOROUGH'S BIRTH 60 Art was formed and whose glory was built up in tns eighteenth century, namely, Reynolds and Gainsborough. Their names are printed in large letters on the title-page of British Art History, as those of Raphael and Michael Angelo are on that of the Italian Renaissance; and like these last they are indissolubly linked together by a conventional hyphen. In ordinary parlance the name of one is hardly ever mentioned without the other. They live in public estimation as the great Dioscuri, the unconquered heroes who have been translated to Olympus, but whose influence still guides the destinies of British Art. They mark the extreme limits of two opposite poles of thought and feeling, between which for more than a century and a quarter that Art has oscillated unceasingly. Their resemblance is wholly superficial, the result of the costume and the manners of the age in which they both lived. The difference between them is vital and radical. One vital point of resemblance they certainly had, each of them was "a reality, not an artificiality, not a sham." They were both in earnest, they knew what they wanted and sought for it, one by the way of formulas, the other outside them. But in their lives, their occupations, and their friends and associates, they differed with a difference not of degree but of kind. The life and doings of Reynolds, his Art, his utterances, and the turn of his mind, belong properly to the domain of philosophy ; his biography has been adequately written, and may be rewritten, amplified, and made still more instructive by any man of judgment and sound sense. The events of Gainsborough's life, his Art, all that he ever did or said, belong in a certain sense to the domain of romance ; to do justice to the theme would require a poet. Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sepulchre Street, Sud- bury, in Suffolk, in 1727. His father, John Gainsborough, was a wool merchant, prosperous once, but not unto the end ; of whose five sons three were men of genius. John, called '76 * THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH g- J-ac?k M in Sudbury, made many mechanical inven- tions but carried none of them out ; the Rev. Humphrey, who had a cure of souls at Henley-on-Thames, invented a steam engine which according to Fulcher was nefariously robbed from him by Watt ; and Thomas, who did carry things out, and of whose inimitable inventions none has yet learnt the secret or been able to steal the charm. What we read of him as a boy answers all the well-recognised requirements of boys of genius ; he was quick, observant, very ardent, impressionable, and very fond of sketching and music ; he spoke and acted on the impulse of the moment, because things came to him that way, without suspecting that biographers had their eyes upon him ; at school he was very idle at his lessons, sketched a great deal in his copy-books, played truant to go and amuse himself his own way, and did things which are characteristic of boys of genius, and quite equally so of boys of a very different kind. There is in fact nothing in the meagre, and, as we suspect in some cases, apocryphal, anecdotes of his early years related by Fulcher which is at all instructive or worth repeating. At the age of fifteen Gainsborough seems to have done with education, we may almost say with books, and went to London to study Art, at first under the French engraver Gravelot, afterwards under Hayman, who became member and librarian of the Royal Academy. This man was a poor painter, but at all events in his Art he tried to imitate good examples, whereas in his conduct he did quite the reverse, and it may have been from him that young Gainsborough imbibed a certain moral taint which he never quite shook off, and which affected his speech to the later periods of his life. After three years under Hayman and one of independent practice at a lodging in Hatton Garden he returned to Sudbury. He had by that time done with Art-education, and henceforth knew no master but Nature, and acknowledged no other authority than his own impressions of her. In the course of HIS EARLY YEARS 71 his artistic life he came under the influence of Dutch painters, of Rubens and Van Dyck, and his practice was modified by that influence, but he never ceased to refer to Nature as his true guide and to get his inspiration from that source. In 1746 the year when Reynolds, who was his senior by four years, was entering upon the most unprofitable and barren period of his career, namely, his residence at Plymouth Dock Thomas Gainsborough, a youth of nineteen, was beginning the education which made him a great man, and which has given the stamp of truth and originality to his art. Amongst the hedgerows of Suffolk, and on the banks of its sluggish streams, he was watching Nature intently and learning to understand her and to love her. Reynolds was saved by a deus ex machind, in the shape of Commodore Keppel, who carried him off in the Centurion to Italy and the Old Masters. Commodores and Centurions, Italy and Old Masters, could have done nothing for Gainsborough but to spoil him, and make him other than what he was ; which none but pedants, men who regret, for instance, that Robert Burns did not have a University education, could wish for. Gainsborough at this period is said to have been a hand- some youth, but the portrait by himself which is in the possession of the Royal Academy, does not exhibit a face to which we should be inclined to apply that epithet, or, we should say, to which the sex which particularly claims authority in such matters would be inclined to apply it ; and yet if we examine it attentively and imagine what it was without the signs of age, and disfiguring traces of toilsome, anxious years, if we try to set those features in a bright and youthful face, and add the lustre of health and colour, we must surmise that Thomas Gainsborough was a lad who would not pass unnoticed, even in a crowd one whom we should turn back to take a second look at. Romance, as we have said, was the atmosphere which sur- rounded his life, his character, and his art ; the first important incident recorded teems with it. A tall, handsome youth, he 72 THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH is wandering in the fields, sketching or sitting musing under the shade of trees, when, lo ! there comes to him a beautiful maiden, more beautiful it was said than even Mrs Kedington, the reign- ing belle of Ipswich. Her name was Margaret Burr. Margaret thinks herself a princess in disguise ; her father is a prince in some foreign land, or perhaps even in England ; but that is a mystery. What is a palpable fact is that he sends her annually two hundred pounds, and this young Thomas, with his large eyes and handsome face, he is surely a young prince in disguise of nature's nobility, a genius like none other. They loved each other, and they wed. Life at nineteen and eighteen is like a fairy tale, but the fairy tale of Margaret and Thomas was a real one. She was a loyal and true princess, and her two hundred pounds never failed ; and he was a true genius, and he had a magic palette which he had only to rub and beautiful things rose up, more beautiful than any the world had ever seen. But we have been anticipating. Thomas and Margaret began their wedded life in a small house in Ipswich. Fourteen years later, at the recommendation of Philip Thicknesse, they removed to Bath. The said Thicknesse was a very zealous friend, who developed into a bore, as very zealous friends some- times do, and after another fourteen years the Gainsboroughs fled to London to escape him. It was not till 1774 that Gains- borough established himself in Schomberg House, Pall Mall, and he died there of a cancerous affection on 2nd August 1788 in his sixty-second year. On his death-bed he wrote to Reynolds, between whom and himself there had been always more or less estrangement, asking him to come and see him. The letter, which is endorsed on the back in Sir Joshua's handwriting, " Gainsborough when dying," is in the possession of the Academy. It runs thus : DEAR SIR JOSHUA, " I am just to write what I fear you will not read after lying in a dying state for six months. The extreme affection, REYNOLDS AND GAINSBOROUGH COMPARED 73 which I am informed of by a friend, which Sir Joshua has expressed, induces me to beg a last favor, which is to come once under my Roof and look at my things, my woodman you never saw. If what I ask now is not disagreeable to your feeling, that I may have the honor to speak to you, I can from a sincere Heart say that I always admired and sincerely loved Sir Joshua Reynolds. "Tno. GAINSBOROUGH." It was at the interview which followed this pathetic appeal that Gainsborough uttered the well-known words : " We are all going to heaven, and Van Dyck is of the company." In his fourteenth Discourse Reynolds erected a monument to Gainsborough, which is likely to be cere perennius. It is a model of cautious analysis, of thoughtful, philosophical criticism ; but to us, at least, it appears cold and unsym- pathetic, and utterly unappreciative of the true greatness of the painter, who is commonly called his rival, but who worked on totally different lines and followed a totally different in- spiration. There could have been but very little real sympathy between the two men. To Reynolds, Gainsborough must have appeared a somewhat questionable and enigmatical person, not a little contemptible even. His own life had been regulated on incon- trovertible principles ; he had walked circumspectly, guided by prudence and sagacity ; diligence, economy, punctuality, order, method, and duty were his watchwords ; in the whole course of his Presidency, as already stated, he was only twice absent from his chair at the council table of the Royal Academy. Though too busy a man for much reading, he loved knowledge and lost no opportunity of acquiring it ; he chose the best and wisest men as his friends and associates, Johnson, Burke, and Gold- smith being his constant companions ; he never began anything without reflection, and what he began he carried out ; and finally, with each succeeding year, his contact with the great 74 THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH world had added additional polish to his manners and his mind. It must have been difficult for him even to understand such a character as that of Gainsborough, who did not walk circum- spectly : with whom, as far as we may judge by the evidence before us, prudence, sagacity as applied to worldly matters, economy, punctuality, order, and method were not ; who had no sense of duty ; who never once attended a meeting of the Royal Academy, though frequently elected into the Council ; who did not care for any knowledge except that which appertained to his art ; who chose for friends and associates only men who amused him ; who constantly began pictures and never finished them ; who was guided by impulse and not reflection ; who was highly incautious, blurted out the most unpalatable things in conversation and writing, made the most absurd bargains, and offered impossible sums when the whim was on him. His was not a serious, and, from certain dark hints, we may gather not altogether a respectable, character ; he was a bright, amiable, whimsical, and lovable man, who revelled in the joys of genius, of exquisite sensibilities and exuberant spirits; he was the grasshopper of the fable, and his life was one long summer day of love and song and revelry. He worked hard, but not laboriously ; what he did he did without effort, in a fit of enthusiasm; his art was music to him, it delighted his senses and his imagination, and he stopped short when it became toilsome. The German epithet " genialisch " exactly applies to every- thing he said and did, and would be quite misapplied to the acts and sayings of Reynolds. We may plausibly surmise that no permanent friendship was possible between them, that they irritated each other, and that neither could do the other full justice. Reynolds possibly despised Gainsborough for his want of worldly wisdom, prudence, and seriousness. Gainsborough may have hated Reynolds because he always did what was obviously and undeniably the right thing to do, an achievement in which he himself often signally failed. CHARACTER OF GAINSBOROUGH 75 Gainsborough the artist is quite unequivocal, but the man presents strange incongruities. It is absolutely incontestable on the evidence of his works, that in the very bottom of his heart he honoured and worshipped what was true and good and noble and beautiful ; no painter that ever lived surpassed, or perhaps even equalled, his portraits of women, for the expres- sion of innocence and moral purity. When he approached his pictures he purged his mind from all debasing ideas, he thought the best of his sitters and took them at that, and he has handed them down to posterity clothed in the unspeakable graces of moral purity. Chesneau sees, or affects to see, in Reynolds' portrait of Nelly O'Brien a masterly and concentrated portrayal of passion- ate desires. There is nothing of this to be found anywhere in Gainsborough, no inkling of it ; there is no blush but that of health, no smile but that of mirth and confidence. And yet it is said that he was licentious in his speech, as certain letters addressed to his friend William Jackson, the musician of " Te Deum " fame, which have come into the possession of the Royal Academy, abundantly certify. In some of these letters unworthy and prurient images are associated with subjects which ought to have held them aloof. There are passages in them which the licence of eighteenth-century speech and manners fails to explain. We must make liberal allowances for an age in which the most refined women, such, for instance, as Mrs Delany and Swift's Stella, whilst complaining of the coarseness with which men addressed them, used terms which a lady of the present day would be shocked to hear ; but for all that the coarseness of Gainsborough, which is not of words so much as of thought and association of ideas, appears exceptional, and the conviction is forced upon us that his correspondent Jackson must have been more than ordinarily friendly and less than ordinarily sensitive. The refinement of Gainsborough as an artist, and his coarseness as a man, is an anomaly difficult to explain, except 76 THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH after this fashion. He was a " reality, and not a sham," a lump of humanity straight from nature's mould ; the polish and the gloss was that of the beautiful soul which nature had put into him ; he had an extraordinary genius, exquisite sensibility, and he took an exalted and just view of the dignity of Art ; but he was mirthful, pleasure-loving, excitable, passionate ; he took no pains to improve himself, to make himself appear other than what he was ; nature had always been his guide, and he remained a natural, unregenerated man. His letters to Jackson clearly reveal a rude but genuine and independent character, based on realities, and scornful and impatient of conventionalisms and formulas. He thinks his friend pays too much deference to rank, wealth, and position, and rates him soundly in the following fashion : " Mark, then, that ever since I have been quite clear in your being a real genius, so long have I been of opinion that you are dayly throwing your gift away upon Gentlemen, and only studying how you shall become the Gentleman too ; now damn Gentlemen, there is not such a set of enemies to a real artist in the world as they are, if not kept at a proper distance. They think (and so may you for awhile) that they reward your merit by their company and notice ; but I, who blow away all the chaff, and by G in their eyes too, if they don't stand clear, know that they have but one part worth looking at, and that is their Purse ; their Hearts are seldom near enough the right place to get a sight of it." It is clear that Gainsborough, with all his careless, and unworldly ways, was a man of strong, proud, and self-reliant nature a man not to be taken in by flummery, and who, more- over, possessed quite his share of the self-consciousness of genius. Art and nature were all in all to him ; though stimu- lated by success and soothed by the flattering unction of fame, his soul sighed to escape from men of flattery, he yearned for a simpler and more natural life. HIS LETTERS TO JACKSON 77 Writing from Bath, he says : " I'm sick of Portraits, and wish very much to take my Viol da Gam and walk off to some sweet village, where I can paint landskips and enjoy the fag end of life in quietness and ease. But these fine ladies and their Tea-drinkings, Dancings, Husband-huntings, etc., etc., will fob me out of the last few years, and I fear miss getting Husbands too. But we can say nothing to these things, you know, Jackson, we must jogg on and be content with the jingling of the bells ; only d mn it, I hate a dust, the kicking up a dust, and being confined in Harness to follow the track, whilst others ride on the waggon, under cover, stretching their legs in the straw at ease, and gazing at green trees and blue skies without half my Taste. That's d n ; d hard. My comfort is that I have 5 Viol da Gambs, 3 Jayes, and two Barak Normans." Vain aspirations ! The simple soul, the love of nature, made the strength of his genius, and that genius enforced its penalties, and dragged him whither he would not go. Not for him were the simple joys of the old lumbering broad-wheeled waggon, with its bed of straw and its arched cover of sackcloth ; he must journey in his coach, with bells on his horses, and kicks up more and more dust, not to some sweet village, but to the great capital, to the very heart of London itself, Pall Mall West, to be plunged into the very vortex of fine ladies, tea-drinkings, dancings, and husband-huntings ; to solace himself as he best could with the sweet tootlings of Fischer's hautboy, the long- drawn vibrations of Abel's violin, and the flashes of Sheridan's wit ; to die there, and to be borne aloft by posthumous Fame, whose trembling wings have never lowered him to earth. As to his merits as an artist, compared with those of Reynolds, the world is divided, always has been divided, and probably always will be divided. As long at least as men's minds shall be differently constituted, as long as there shall be people of an objective and a subjective turn, as there shall be realists and idealists, Whigs and Tories, big-endians and little-endians, or any two ways of looking at things. Those who love law and 78 THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH science, who bow to prescription and who worship culture, will always prefer Reynolds ; on the other hand, those who desire emotion, the thrill of surprise, the indescribable tingling excite- ment which is evoked by the aspect of the unexpected, will award the superiority to Gainsborough. It is not for us to attempt to pass judgment. We will endeavour only to define the difference between them, a thing by no means easy to do. Art is subtle, its distinctions, though important, are delicate ; they belong to things spiritual, and often baffle the coarse materialism of words and phrases. It appears the most convenient and promising way to describe their separate methods of working. Let us imagine Reynolds to have made an appointment with a sitter, a young lady of a classic cast of countenance, with dark hair, and to have made due note of the date and the hour in one of those shabby little note-books which are pre- served in the Royal Academy. In the interim he carefully cogitates his picture. He has long wished to paint a picture with a mass of amber colour as his principal light, opposed to red in shadow, with a green blue as a foil. The amber dress and the flesh shall make the principal light, two other minor lights must be introduced ; the dark hair will serve for the extreme point of shade. Those two minor lights must be seen to ; perhaps if nothing strikes him, he turns over a portfolio of engravings, and finally gets an idea. When the appointed hour arrives, and with it the sitter, he is ready ; his picture is schemed out, it exists in his head. The classic cast of counten- ance has suggested a reference to Lempriere's Dictionary, or whatever book of that character existed at the time ; he has got a subject and a title, and he begins with certainty and fearlessness. Gainsborough, on the other hand, makes an appointment which he thinks no more of, trusting to be duly reminded of it by his faithful Margaret ; he plays on the fiddle with Abel or listens to his son-in-law Fischer's hautboy, and when the hour AS A PORTRAIT PAINTER 79 arrives he sits down before his easel with a mind as blank as the canvas before him. His sitter is a young lady, he eyes her intently, he chats with her, he 'draws her out, he gets excited, strange flashes of drollery and absurdity escape him ; she turns in her chair, her face lights up, and inspiration comes to him. " Stay as you are ! " he exclaims. He sees a picture, he seizes his palette and begins. He painted what he could discover in nature ; Reynolds used nature to help him to paint what he had already discovered ; his work presents what the French have called " le voulu," that of the other " 1'imprevu." We shall be able to enforce the distinction more clearly by an illustration. Reynolds and Gainsborough both painted the wife of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, of whom Mrs D'Arblay said that her beauty surpassed almost any she had ever seen. Reynolds' picture is in his finest manner, it is a deep golden harmony painted with rich unctuous impasto. It is ideally treated ; Mrs Sheridan, in a golden white drapery, represents St Cecilia playing on a harpsichord, with cherubs hovering in the air apparently entranced by the music. The face is seen almost in profile, it is exquisitely lovely, there is an air of refinement and grace in the whole figure ; attitude and expression are both idealised. St Cecilia seems to be in an ecstatic dream, carried away by the charms of music. Gainsborough's picture, represents Mrs Sheridan seated under a tree ; she seems to have popped herself down there suddenly, with her two dainty little feet sticking up straight in front of her ; she has pulled off her hat, and her hair is ruffled about ; she looks straight at you. As you look at it, you say to yourself, this is indeed " the beautiful mother of a beautiful race," as she was called. There is no attempt at ideality, the picture is sketchily, carelessly painted, it has none of the accomplishment, the study, the thorough workmanship of that of Reynolds, neither has it his dignity and loftiness of treatment. But it fascinates you, it is like the author himself, lively, witty, 80 THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH capricious, full of music and passion, waywardness and impulse ; there is no calculation or forethought, order or tidiness about it, it is painted in a fit of enthusiasm whe the imagination had raised itself into the region which is beyond all rules. When Gainsborough was in this mood, so happy with his subject, his technique rose to a point of excellence in certain respects which has never been attained by any other painter. He was uncul- tured as an artist ; Reynolds in his fourteenth Discourse compares him " to such men as we sometimes meet with, whose natural eloquence appears even in speaking a language which they can scarce be said to understand ; and who, without knowing the appropriate expression of almost any one idea, contrive to communicate the lively and forcible expressions of an energetic mind." He certainly does that, and moreover when in an inspired mood, as in the portrait of Mrs Sheridan, he reveals an innate gift arid aptitude for Art which may really be called unrivalled. The sparkle, the life and animation which he has imparted to the eyes and mouth, the natural grace, beauty, and artlessness of the figure, and poise of the head, the way it is set on the neck and shoulders, the treatment of the tumbled untidy hair, the colour and composition of the picture generally, all reveal a rare and peculiar genius, which is, strictly speaking, inimitable. His picture of " The Sisters," has the same characteristic excellencies ; and our readers will no doubt call to mind many another beautiful woman by Gainsborough, whose sweet ingenu- ous face seems to beam out upon us from the material canvas like a thing of life, a creature with a soul, to which his own responds sympathetically. It is related that on one occasion after a dinner, Reynolds rose and proposed the health of " Mr Gainsborough, the greatest living landscape painter " ; Wilson was present, he jumped up and added, "and the greatest living portrait painter also." It has been well said that neither of the speakers was quite aware how much truth there was in his remark. It happened, AS A LANDSCAPE PAINTER 81 if it ever did happen, in the days before Turner ; we can now no longer think of Gainsborough as the greatest of landscape painters, we are compelled to pull down his claims out of the superlative into the comparative degree. During his lifetime, he enjoyed a great reputation for his landscapes, everybody praised them and extolled them and nobody bought them ; the halls and passages in Schomberg House were hung with them ; and Reynolds' toast may have been intended in a kindly spirit as a gentle hint to the world that a great genius was being neglected. In endeavouring to estimate his claims we must make allowance for the fact that, since his day, landscape painting has taken an entirely new departure. Ruskin writes of him in these words : " The greatest colourist since Rubens and the last I think of legitimate colourists ; that is to say, of those who were fully acquainted with the power of their material ; pure in his English feelings, profound in his seriousness, graceful in his gaiety." And again speaking of his works, "they are rather motives of feeling and colour than earnest studies, their execu- tion is in some degree mannered and always hasty, they are altogether wanting in the affectionate detail of which I have already spoken and their colour is in some measure dependent on a bituminous brown and conventional green, which have more of science than of truth in them." The landscape painter of the present day, the camper-out in the fields, the earnest follower, in some cases even the slave, of nature, would be inclined to describe the landscapes of the last century as representing an impossible universe ; where the sky was not the vast laboratory in which were distilled the dews and vapours which hourly fertilise the earth, but a field of meaningless blue in which were suspended what look more like feather beds than any known form of water ; where the earth was without stratification or intelligible structure, and composed entirely of baked clay and putty ; where the trees had gutta- percha stems, with no past history discernible in their forms, F 82 THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH no joy or vigour in their growth ; where the grass was a mean- ingless wash of translucent green which appeared to afford subsistence to bituminous cows, and an insecure resting-place to questionable milkmaids. The universe, as depicted by Gainsborough, is open to satirical criticism of that kind ; nothing is seriously or carefully studied, but, as in his figure pictures, he goes to the heart of the matter, the soul which underlies the outward features, and represents that. How the aspect of external nature affected him, Thomas Gainsborough, what solemn emotions it awakened in him, in other words how nature sympathised with his moods and feelings that he represents with magnificent power, with a richness and depth of colouring which, as Ruskin says, connects him with Rubens. In a world given over for the most part to artificialities and impostures of all kinds, to conventionalisms instead of principles, a world which only took its self-interests at first hand, all the rest, its thinking and its morals, at second, the figure of Thomas Gainsborough stands out with the vividness and distinctness of one of his own pictures. He had grave faults, he had little sense of duty, he was selfish ; we do not at present know all his faults ; but he was a man with a fearless, independent mind, with a warm heart and great soul in him. He cared nothing whatever for conventionalisms, he took his pleasure where he found it. In his art he did the thing he loved and left out the rest. In society he was open and genuine, he said what he thought about people if he liked them he took them to his heart, if they were not congenial he quarrelled with them. He acted on impulse and did a number of foolish unworldly things ; but with his whole soul he worshipped the " Eternal Veracities " ; and it is that earnestness, that real depth of insight and of character, which elevates his art, an art which is slight, sketchy, imperfect, and careless, which any student can pick to pieces, but which has never lost its hold on men's hearts and probably never will, as long as the materials hold together. Reynolds, HIS OPINION OF REYNOLDS 83 alive to every artifice, with a hand trained to obey his will, was obliged to confess that he did not understand how Gainsborough got his effects ; and Gainsborough, looking at the works of his rival, the great eclectic who had formed himself, as he says, " on the full body of the best general practice," was constrained to exclaim, " Damn it, how various he is ! " These two sayings suggests nearly everything that can be said about Art. Genius of a high order is given only to a few, it produces works which are inexplicable and inimitable, but it cannot found schools or be a special attribute of any age or country. Culture is com. municable, it enlarges the mind and gives a man a wide range of subject ; if less admirable and wonderful it is perhaps more useful to mankind. CHAPTER VII THE REMAINING FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS WE now proceed to deal with the remaining original members of the Academy, with the exception of Benjamin West, who will be treated of in a separate chapter. Although the second clause of the Instrument of Institution states that it is " His Majesty's pleasure that the following forty persons be the original members of the said Society," only thirty-six names are contained in the list appended to this clause, and of these the two last, William Hoare and Johan Zoffany, were not nominated by the king till the end of 1769, a year after the foundation, while the remaining four were elected, the whole number of forty not being completed till 1773. Strictly speaking, therefore, the term " Foundation Members " can only be applied to the first thirty-four. But the term " nominated " may certainly be applied to Hoare and Zoffany. It may be recorded as a point of some interest, that of the nominated thirty-six members no less than nine, one-fourth, were foreigners. FRANCESCO BARTOLOZZI, R.A., born in 1727, was a native of Florence. His father was a gold- smith and worker in filigree, and as a boy he learnt to use the implements he found in his father's workshop, showing a precocious facility with the graver, which led to his father 84 FRANCESCO BARTOLOZZI 85 placing him under a historical painter named Hickford or Hugford, born in Flanders of English parents. For three years his education was that of a painter ; he became an excellent draughtsman, both after nature and the antique, and he made original designs and executed them in colour. Although in later years the mass of work thrust upon him as an engraver interfered with his practice with the palette, he never quite relinquished it, and when he was elected one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy, it was on the score of his accomplishments as a painter and an original designer, quite as much as an engraver. At Hugford's he became intimate with Giovanni Battista Cipriani, a young man, or rather boy, of his own age. Their student days over, each went his own way, Bartolozzi to serve a six years' apprenticeship under Joseph Wagner, an engraver settled in Venice, and Cipriani to study in Rome, where he met with Sir William Chambers, who brought him to England in 1755. Bartolozzi rapidly acquired a great reputation as an engraver, and was, in 1764, induced to come to this country by Richard Dalton, librarian to George III. Here he found his old fellow- student already established, and took lodgings with him in War- wick Street, Golden Square. He continued to reside in London and to practise his art assiduously until 1802, when he took his departure, after a sojourn of thirty-eight years. The last )^ears of his life were spent in Lisbon, where he died in 1815 in his eighty-eighth year. He was considered the greatest engraver of his time, and his reputation is only marred by the occasional production of hasty and inferior works, into which he was driven by his thriftless habits and his constant necessities ; for though his industry was enormous, and he made a large income, he appears to have been a careless, jovial man, who did not hesitate to spend as quickly as he earned. 86 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS GIOVANNI BATTISTA CIPRIANI, R.A., was also a native of Florence, and born in 1727. His pictures are little known, but his designs were widely spread by the graver of his friend and fellow-townsman, Bartolozzi, and the diploma of the Royal Academy ranks amongst the best speci- mens of their joint efforts. The designs for the gold and silver medals presented to the prize-winners in the Academy schools were also by Cipriani; and on I3th October 1769, the Council resolved to present him with a silver cup "as an acknowledg- ment for the assistance the Academy hath received from his great abilities in his profession." He continued to live in England, and died at Hammersmith in 1785. Fuseli has paid a very handsome tribute to his worth, both for his talents as an artist, the probity of his character, and the goodness of his heart. AGOSTINO CARLINI, R.A., who succeeded Moser, in 1783, as Keeper of the Royal Academy, was a native of Geneva and a sculptor, who is said to have excelled in draperies, as Italian Sculpture has done in its decay. The texture of silks, velvets, and laces are rendered with extraordinary skill by the carvers of Italy, who are, at the same time, entirely ignorant of the true functions of sculpture and the qualities in which its excellence resides. Carlini executed an equestrian statue of George III., of which the Academy possesses a model. His death occurred in 1790. FRANCIS COTES, R.A., was born in London in 1725, and was a pupil of George Knap- ton. His career as a portrait painter was a very successful one, from the point of view which considers the postal district to FRANCIS COTES 87 which a man has his letters addressed, and the sort of house he lives in, as conclusive of his merits. Cotes was able to build and, what is a greater achievement, to continue residing in, a house in Cavendish Square, subsequently occupied in turn by Romney and Sir Martin A. Shee, where, on 2Oth July 1770, when still in the prime of life, that is in his forty-fifth year, and with a very extensive and lucrative practice, he died. His death created the first vacancy in the ranks of the Academicians. It has been said that the works of Cotes bear a strong resemblance to those of Reynolds and Gainsborough ; but this is a very dubi- ous verdict, and the argument put forward to support the asser- tion is quite comically illogical, namely, that Peter Toms worked for all the three ; which would go to prove, not that Cotes was like Reynolds and Gainsborough, but that all three of them were like Peter Toms. It may happen to any of us to notice on some summer morning in a garden, that the gravel walk, the marble pedestal, and the sculptured urn, are scored with the same glistening trail, which marks the midnight peregrinations of our enemy Helix aspersa, but does that make them like each other ? Cotes was a pleasing and meritorious artist, especially as a draughtsman in crayons. His pictures have a generic likeness to those of Reynolds and Gainsborough, but it goes no farther, and to attempt to raise him to the Olympian height, the cloud level, occupied by the two great fathers of English portraiture, is to turn on a light more searching than he can bear. It has happened in our experience to find ourselves in some country house, whose walls are decorated with portraits of ancestors, and to have our attention called to some grand or great-grandmother, whose effigy looks down upon us from a picture, solidly painted in a good style, somewhat clumsy perhaps in execution but with a certain massive dignity, and when we have been told that it is by an unknown artist we have said to our- selves it is by Francis Cotes. So wags the world ; we give the great name to things which have no claim to it, the lesser name we forget, and obscurer merit is defrauded of its meed. 88 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS GEORGE DANCE, R.A. Amongst the original members of the Royal Academy were two sons of George Dance, who was architect to the Corporation of London, and who designed the Mansion House and some churches in the city. George Dance, junior, was born in 1740. Following his father's profession, at the age of twenty-eight he succeeded him in the office of City Surveyor, and it was no doubt his official position rather than anything he could have achieved at that early age which caused his nomination in the same year into the ranks of the newly instituted Academy. He justified the choice, however, by works subsequently executed. Newgate Prison, probably the best of these, was a good example of expression in architecture ; its grim portals looked like the entrances to the realm of abandoned hope, and its massive walls, darkened by time and unpierced by openings, were like barriers which admitted of no return. His most ambitious effort, and also his greatest failure, was the facade of Guildhall, a building utterly devoid of civic dignity or of apparent appropriateness. But it is not in con- nection with architecture that we best love to recall the name of George Dance. Amongst the treasures of the Royal Academy, is a beautiful series of profile portraits by him. They were engraved by William Daniell ; but no reproduc- tion can convey any idea of the excellence of the originals, of their firm and graceful pencilling, or their lifelike expression, which, to a certain extent, reminds one of Holbein. In the early days of the Academy it was customary to fine those members who did not exhibit, and George Dance appears as a defaulter on more than one occasion. An entry in the Council minutes of 2nd September 1769, states: "Mr George Dance attended and paid the treasurer the penalty of 5, which he had incurred by having omitted to exhibit in the Royal GEORGE DANCE 89 Exhibition, 1769 ; " and on 6th November 1772, there is another entry to the effect that " George Dance, Esq., and John Richards, Esq., attended and made such excuses for their having omitted to send performances to the last exhibition as was (stc) deemed sufficient by the Council ; " while at the same meeting, Zucchi, the Associate, was fined 2, ics. for not having exhibited. But George Dance made himself useful in other ways than exhibiting, as he was appointed with William Tyler in 1795 to examine into the finances of the Academy, on the resignation by Chambers of the treasurership. As a consequence of this report it was resolved to appoint auditors, and the first two chosen on loth December 1796, were the authors of the report. They were several times re-elected, and on 2nd February 1799, the Council voted each of them a silver cup of the value of twenty- five guineas, " for the very great services they had rendered in investigating and settling the accounts of the Royal Academy up to the present year." Ten years later Dance was voted another silver cup of the value of 50, "for the ability and fidelity with which he long discharged the office of auditor." He was elected Professor of Architecture in 1798 and resigned in 1805, never apparently having delivered any lectures. He died in 1825 and is buried in St Paul's. He was the last survivor of the foundation members. NATHANIEL DANCE, R.A. [Sir Nathaniel Dance- Holland, Bart], the third son of George Dance, senior, born in 1734, devoted him- self to painting. He studied under Francis Hayman, and after Thomas Gainsborough, was the most distinguished pupil of a man of whom it may be said, that if not witty himself he was the cause of wit in others. Dance afterwards studied in Italy, and on his return acquired considerable celebrity both as a painter of portraits and history. History in those days was the term used to designate a form of Art which had no particular foundation in 90 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS nature, or in impressions which nature produced on people's imaginations ; it was the result of attentive study of the works of Guercino and the Carracci, of Luca Giordano and Carlo Maratti. Nathaniel Dance painted excellent portraits and might have gone on triumphantly in the more difficult pursuit of history, had not his career been cut short by circumstances over which he only had a partial control. Nature had gifted him with a handsome person and a fine leg ; qualities which attracted the observant and appreciative eye of a certain Mrs Dummer, who, in addition to other attractions which she no doubt possessed, had an independent income of 18,000 a year. So Dance married her, and on the ist November 1790 resigned his seat at the Royal Academy, forsaking the practice both of portrait and history painting. Soon afterwards he assumed the name of Holland in addition to that of Dance, was elected a member of Parliament, and was presented with a baronetcy by his grateful country in 1800. He died at Winchester in 1811. He is said occasionally to have painted landscapes, in the intervals of the more serious duty of governing the country, but we can call to mind no example which has left any definite impression. MARY MOSER, R.A. If in the race for wealth and honours selfish men have in former times kept the monopoly to themselves, it is the case no longer ; in many directions we may say, " les carrieres sont libres." In Art they have always been so ; but it happens that the only two ladies ever elected into the ranks of the Royal Academy were at its outset. Their names are on the first roll call Mary Moser and Angelica KaufTman. Mary Moser was the daughter of G. M. Moser, R.A., the first Keeper of the Royal Academy. Her name is unknown to fame except as a flower painter, in which capacity she decorated an entire room at Frogmore for Queen Charlotte. Disappointed ANGELICA KAUFFMAN 91 in an attachment she is supposed to have formed for her father's successor in the office of Keeper, Fuseli, she married a Captain Lloyd, and died at an advanced age on 2nd May 1819. ANGELICA KAUFFMAN, R.A. This lady, whose correct name was Marie Anne Angelique Kauffman, was a far more interesting personality than Mary Moser. Her history is full of graceful suggestiveness, and contains a touch of deep pathos, which has been made the groundwork of a romance. Let us, before relating the incidents of her life, and for fear of creating an anti-climax of interest, proceed to investi- gate her claims as an artist. It must be remembered that she acquired her Art in Italy, in an age of utter artistic decrepi- tude, when the national genius had sunk to the lowest depths, when the energy and enthusiasm which had once animated the painter had been replaced by a mindless formalism a blind worship of old examples. Angelica, from her earliest student days, had been taught by every one around her, that there was but one path in Art that reverently to follow the footsteps of Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Correggio, though even at an immense distance, was the noblest career left to the painter ; nothing else was possible to any one who had self-respect ; and she acted on the teaching. She was a woman, and therefore our readers will pardon such a hazardous generalisation an optimist; she believed in the possibility of regenerating Art, and womanlike, she also would be satisfied with nothing but the highest motives and the loftiest aims ; there was to be no truckling expediency, no half-hearted com- promises with indifference and a public taste which had gone to the bad. High Art, Art of the highest, or nothing, was her motto. And with all that, she failed in the manner she had selected. Meagreness is no quality of any great Art, least of 92 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS all of the Art of the Italian Renaissance ; that was ample, voluminous, large in its forms, unstinted in its curvature, pre- senting huge bosses of form against vast vistas of receding space ; whereas the poor, stinted, half-starved lines of Angelica, almost as flat as the backgrounds, which she fondly hoped they relieved from, her evident artificiality of attitude and costume, suggest, alas, for her reputation, no inspiration but pedantry, and no love but at second hand, a love not of the subject but of the idea of the subject. Her colouring, more- over, had a certain rufousness and tendency to vinous tones which is often very unpleasant. This may seem a harsh ver- dict, but of what use is fame, and how is a man bettered by it when he is dead? In the dim regions hidden from the sight of mortals and impervious to their fancy, where the freed spirits are roaming, it may suffice to them, and perhaps give them greater satisfaction to know that we reverence their memories and bow in silent admiration of their virtues ; and to gentle Angelica, the " Miss Angel " of Reynolds' note-books, it is greater glory to have kept a place in history, and to be mentioned with tenderness and respect, although no one now cares for her pictures. At the date of the foundation of the Royal Academy and of her nomination by the king to the rank of R.A., Angelica was living in London with her father, Jean Joseph Kauffman, a Swiss portrait painter ; she was only six-and-twenty, and is described as very beautiful. She was born at Coire, in the Grisons, in 1741, and had landed in this country three years before the foundation of the Academy in the company of Lady Wentworth, with a sort of aureole or nimbus of glory about her, which she derived from a very laudatory notice by the Abbe Winckelmann, who, with Mengs, Algarotti, and Roger de Piles, were the shining lights of criticism in that benighted age. We may judge how great must have been its darkness by the darkness of its lights. Lady Wentworth's fair young protegee became the rage; ANGELICA KAUFFMAN'S HUSBANDS 93 her beauty, her accomplishments, the charm of her manner, her sweet voice and her musical talents, delighted every one. Society was at her feet, and commissions poured in upon her. Reynolds and Fuseli are said to have been rivals for her heart. It was decreed, however, that neither of them was to marry her, that her affections, her trustfulness, her desire for sympathy, all that was womanly in her nature, were to be cruelly imposed and trampled upon, that she was to be duped into the semblance of a marriage with a rascally adventurer of low degree, who had deserted a wife still living in Germany, and who was crippled, and could have had no possible motive for marrying her but cupidity. This fellow's name is supposed to have been Brandt, but he had assumed so many aliases the fact was difficult to establish. When he crossed the path of hapless Angelica Kauffman, he had some money in his pocket, was dressed in fine clothes, and passed himself off as Count Frederic de Horn, of noble Swedish family. Such a person really existed, and it is said that Brandt had once served him as valet de chambre. Brandt was a fine-looking man, and had somehow picked up a certain polish of manner, with a swag- gering air, which imposed upon the simple, unsuspecting Angelica, who conceived a passion for him, and was finally per- suaded into a secret marriage with him. He soon, however, began to extort money from her ; her suspicions were aroused, and her father, in whose house she had remained, heard of it. Inquiries were made, and as there appeared to have been informalities about the marriage, her friends set to work to get it dissolved. It was ascertained that Brandt had a wife living, and the marriage became null ; Angelica, out of pure generosity, paying the rascal a sum of money to be off and show himself no more. For some years a cloud hung over Angelica, but she out- lived it, and was quite restored to public favour. After seven- teen years spent in England, she married, in 1781, a Venetian painter, Antonio Zucchi, one of the first elected Associates of 94 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS the Academy, and in the same year removed to Rome, where she continued to practise her Art, most industriously. There is, in the Library of the Royal Academy, a MS. by Angelica, which describes the pictures executed by her in Italy. It is a wonderful monument of industry, and she must also have possessed great facility. Patronage never ceased ; she painted for kings, princes, and cardinals, and quite realised the conception of a great artist's life. She died in Rome on 5th November 1807, an d was buried in the Church of S. Andrea delle Fratte, with great pomp. In a letter to Joseph Bonomi, from a correspondent of his at Rome, Dr M. A. Borsi, which letter Bonomi sent on to West, to be read at a General Assembly of Academicians, a full account is given of her death and funeral. The ceremony was " conducted by Canova," the church being " decorated as is customary for nobles." "The corpse was accompanied to the church by two very numerous brotherhoods, fifty capuchins and fifty priests. The bier was carried by some of the brotherhood, but the four corners of the pall by four young ladies, properly dressed for the occasion ; the four tassels were held by the first four gentlemen of the Academy (St Luke) ; these were followed by the rest of the Academicians and Virtuosi, who carried in triumph two of her pictures." The deceased artist is spoken of in this letter as "the great woman, the always illustrious, holy and most pious Mrs Angelica Kauffman." All these honours, this pomp and pageantry clearly indicate that in the eyes of the later Romans of the eighteenth century Angelica Kauffman was a very great artist indeed. We don't think so, we think something which is very nearly the reverse of that. An age which looks upon certain modern developments at home and abroad as the ultimate and most perfect out- come of centuries of art, is not likely to accept an art which has in reality no foundation in nature, which is based on a convention. THE ART OF ANGELICA KAUFFMAN 95 That art started with the following proposition : that, how- ever actions may be supposed to have occurred, and whatever amount of rigidity or irregularity the actors may have been momentarily forced into by passion or excitement, are things immaterial to the artist. For pictorial represention it was before all things necessary to insist, that in the events of history, in moments fraught with the fate of nations and of men, the actors always arranged themselves in circles, in two evenly balanced crowds, or else they availed themselves of fortuitous inequalities in the ground to form a pyramid, that the principal actor con- cerned always occupied the middle place, that he always stood in a graceful and statuesque attitude, that the subordinate char- acters who were grouped around him, threw themselves into postures which afforded the best opportunity of displaying their muscular development, and, in a general way, however prepos- terous and absurd the whole scene might appear to a casual spectator, it was nevertheless something very superior because it was ideal. Angelica Kauffman was a disciple of this school, she derived from its great apostle the Abb6 Winckelmann who had founded her fortune by puffing her ; she, like Cipriani and others of her age, imparted to her classical compositions some- thing of that attenuated grace and elegance which found its healthiest expression in the furniture of Chippendale. In the matter of colouring she adhered strictly to rule ; the upper members of society, gods, heroes, prophets, etc., were represented with white skins, and the different ranks in a descending scale were discriminated by a nearer and nearer approach to the colour of an old portmanteau. It is an admirably simple and intelligible hieroglyph you have a white Virgin and Child and a brown Joseph, and a backwoodsman though he may not have read or have forgotten the story, will know at once that Joseph is a very subordinate character. Such conventionalities and makeshifts were the essence of Art in the eighteenth century, dignity was supposed to reside, not in its essential attributes, but in its trappings. It was con- 96 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS sidered infra dig. to paint a lady in the garb she always wore, a conventional hybrid garment was invented by portrait painters, the " bed gown " as the Duchess of Rutland called it ; and in- credible as it may seem to us, who have gone into the opposite extreme, when West was designing his masterpiece of the death of General Wolfe, Reynolds urged him earnestly and also very happily vainly, to represent all the characters in classical garments, as more befitting the dignity of the event. Of what value is criticism, and who shall estimate the true value of Art, when he sees the remains of Angelica Kauffman followed to the grave with almost regal honours, and not a century later a picture of two ugly French peasants saying their prayers in a ploughed field, eagerly competed for and finally purchased at the price of a very comfortable fortune ? These two events surely mark the extreme limit of the pendulum in each direction ; excess cannot be carried farther, and after excess comes reaction. Angelica Kauffman is for- gotten and the art she practised is now a laughing-stock and a mockery, but are we perfectly certain that the gods we worship are firmly enthroned : is it not natural and permissible in a patient student of Art history, to surmise that these last shall in their turn be torn down and degraded to make room for other idols, who for the time being shall satisfy the ever-shifting phases of ignorance and caprice. History is like two mirrors facing each other, before us and behind us is the same prospect repeating itself ad infinitum. JOHN INIGO RICHARDS, R.A., was chiefly known as a scene painter, and for many years was employed at Covent Garden Theatre. He also painted land- scapes in oil, representing old baronial halls and ruins of abbeys, etc., for which there was a great demand in his day. On the death of Newton in 1788, he was elected to fill the office of Secretary, and held it for twenty-two years, till his death on 1 8th DOMINIC SERRES 97 December 1810. Besides making a catalogue of the art treasures belonging to the Academy, he carefully repaired its famous cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci, and in many ways showed himself a zealous and capable officer. DOMINIC SERRES, R.A., born in 1722, was a native of Gascony. Like another celebrated painter of marine subjects, Clarkson Stanfield, he acquired his knowledge and his predilection for the subject by serving before the mast. He came, or rather he was brought, to this country in 1752 with the crew of a Spanish vessel captured by a British frigate. When released from confinement in the Marshalsea, he applied himself to marine-painting under the tuition of a certain Charles Brooking, eminent in that line. He won a name for himself, and in 1772 was appointed marine-painter to the king. His contributions to the exhibition of the Royal Academy were very numerous, and consisted chiefly of sea pieces ; indeed, the first ten exhibitions contained no less than forty works of his, all of English naval battles, one of the most important being Lord Howe's victory over the combined French and Spanish fleets off Gibraltar in 1782. In 1792 he succeeded Wilson as Librarian, but died in the following year, and was buried in Marylebone churchyard. Being a sailor, he had naturally a competent knowledge of shipping and craft of all descriptions, and some of his drawings in pen and ink heightened with washes, which are preserved in the print-room of the British Museum, are executed with spirit, and show great knowledge of effect. In his oil-paintings, many of which are at Greenwich Hospital, he followed the traditions of Van de Velde, who had effectually set the type in that depart- ment, but with less precision and with none of the Dutchman's exquisite mastery over his materials. The pictures of Dominic Serres are pleasing in colour but rather thin, and wanting in depth and atmosphere. G 98 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS RICHARD WILSON, R.A., a name well known to lovers of British Art, was born in 1714. His father was a clergyman in Montgomeryshire, and came of a good family. The elder brother of the painter possessed a small estate at Colomondie, near Llanberis, which he was obliging enough to vacate and to bequeath to Richard Wilson just in the nick of time, when the latter was in sore straits and dependent only upon his salary as Librarian for his sustenance. Art truly is a lottery : some there are who draw great prizes ; genius of a high order usually commands success, but mediocrity cunningly directed may achieve it also, and on the other hand genius of a conspicuous kind may fail. Merit has been known to starve while folly carouses. We know the stock virtues industry, preseverence, enthusiasm, and a certain tinge of self-consciousness ; these, with some genius, are sup- posed to constitute the model type of the successful man ; but experience teaches us that we have to reckon with other facul- ties not so easily defined, with a certain impalpable tone, for instance, which pervades a man, with the quality of his utterances, whether they be well-timed or the reverse, with everything in fact which proceeds from him, with the whole atmosphere of influences which surrounds him. Great men have languished in neglect, as for example Ruysdael, the greatest of Dutch landscape painters, Constable, Muller, and even Turner, as regards his greatest works. All these had to bear the " quips and scorns, which patient merit of the unworthy takes," and Richard Wilson falls into the same unhappy category. To assign Wilson his proper place amongst British land- scape painters is a somewhat hazardous venture. He was under Italian influence, as old Crome was under Dutch, and as Gainsborough was under Flemish. If we compare these three typical early landscape painters of the school by the standard of nature we must begin by putting Gainsborough RICHARD WILSON IN ITALY 99 out of court. He was greater than either of them, but the qualities of his landscapes were purely technical ; there is no single excellence which we can point to by which he advanced the art in the sense of bringing it nearer to nature ; his skies, mountains, trees, and meadows were merely plausible pretexts for the display of his own emotions ; his landscape was in a high degree subjective. Whereas Wilson and Crome, though conventional in their forms and the treatment of foreground, were based upon nature, or, at least, on one fact of nature; everything they represented is seen through the medium of atmosphere, an atmosphere which is perhaps too uniformly hazy and palpable, a little difficult to breathe, but which is a nearer approach to objective truth than anything in Gains- borough. Wilson began his artistic career as a portrait painter, having been placed for instruction with one Thomas Wright who followed that branch of the profession in Covent Garden. He is said to have achieved some success in this line, but on going to Italy in 1749 he abandoned portraits for landscape. Wilson spent six years of his life in Italy, studying chiefly in the district about Rome. Ruskin considers that "its amorphous structure of tufa and volcanic debris covered with a diseased and overgrown flora," was fatal to him ; by such scenery, he says, "whose spirit I conceive to be especially opposed to the natural tone of the English mind, his originality was entirely overpowered." This may or may not be. In Wilson's day the natural tone of the English mind had not yet asserted itself, it had not yet found its first exponent in Turner. Wilson brought back from Italy a taste for what Fuseli somewhere calls the "serenity" of Claude, and also an affectation of classicism, which led him to introduce figures in very incongruous positions, as the Apollo in the midst of naturalistic clouds in the " Niobe." This was pointed out by Reynolds in his fourteenth Discourse, and the impeachment must be acknowledged to hold good. But he was a fine land- 100 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS scape painter for all that, and in the presence of the hard and stern realism of the present day it is permissible to regret the absence of the poetical atmosphere which suffuses the landscapes of Richard Wilson. His life was altogether unhappy ; when he returned from Italy he took a house on the north side of Covent Garden, then a fashionable quarter, but he changed his abode often, and each change indicates a stage on a descending scale of prosperity. On the death of Hayman in 1776 he was chosen to succeed him as Librarian, and the emoluments of the post, though very small, served to keep him from starvation. His character lacked some of the elements of success, not on the side of genius but on that of other less conspicuous but equally necessary qualities ; he was morose and irritable, and would not speak men fair, and that may have had something to do with it. Whatever it may have been, he was sometimes unable to buy canvas and colours, and his end would no doubt have been miserable but for the windfall we have alluded to, the death of his brother and his succession to the estate of Colomondie, whither he retired as to a haven of rest after the storms of life, and where he died peace- fully in 1782 in his sixty-ninth year. In that same year " Peter Pindar " (Dr John Wolcott), in his Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians ', addressed him in the following lines, which were really prophetic : " But honest Wilson, never mind ; Immortal praises thou shalt find, And for a dinner have no cause to fear. Thou start'st at my prophetic rhymes, Don't be impatient for those times, Wait till thou hast been dead a hundred year." JOSEPH WILTON, R.A., who succeeded Carlini in the Keepership, in 1790, appears to have undertaken the duties of the office as an occupation in his old age. Born in 1722, the son of a manufacturer of plastic JOSEPH WILTON ICl ornaments for ceilings, he received his first artistic education abroad, and in 1744 gained the silver medal awarded by the French Academy for working in marble. In 1747 he went to Rome, and while there in 1750 was presented by the Roman Academy with the Jubilee Gold Medal of Benedict XIV. Re- turning to England in 1758, he became joint manager with Cipriani of the Duke of Richmond's gallery, in Spring Gardens, and it was not till some twelve years after that he finally adopted the profession of a sculptor. He had in the meantime been appointed state-coach carver to the king, and in that capacity made the model for George III.'s coronation coach. He executed many public monuments, of which that to General Wolfe in Westminster Abbey is a good example, and amassed a considerable fortune. His house was for years a rendezvous for distinguished men of all ranks and callings, and he seems to have been much beloved and esteemed. An obituary notice of him says, " He was a very respectable man, and if not a leading genius in the Arts, he possessed considerable knowledge of them, and had a very correct taste." He succeeded Wale as Librarian in 1786, but resigned that office on being elected Keeper, a post which he held till his death in 1803. JOHN BAKER, R.A., born 1736, painted in early life heraldic subjects and floral decorations on coach panels, and subsequently won considerable distinction by the great brilliancy of his flower pieces. He died in 1771. GEORGE BARRET, R.A., who was born in Dublin in 1732, or, as some accounts say, in 1728, first studied art at the School of the Royal Dublin Society under Robert West. He soon showed a talent for landscape, and after gaining a premium of 50 at Dublin, 102 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS came in 1761 to London, where he quickly made himself a name as a landscape painter both in oil and water-colour, and obtained another premium of 50 from the Society of Arts. Landscapes by him are to be found in many country houses. He died in 1784. CHARLES CATTON, R.A., born at Norwich in 1728, was apprenticed to a coach-panel painter in London, and afterwards became a member of the St Martin's Lane Academy. He is said to have been the first herald painter who designed the supporters of coats-of-arms with any resemblance to nature. Catton was appointed coach painter to George III., the painting of ornamental designs for coach-panels being then considered as an art. His exhibited works were chiefly landscapes. He died in 1798. MASON CHAMBERLIN, R.A., who began life as a merchant's clerk, became a pupil of Francis Hayman's, and subsequently earned a certain measure of success as a portrait painter. His likeness of Dr William Hunter, which is in the Diploma Gallery, is a good specimen of his skill. He died in 1787. JOHN GWYNN, R.A., was the architect of several mansions and bridges, among the latter the well-known Magdalen Bridge at Oxford. He was the author of a work entitled London and Westminster Improved, published in 1766, in which he advocated several projects which have since been carried out, among them the rebuilding of London Bridge, and the building of a new bridge near Somerset House. He died in 1786. NATHANIEL HONE 103 NATHANIEL HONE, R.A., born at Dublin about 1718, was more or less of a self-made artist who painted portraits with some success ; and also indulged his sense of humour in caricatures which were not always in good taste, and brought him into trouble once or twice with his fellow Academicians. An account of one or two such incidents, especially of his fracas with Angelica Kauffman, has been given in Chapter III. He died in 1784. JEREMIAH MEYER, R.A., born at Tubingen, in Wurtemberg, in 1735, was an eminent miniature painter. He came to England when fourteen years old, studied miniature painting under C. F. Zincke, and was a member of the St Martin's Lane Academy. Becoming eminent in this art, he was appointed miniature painter to Queen Charlotte, and painter in enamels to George III. In 1775 he proposed that 100 out of the 200 annually given in charity should be invested " to accumulate, and in time constitute a Fund, the interest thereof to be paid in sums not exceeding 2$ per annum to such Academicians (or their widows) or associates (if thought proper) as shall appear to have no real income of their own exceeding 50 per annum." He grounded his proposal on the fact that " daily experience teaches us this most melan- choly truth, that men of the greatest talents oftentimes, from various causes, in old age feel penury and want." And he defended the plan as liable to few objections in any point of view, as all of the Academicians and Associates "in their active person of life contribute by joint exhibition of their work, to raise a considerable sum of money, and of which they derive no personal advantage," and was "only calculated in process of time, if unfortunate accidents in our body take place, to render perhaps the remnant of life more comfortable." The proposal 104 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS was accepted, but the Fund did not come into operation for some years. It will be again referred to in a subsequent chapter. Meyer died in 1789. PETER TOMS, R.A., was the son of an engraver, and a pupil of Hudson. He is somewhat unknown to fame, but had merit enough to be nomi- nated one of the original members of the Royal Academy ; and we also read of him, that in the course of his chequered career he was appointed Portcullis Pursuivant in the Herald's College, a title which is suggestive of the downward tendency he exhibited through life. His work is chiefly known to us by what he did for Reynolds and others in the painting of draperies and hands. If in a full-length by Sir Joshua you detect a passage hardly painted with a rigid, unelastic brush, that is Peter Toms ; by that sign you know him. After the death of Cotes, the last of his employers, poor Toms took to drinking, and put an end to himself in 1776. WILLIAM TYLER, R.A., though nominated as an architect, was usually represented at the exhibitions by busts and low reliefs. He appears to have been the chief actor in the revolt against Reynolds, which ended in the latter's temporary resignation as already described in Chapter III., and his manners evidently in the President's opinion left much to be desired. He appears, however, to have had a good head for figures, as he was appointed, with George Dance, in 1795, to examine into the accounts on the resignation of the treasurer- ship by Chambers, and was subsequently nominated a Trustee, and in 1796 elected an Auditor, both of which offices were the outcome of his and Dance's report. He died in 1801. PAUL SANDBY 105 RICHARD YEO, R.A., was chief engraver to his Majesty's Mint ; his principal exhibited works were medallions. He died in 1779. FRANCESCO ZUCCARELLI, R.A., born near Florence in 1702, was a painter chiefly of landscapes, in which he introduced small figures with considerable taste. He came to England in 1752, and acquired a very good reputa- tion, many of his pictures being engraved. In 1773 ne returned to Italy, and died in Florence in 1789. PAUL SANDBY, R.A., a younger brother of Thomas Sandby, R.A., the architect, was born at Nottingham in 1725. Employed, like his brother, in the military drawing office at the Tower, he was engaged as draughtsman to the Survey of Scotland undertaken after the campaign of 1745-46. This employment he quitted in 1752, and went to live with his brother at Windsor, of which place and its neighbourhood he made a very large number of drawings, which were engraved in aquatint by himself. In 1768 he was appointed chief drawing-master at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, a position which he resigned in 1799. His death occurred in 1809. Paul Sandby was one of the first artists to advocate the formation of an academy, and severely ridiculed Hogarth's opposition to it. He was a very large contributor to the early exhibitions that were held in London, and was one of the directors of the Incorporated Society of Artists, from which however he seceded on the foundation of the Academy. Sandby's fame as an artist rests on his water-colour drawings ; indeed he has been called the father of the water-colour school in England ; but his landscapes, though carefully drawn, are 106 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS hardly more than topographical drawings tinted to imitate nature. WILLIAM HOARE, R.A., was born at Eye, in Suffolk, in 1706. Commencing his artistic education under an Italian artist in London, he afterwards went to Rome and studied there for some years. Returning to England he settled at Bath, where he painted portraits and historical pieces, which he exhibited with great constancy but no great success. He died in 1792. JOHAN ZOFFANY, R.A., was a painter quite hors ligne, a fine colourist and a supreme executant, who possessed that peculiar incommunicable quality, like wit in conversation, which is able to invest common things with beauty, and to impart the grace of intellect and imagination to commonplace objects. He was a Bohemian by descent, the son of an architect, and was born according to one authority in 1735, at Frankfort-on- the-Maine, or, according to another in 1733, at Ratisbon. He is said to have studied in Italy and to have practised in Germany, at Coblentz, and other places, as a portrait and historical painter ; but his early life, his goings to and fro, are hidden in obscurity, from which he emerged by one of those sudden and unforeseen turns of the tide which lead those to fortune who know how to avail themselves of them. A picture by Benjamin Wilson was exhibited in London representing Garrick and Mrs Bellamy as Romeo and Juliet. Garrick discerned in it an abler hand than that of its reputed author, and set to work to investigate the matter. It was probably a clue supplied by Philip Audinet, the engraver, which enabled him to trace the picture to its real author, an unknown foreigner named Johan Zoffany or Zoffanij (an adjective termination in Slavonic dialects which would make the name JOHAN ZOFFANY 107 Johan of Zoffa, wherever that may be). It was ascertained that this man was in the receipt of 4.0 a year from Benjamin Wilson, who was ignorant of drawing, and engaged him to paint bodies to his faces, and that he was kept strictly dark. Wilson had found him out by observing some beautifully painted clock-faces, which came from the shop of Stephen Rimbault, a noted manufacturer of musical timepieces, known as " twelve- tuned Dutchmen " ; and Rimbault had taken him into his service at the recommendation of an Italian named Bellodi, who pricked the tunes for him, Zoffany having been starving in a garret in Bellodi's house. This is the account given to John Thomas Smith by Philip Audinet, who had served his time with Rimbault, and it may, we suppose, be accepted as an authentic chapter in the history of one of the greatest painters of the last century. David Garrick, to his great honour, did his best to rescue Zoffany from obscurity, by giving him employment and making him known to Reynolds. One of the first pictures he painted in his own name was the portrait of Garrick as Abel Drugger in the Alchymist, which made his fame and fortune. In John Thomas Smith's Nollekens and his Times, there is a letter written by Mary Moser, R.A., to Fuseli in Rome, which con- tains the following passage : " I suppose there has been a million of letters sent to Italy with an account of our exhibition, so it will be only telling you what you know already, to say that Reynolds was like himself in pictures which you have seen ; Gainsborough beyond himself in a portrait of a gentleman in a Vandyke habit ; and Zoffany superior to everybody in a portrait of Garrick in the character of Abel Drugger, with two other figures, Subtle and Face. Sir Joshua agreed to give an hundred guineas for the picture ; Lord Carlisle, half an hour after, offered Reynolds twenty to part with it, which the knight generously refused, resigned his intended purchase to the lord and the emolument to his brother artist (he is a gentleman)." 108 FOUNDATION AND NOMINATED MEMBERS Here is a transaction in every way satisfactory ; it redounds to the credit of everybody concerned in it ; to that of Reynolds, of Garrick, of Zoffany, and indirectly to that of the exaggerative Mary Moser with her million letters ; her admiration was well placed, and quite unstinted and devoid of envy. From this time forward Zoffany's position was secure. He became a successful portrait painter, and was especially noted for his representation of actors in character. Talent such as his, though very rare and very admirable, is a precarious possession in the arts ; it does not lead straight to the goal, to the fountain-head of popularity ; it does not touch the heart. He seems to have been quite devoid of imagination. Unlike his great contemporaries, Reynolds and Gainsborough, who transformed the object before them into its spiritual prototype, who made a strawberry girl, or a peasant girl with a pitcher, live with a life which was not their own, which was true only in what is essential in human lives, Zoffany was tied down by the thing before him, and could not project himself beyond it. He was dependent on the picturesqueness of that object a picturesqueness which he rendered with wonderful felicity and grace, but which remained picturesqueness ; and even his favourite practice of painting actors in character removed his pictures still farther from the illusion of being natural ; they were the simulacrum of a simulacrum ; the imitation of an imitation. His art was exquisite ; it had the sparkle and crisp- ness of David Teniers with the depth and richness of Adrian Brauwer. But it fails to appeal to any but the connoisseur, the man who has studied technique and can appreciate its excellence, and it leaves ordinary spectators unmoved. The painter of imagination is independent of his theme ; it is the quality that attracts. Zoffany must often have been at a loss, as the theme was all in all to him ; and even in the eighteenth century, so infinitely more picturesque than ours, with its powdered wigs and pigtails, its satins and embroideries, its cocked hats and ruffles, the happy combination may not always ZOFFANY IN INDIA 109 have presented itself to his inquiring gaze. Things apparently did not go as smoothly and as prosperously as he wished them, and we find him restless and unsettled. He returned to Italy provided with letters from the king, and painted the picture of the interior of the Florentine gallery, which is now in the royal collection at Windsor. It is a marvel of execution, the satin coats, the gold frames, the furniture, all gave him an opportunity for displaying his peculiar excellence of touch ; but the subject is an unfortunate one ; the pictures within a picture double the sense of artifice and unreality, and the whole scene is not more real and lifelike than the pictures by Titian and Raphael which are depicted in it. It is like his portraits, which you know to be portraits of actors whom you know to be acting. With this drawback, the important one of want of imagina- tion, ZofTany was perhaps second to no painter that ever lived for the felicitous rendering of actual objects before him, for the subdued richness and naturalness of his colouring, and for the grace of his drawing and the breadth of his light and shade. His trip to Italy, we must suppose, did not enrich him or materially improve his prospects, and in 1781 we find him embarking for India. It was a bold and original venture, and we are not informed who or what it was that induced him to risk it. He was probably carried away by the idea then pre- vailing in England that India was a sort of Golconda. The splendour of the Orientals, their muslin garments encrusted with jewels, their silken turbans, their elephants with gorgeous hous- ings, all the glitter of their arms and gewgaws, exactly suited his talent, and he painted many pictures there and found patrons. In 1796 he returned to England with a competent fortune and retired to Kew, where he continued to practise his art, and where he died on i6th December 1810. CHAPTER VIII ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS THE third clause of the "Instrument" says: "After the first institution, all vacancies of Academicians shall be filled by elections from amongst the exhibitors in the Royal Academy." It further states that the names of candidates are to be put up in the Academy three months before the day of election ; and that each candidate, to be duly elected, must have at least thirty suffrages in his favour. But it soon became apparent to those who were conducting the affairs of the infant society that it would be a dangerous, and for many reasons an impolitic thing, to admit not only to its privileges, but to a share in its government, persons of whose qualities both as artists and men they might know little ; and it was accordingly determined to institute a sort of probationary class, which would give the opportunity of further testing those qualities. At the same time it was thought that while, on the one hand, the influence of the Academy would be extended by this increase in its members, on the other, by restricting the number of orders in its hierarchy to two, the distinction of belonging to it would not be unduly diluted. The question of instituting a " new order or rank of members of the Royal Academy, who shall be called Associates of the Royal Academy," was first discussed by the Council on I3th November 1769, and the resolutions at which they arrived, after "V; INSTITUTION OF THE ORDER OF ASSOCIATES 111 two or three meetings, were laid before the General Assembly on nth December, in the same year. They were passed, and immediately received the approbation of the king. By them it was enacted that the Associates should be " elected from amongst the exhibitors, and be entitled to every advantage enjoyed by the Royal Academicians, excepting that of having a voice in the deliberations or any share in the government of the Academy." They were to be balloted for in the same manner as the Academicians, and elected by a majority of those balloting. Their number was not to exceed twenty, and " no apprentice, nor any person under the age of twenty " was to be admitted. Those exhibitors who desired to become Associates were, within one month after the close of the exhibition, to write their names on a list, to be put up in the great room of the Academy, and remain there two months, when a General Assembly, of which a month's notice was to be given, was to be held for electing Associates. And the vacant seats of Academicians were to be filled from these Associates only, who were to be artists by profession, painters, sculptors, or architects. The form of obligation to be signed by Associates is nearly the same as that of the Academicians, which has been already given, the difference being that at the end of the preamble are added the words, "and having empowered the President and Academicians to elect a certain number of Associates"; while the subscribers are styled " duly elected Associates of the said Royal Academy," instead of "either original or elected Members of the said society." The form of diploma, though the same in design as that of the Academicians, differs in the wording, and runs as follows : " His Majesty having been graciously pleased to establish in this the City of London a society for the purposes of cultivating and improving the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, under the name and title of the Royal Academy of Arts, and under his own immediate patronage and protection ; and His Majesty having thought fit to entrust the sole manage- ment and direction of the said society, under himself, unto forty 112 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS Academicians, with a power to elect a certain number of Associates, we, therefore, the President and Academicians of the said Royal Academy, by virtue of the said power, and in consideration of your skill in the art of ... do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you . . . gentleman, to be one of the Associates of the Royal Academy, thereby granting you all the privileges thereof, according to the tenor of the laws relating to the admission of Associates, made in the General Assembly of the Academicians, and confirmed by His Majesty's sign manual. In consequence of this resolution you are required to sign the obligation in the manner prescribed, and the secretary is hereby directed to insert your name in the roll of the Associates." As soon as convenient after his election the newly-chosen Associate attends at a meeting of the Council, and after signing the roll of institution receives his diploma, which bears the signatures of the President and the Secretary. The law limiting the number of Associates to " not more than twenty" remained unchanged till 1866, when it was altered to " the number to be indefinite, with a minimum of twenty " ; but this change produced no practical result, no addition being made to the old total till 1 876, when it was resolved to increase the number to thirty, and make that the minimum. It ought to have been previously mentioned that before resolving on this second order from which to fill up the gaps in their own numbers, the Academicians had decided on instituting a class of Associate-engravers. This resolution was no doubt taken to meet the complaints of engravers, urged strongly on their behalf by Sir Robert Strange, at their exclu- sion from the newly-founded society under the instrument of foundation. The law creating the class was made by the Council on iQth January 1769, and confirmed by the General Assembly on 2$th March following. The number of engraver Associates was not to exceed six, a number which appears dis- proportionately large as compared with the twenty places after- wards allotted to painting, sculpture, and architecture ; but then FIRST ELECTION OF ASSOCIATES 113 it must be remembered that there was no further promotion for the engravers. It was not till after long years of agitation that they succeeded in gaining admission to the upper rank ; the first engraver admitted an Academician being Samuel Cousins, whose election took place in 1855. The total number of engraver members was, however, at the same time reduced, and now may not exceed four, and may consist of less, and of this total number not more than two may be Academicians. The first election of Associate-engravers took place on 26th February 1770, when three were elected, Thomas Major, S. F. Ravenet, and P. C. Canot; John Brown was elected on 27th March, and Thomas Chambers on 27th August, in the same year. On this latter date, viz., 27th August 1770, took place the first election of Associates, when, out of eighteen candidates, eleven were chosen in the following order : Edward Burch, Richard Cosway, Edmund Garvey, William Pars, Edward Stevens, George James, Elias Martin, Antonio Zucchi, James Wyatt, John Bacon, Michael Angelo Rooker. Of these Burch was elected an Academician on I ith February 1771, in succession to Cotes ; and Cosway on 1 5th March in the same year. It is curious to note that at this last election Antonio Zucchi, who afterwards became Angelica Kauffman's husband, had an equal number of votes twelve with Cosway, and the latter was only elected by the casting vote of the President ; and it is further curious that Zucchi hardly ever obtained a vote at any subse- quent election. Five more Associates were elected on 27th August 1771 : Joseph Nollekens, Nicholas Ball, Biagio Rebecca, William Tomkins, and William Peters ; and on 2nd November 1772, the first list of twenty was completed by the addition of James Barry, Stephen Elmer, John Russell, and John Francis Rigaud. Meantime, however, another Associate had been rapidly promoted, viz., Nollekens, elected R.A. on ist February 1772; while Barry had even less time to wait, being made an Academician on pth February 1773. Originally the voting at elections was not confined to the H 114 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS members who were present, absent members being " permitted to give their suffrages sealed up, and enclosed in a letter signed with their own hand, and directed to the President " ; but this privilege of voting by proxy no longer exists, having been abolished in 1856. The total number of Associates elected during the Presi- dency of Reynolds was fifty, of whom nine were engravers and ineligible for the higher honour, which was also not reached by eighteen others ; twenty-three only being raised to the rank of full Member. Of these twenty-three, seventeen were painters, four sculptors, and two architects. We shall now proceed to give some account of these elected Members. EDWARD BURCH, R.A., was the first elected Royal Academician. He entered the schools on their establishment in 1/69, was made an Associate in 1770, and raised to full honours the following year. He was best known as a sculptor of gems, many very beautiful works of this kind being from his hand. He succeeded Serres as Librarian in 1794, and held the appointment till his death in 1814. He appears, however, to have been incapacitated by illness from attending to his duties after a few years, as we find first Thomas Sandby and then Rigaud acting as his Deputy. He was also frequently in receipt of pecuniary relief from the Academy. RICHARD COSWAY, R.A., was born at Tiverton in 1740. Like Reynolds, he was the son of a Devonshire schoolmaster, and was sent up to London to study Art under Hudson. Allan Cunningham and John Thomas Smith differ in their account of his early years ; they both place him at Shipley's drawing-school in the Strand, but RICHARD COSWAY 115 according to the former he went there after a certain period of study under Hudson, whereas the latter makes him a waiter and boy-of-all-work there, which account seems incompatible with his family history. In 1765 he gained a premium of the Society of Arts. In August 1769, he was admitted a student of the Royal Academy, and was, as we have seen, elected an Associate the year after, his advancement to full Membership following in six months' time. His career was in every way a remarkable one ; it seems to have been permitted to him to set at naught those wearisome maxims which prudence and experience are for ever preaching to the unwilling. He kept up an enormous expenditure to the latest days of his life ; he surrounded himself with beautiful and costly things, with jewels and precious stones, ivory and gold, marble, lacquer, and porcelain ; he was seen in public attended by a black page, and wearing a coat of mulberry silk embroidered with strawberries ; he ate, he drank, he gambled and gave away his money, and yet seems to have escaped those baneful vicissi- tudes of fortune which are the usual lot of the thriftless and extravagant. The industry and talent necessary to make head against such a strain must indeed have been remarkable, and it is not surprising, therefore, that in the cabinets of collectors, in the catalogues of exhibitions and salerooms, the name of Richard Cosway should be repeated with such astounding frequency ; though in his case it has happened, as it happens in that of all original and prolific artists, that his style has been imitated, and his name affixed to works which are evidently spurious. In his youth he drew in the Gallery of Antiques, which, as already related, was opened to students by the Duke of Richmond, under the guidance of Cipriani, and was popularly supposed to have acquired something of the grace and beauty of Grecian Art ; and subsequently he painted pictures in oil of an ambitious and poetical character. His oil portraits are said to 116 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS have been feeble and glossy, and whatever his achievements in that line may have been, they are now forgotten. His fame lives only by his miniatures. The beautiful art of miniature painting may be said to be the oldest in modern Europe. In the deepest night of the dark ages, when Art appeared to be extinguished, that of illumination, which was in all essential points miniature painting, shed a faint and flickering ray which served to keep the flame alive ; it per- petuated the memory of what had gone before, and handed down something to the future. In Durham and in Trinity College, Dublin, there are two ancient volumes beautifully illuminated, known respectively as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells, the work of Irish monks in the eighth century. The Canute Gospels and the Arundel and Cottonian Psalters belong to the school known as Opus Anglicum, which had its resting- place at Winchester in the eleventh century. And although there are, as far as we know, no extant examples of the missal painting of the ninth and tenth centuries, the true dark ages, the beauty of the Opus Anglicum of the eleventh proves that tradition had been handed down, and that the art had not perished. With the return of enlightenment, the production of illuminated manuscripts, with their accompanying miniatures, became general. The great Flemish painters, Van Eyck, Mem- ling, Lucas Van Leyden, and Mabuse, lent their hands to the work, and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it attained to its greatest perfection, as in the " Roman de la Rose " in the British Museum. The miniature proper, the portrait on a small scale, dates in this country from Tudor Ages, and in the words which Shake- speare has put into Bassanio's mouth, as he contemplates " Fair Portia's counterfeit " " Here in her hairs The painter plays the spider ; and hath woven A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men, Faster than gnats in cobwebs," COSWAY AND MINIATURE PAINTING 117 the poet was in all probability alluding to the miniatures of his contemporary, Nicholas Milliard. From that day to the time of Cosway the succession of English miniaturists was unbroken, through Isaac Oliver, the Segars, Peter Oliver, John Hoskins, Samuel Cooper, Richard Gibson, and Nathaniel Hone ; and after his day it was continued through Ozias Humphrey, Francis Cotes, Henry Edridge, Alfred Chalon, to Ross, Thorburn, and Wells, and then the chain snapped, for the time, at any rate. The photograph, the minia- ture by machinery, supplanted the work of men's brains ; the child of imagination perished, and was succeeded by a sort of Frankenstein monster in human form but without a human soul. There are signs indeed of a revival of the old art, but in too many cases it is of a bastard sort, the offspring of an unholy alliance with the photographer. But although the sequence of English miniaturists remained unbroken from Nicholas Hilliard to Richard Cosway, his art cannot strictly be said to be a development of what had gone before. We have stated in a former article that English Art had no childhood, it did not pass through the infant stages observ- able in that of Italy, it sprang at once from a highly organised basis, from Van Dyck and the Venetians. Realism, with a symbolical meaning, is the natural origin of the Art of all Christian peoples, perhaps of all Art; aesthetic and organic qualities are a later development, the outcome of superior culture, and that amount of culture was attained in this country in the eighteenth century. Our native artists of former ages, the great miniaturists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were pure realists ; they sought only the reality and individuality of nature, and Cosway breaks away from them abruptly. His works have the excellencies and the defects of the age in which he lived. His characters have the elegance and refinement as well as the artificiality of a society which had become conscious of the rudeness of earlier manners, and was struggling to perfect its own. The barbarian is strictly natural, he conforms to the 118 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS lower instincts of nature ; when he puts on refinement and endeavours to conform only to his higher instincts, he becomes artificial. He must pass through that stage before he attains the highest, and becomes both natural and refined ; and that inter- mediate stage is the stage of the eighteenth century. Cosway illustrated it in his miniatures ; the airs and graces of his ladies, with their languishing eyes and open bosoms, are totally distinct from the primness, the sedateness, and self-consciousness of the earlier English ladies of Hilliard and Oliver; and he never attained to the naivett of Reynolds and Gainsborough, who saw farther, and were in advance of their age. But he was a great artist nevertheless : he painted miniatures without any smallness of treatment, his touch was sprightly and never fatiguing even in his most elaborate works, his drawing elegant, and his treatment of hair especially remarkable. It is impossible to think of a Nicholas Hilliard as anything but a very minute object, whereas a miniature by Cosway, if you close your eyes, will often convey the impression of life-size. Cosway the artist, however, and Cosway the man, present a very different aspect ; in the ordering of his life and the conduct of his affairs there was a wildness and extravagance which are very perplexing to a biographer. He had a mania for keeping up appearances, for making a great show, and it embittered his life to find that people did not always take him at the price of his appearances. His foppery and affectation earned him the nickname of the " Macaroni Miniature Painter " ; much fun was made of him, and, as we might expect, he did not escape the dull and coarse lampoons of Peter Pindar. The great event of his life, second to the production of his miniatures, was his marriage with Maria Hadfield. Maria Hadfield was a lovely woman, if we may credit the testimony of a portrait of her by her husband. She was very talented as an artist both in painting and in music, and she possessed an enthusiastic soul, whose bent turned towards philanthropy and benevolence. Such a woman with a large family would have JOSEPH NOLLEKENS 119 filled the home of Richard Cosway with genial influences, and his vagaries would have been subdued by the example of her earnestness ; but unfortunately for him they had but one daughter, who died young, and the whole current of Maria's being went awry ; she became an invalid ; she travelled abroad ; she tried to find a vent for her yearnings and sympathies by establishing a college for the education of young ladies, first at Lyons and then at Lodi ; and finally she returned to her home in Stratford Place, which had been fitted up by her husband at the most lavish expense, to nurse him through a long and mortal sickness. Cosway in his last years seems to have been a victim of hallucinations ; he gravely related conversations he had held with Van Dyck and Charles I. This was possibly a malady of the times ; William Blake, on his own showing, was on visiting terms with St Paul, and Cosway's quondam friend, the Prince of Wales, died firmly convinced that he had led a charge of cavalry at Waterloo. In July, 1821, when Cosway was aged eighty-two, an old friend, Miss Udney, called to take him for an airing in her coach ; on the road he was seized with a fit of paralysis or apoplexy, and was brought home a dead man. He is said not to have left much wealth behind him, but we have seen no record of the sale of all the magnificence of Stratford Place, which should have realised a considerable sum. His widow retired to Lodi, where she resumed her scheme of a ladies' college, and died there some years afterwards. JOSEPH NOLLEKENS, R.A., was born in Dean Street, Soho, in 1737; his father Joseph Francis Nollekens, or Nollikins, as Walpole spells the name, was a painter of some repute, whose father had also been a painter, and both were natives of Antwerp. Young Joseph 120 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS was sent to Shipley's drawing school in the Strand, and at the age of thirteen was apprenticed to Scheemakers, the sculptor in Vine Street, Piccadilly. In 1759, ne gained a premium from the Society of Arts, and in the following year went to Rome, where he lived for ten years, working diligently after his fashion ; his diligence lying in the direction of learning rather what was profitable than what was honourable or instructive; and yet so great was his native talent, that when he returned to London in 1769, he was acknowledged as one of the most eminent sculptors of his age, and succeeded in maintaining that reputation to his dying day. While at Rome he had done admirable busts of Garrick and Sterne, and these doubt- less procured him patrons on his return home. His election as an Associate took place in 1771, and he was made an Academician in the following year, George III. soon after- wards sitting to him for a bust, and also Dr Johnson. Although he occasionally did works of fancy they were not very successful, and it was to his monumental sculpture and more especially to his busts that he owed his reputation. Soon after he returned to England he took a house in Mortimer Street, whither he shortly conducted his bride, Mary, daughter of that intrepid magistrate, Saunders Welch, friend of Mr Fielding, who was the terror of all evil-doors in and about Lincoln's Inn and Leicester Fields, and who had from the roof of a hackney coach scaled the stronghold of a noted highwayman, dragging him out of his bed and through the first- floor window. Mary Welch was tall and handsome; she had had more education than her husband, and could spell and speak her native language correctly an accomplishment he was quite deficient in ; but she was equally apathetic to all intellectual topics, and had, moreover, a strong tinge of " cus- sedness " in her nature. The annals of their life, the economy of their household, and their intercourse with friends, are set forth in an amusing book, entitled Nollekens and his Times, by John Thomas Smith, for many years keeper of the prints : SMITH'S LIFE OF NOLLEKENS 121 and drawings in the British Museum, who had been a pupil or apprentice of the sculptor. This book is not altogether agreeable reading ; it brings before us, in a very lively way, all the details of a sordid and miserly household ; all the shifts and subterfuges which this couple, so harmoniously united in avarice, had recourse to in order to keep up appearances and save outlay ; and some scenes, such as the description of a dinner party given by them, are really funny ; but it is written in a bad literary style and worse taste. Nollekens never rises in our estimation ; his genius, and he had some, is only hinted at, and not dis- played. Throughout the book he figures as a little, ridiculous, and imbecile miser, who had neither manners nor morals, who had no appreciation of what was great in Art, who was utterly illiterate, who gormandized when he did not have to pay for his dinner, but was content with offal when he did ; who, at Academic meetings, pocketed the nutmegs (that, be it remem- bered, was in the days of punch-drinking) ; who sat in the dark rather than burn a candle, who never used soap, who mended his furniture with scraps of tin picked up on dust- heaps, and whose greatest delight was a Punch and Judy show. It is difficult to believe in the accuracy of this likeness, and it is probable that Nollekens and his Times was an act of literary vengeance on the part of a disappointed legatee. Nollekens might certainly have bequeathed more than 100 to John Thomas Smith, if the latter had really served him so faithfully as he would have us believe. In his youth he had been his model and his studio servant, for sixty years he had been his companion, had borne with "his want of decent manners," and " his natural stupidity and ignorance in conversa- tion," and one hundred pounds no doubt appeared to be but a miserable dole out of a fortune of more than 200,000 to reward a man withal for so much discomfort and boredom. Nollekens died on the 23rd April 1823, in his eighty-sixth 122 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS year, and was buried in Paddington old churchyard. He had known Garrick, Reynolds, and Dr Johnson intimately, and when his long life closed, the history of England and of Europe was turned over to a new page. JAMES BARRY, R.A. The life of James Barry forms one of the strangest chapters in Art history, a chapter on which we should be at a loss to pronounce what feeling it most powerfully arouses, whether it be indignation, contempt, or commiseration. Barry had talents, energy, and perseverance, which he made unavailing by inordinate ambition ; he enjoyed the friendship of one of the wisest and the best of men, whose advice he despised and whom he alienated by his ingratitude. He had the good fortune to acquire a position which his achievements in Art hardly entitled him to, which position he forfeited by flagrant and intolerable misconduct ; and all we can see in him to admire is, that he had a certain stoic dignity, and bore his sorrows and his hardships proudly. He was born at Cork on nth October 1741. His father followed the sea, and young James served under him in one or two voyages ; but he early relinquished his father's calling for that of an artist. To be a great painter was the object he set before himself when quite a boy ; he followed it unswervingly through his youth, and he fondly, but vainly, imagined he had attained it in his manhood. Some elements of greatness he certainly did exhibit, but mixed up with an astounding fund of obtrusive unwisdom. He had great strength of will, energy, and pertinacity ; he had a true perception of the dignity of Art ; he saw that it was not only a mechanical achievement, but called also for intellectual culture ; he stored up candle-ends and sat up whole nights to the injury of his health ; but he was headstrong and intractable, would listen to no advice, and when he got an idea into his head nothing on earth would drive it JAMES BARRY 123 out ; he would have asserted it in the face of King Solomon himself; with the profoundest contempt for everybody else's opinions, he never in his life was able to form one for himself: what he called his opinions being merely conclusions based on imagination and on passionate aspirations. At the age of twenty-one he painted a picture which attracted the notice of Edmund Burke, who became from that hour his firm friend, adviser, and patron. How miserably the infatuated painter made light of such a privilege, wasted such a splendid opportunity, and abused so much benevolence, forms the really instructive value of his life, and invests it with its impressiveness. A correspondence sprang up between Burke and Barry which continued almost to the close of the painter's life, and in the changing tone of Burke's letters, in the cheerful communicativeness with which they started, the solemn admoni- tion into which they drifted, and the melancholy reserve which overspread them at the last, we read more plainly than in the language of facts how blindly and how persistently Barry trod the downward path which led to his ruin and disgrace. His letters in return are indeed quite pitiable. It is hard to describe their tone ; they are the work of an empty-headed, self-sufficient coxcomb, who had no perception of his friend's breadth of vision, not the faintest inkling of the enormous amount of tolerance and good nature which he must have trespassed upon with such an intellect as Burke's. He parades his narrow pre- judices and childish conclusions with the assurance and pompous- ness of a thinker who has mastered the whole domain of human thought ; and worse than that, the benefits he received, unheard of before and certainly undeserved, he looks upon only as a natural tribute to his merits. Edmund Burke brought Barry to London and introduced him to Reynolds, who seems to have formed a favourable opinion of his talents ; he then sent him to Italy, and maintained him there at his own expense for five years. This fact, taken in connection with another very notorious one, that the finances 124 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS of the great orator and philosopher were always in a dubious condition, shows us how deep an interest he took in his young countryman, and what confidence he had in his future. In return Barry nobly determined to do nothing whatever to earn his own living; that sort of thing was beneath him, he could condescend to nothing but great monumental art, and entertain no humbler aim than the complete regeneration of the Art of Europe. What his precise theory and ideal of the art of painting was, it is impossible to determine from his own frothy, incoherent utterances. We may judge that they were tolerably lofty by the fact that he treated Michael Angelo and Raphael with in- dulgent toleration as bunglers in a good cause. He, probably in a vague and hazy way, entertained the highest of the high- falutin theories of his day ; which mixed up painting, sculpture, poetry, and rhetoric, and argued from the one to the other indiscriminately, as our readers may see exemplified by reading through Dryden's Preface to Dr Fresnoy's Art of Painting ; and he returned to London filled with the modest and plausible project of planting himself there in the midst of coffee-houses and coteries, of ladies in hoops, powder, and patches, of men in bob-wigs and pigtails, in perhaps as artificial a state of society as ever existed, when the Beggars Opera was drawing hundreds nightly, and when Strawberry Hill was supposed to be the latest and finest example of Gothic architecture, then and there to inaugurate a new era in Art which should eclipse the age of Pericles. To do it, was obviously to court failure, and it must be confessed that in this case failure was not coy ; she responded to his advances with an abandon and a laisser alter which left nothing to be desired. Barry's life in Italy had been a constant series of broils with artists, connoisseurs, picture-dealers, and everybody, in fact, he came in contact with, and the letters Burke wrote to him, when contrasted with his own vain, fussy, fuming exist- ence, seem like messages from a higher world, as indeed they BARRY AND EDMUND BURKE 125 were, an inner world of the mind, where all was harmony and beauty. In answer to a letter full of abuse of virtuosi and picture- dealers with whom he was at war, Burke wrote the following passage : "You have given a strong, and, I fancy, a very faithful picture of the dealers in taste with you. It is very right that you should know and remark their little arts, but as fraud will intermeddle in every transaction of life where we cannot oppose ourselves to it with effect, it is by no means our duty or our interest to make ourselves uneasy or multiply enemies on account of it." And again, " I praise exceedingly your resolu- tion of going on well with those whose practices you cannot altogether approve, there is no living in this world upon any other terms." But to such terms, Barry never could accom- modate himself. What can exceed the solemnity of the follow- ing admonition, or the frivolity which could disregard it ? " That you had just subjects of indignation always and of anger often, I do noways doubt ; who can live in the world without some trial of his patience ? but believe me, my dear Barry, that the arms with which the ill-dispositions of the world are to be combated, and the qualities by which it is to be reconciled to us, and we reconciled to it, are moderation, gentle- ness, a little indulgence to others, and a great deal of distrust of ourselves." If space would allow of it, we could continue stringing his precious words like jewels on a chaplet, but we must forego the pleasure and be brief. Barry was quite incor- rigible, and Burke foresaw and prophesied his ultimate ruin and disgrace. It must have been a sore grief and disappointment to the good man, and a sorry requital of all he had done for him. Barry, in London and in middle age, was the same man as Barry in Italy and in youth. Success of a certain kind he did achieve. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy on 2nd November, 1772, and in three months, on 9th February, 1773, 126 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS advanced to the full rank of an Academician ; but that was not the sort of success he cared for. The world looked coldly on his merits, and he turned upon the world with fierce invectives and rancorous abuse. Allan Cunningham is indulgent ; he credits Barry with genius, intellect, and culture. He had nothing of the sort ; he had only sham genius, intellect, and culture. Artistic genius works from feeling and imagination, Barry painted by receipt ; intellect surveys the whole field of vision, Barry saw only one narrow segment of it ; culture enlarges sympathies, Barry had none for any one but himself. The situation will be best understood if we explain what it was he proposed to do, and then what he proposed to do it with. He assumed, as a starting-point, that there was but one form of Art, all the rest was fit only for anathema maranatha. The Greeks had come near that art in sculpture, but in painting, none, none whatever. For Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Titian he had the supremest contempt, though he allowed them a certain modicum of credit for having attempted it. That Art he proposed to practise. He did not expect the besotted idiots who compose the world to understand it at first, but he expected that, in the meantime, every facility should be given him in the way of large wall spaces and ample payment ; that the world should look on wonderingly and admiringly at his performances, although they understood them not, until such time as they be educated up to the point of acknowledging him as the great regenerator of Art. So far for Barry's point of view. From our own, these are the qualifications with which he proposed to do it. A very slender artistic endowment, a singularly limited intellect, which seems to have been quite incapable of grasping more than one side of a question, and in no single instance we have seen, could formulate any proposition logically ; a violent temper quite beyond control, an utter contempt of the usages of society and the feelings or opinions of others ; the manners of a clown, and the language of Billingsgate ; and, in BARRY AS AN ARTIST 127 addition, an abnormal sensitiveness and an insane tendency to suspicion. The equation is a simple one, and Barry's fate is the mathematical solution of it. But we must also give him credit for certain qualities. There was a sort of Stoic dignity in him ; he had the courage of his convictions and never wavered. He bore poverty proudly, and scorned to borrow. He resolutely curled himself up in his tub like Diogenes, and railed at all the conquerors who chanced to pass. Few lives are more full of melancholy interest, but we must divest ourselves of the idea that his was an instance of great gifts and a noble intellect gone astray ; his life was only an illustration of the truism, that you cannot produce great results with insufficient means. We have already mentioned Barry's election as an Associate, and his rapid promotion to Academical rank. The high opinion entertained of his talents by Reynolds is shown by his having been chosen in 1773, the year of his election as an R.A., as one of the artists to carry out the offer made in that year by the Royal Academy to decorate St Paul's Cathedral with a series of scriptural subjects. The offer was rejected, but a proposal from the Society of Arts in the following year to certain members of the Academy, of whom Barry was one, to paint a series of pictures for the decoration of the great hall of the building in the Adelphi, though declined by them, was sub- sequently, in 1777, taken up by Barry alone, who executed six pictures designed to illustrate the theory that human happiness is dependent upon human culture. Barry ceased to exhibit at the Academy as early as 1776, but his abstinence does not appear to have been caused by any quarrel with the members, but because the public declined to admire his picture of " The Death of General Wolfe," in which all the figures were repre- sented nude. That he continued to be on good terms with the Academy is shown by his having been elected Professor of Painting on the resignation of Penny in 1782. From that moment, however, his troubles began. First of 128 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS all he insulted the President, who had been obliged to remon- strate with him on the delay in delivering his lectures, he having allowed two years to elapse before commencing them. " If," he replied to Reynolds, " I had only in composing my lectures to produce such poor mistaken stuff as your Discourses, I should have my work done and ready to read." On another occasion he brought forward, in the General Assembly, a proposition that the votes of the members should on every important matter be taken on oath, as only in that way could they be trusted to give an honest and truthful expression of opinion. Once when he was robbed of some money by burglars he posted up a placard to the effect that the Academicians were the thieves. He took every opportunity, both when Visitor in the schools and as Professor of Painting, of abusing the members of the Academy, and endeavouring to excite contempt for them in the breasts of the students. At last, in 1799, Wilton, the Keeper, wrote a formal letter to the Council embodying all the charges against Barry, and subsequently, at the request of the Council, attended in person and gave evidence in corroboration of these charges, as also did Dance, Smirke, Daniell, and Farington, the latter further draw- ing attention to Barry's published Letter to the Dilettanti Society, containing a number of false and derogatory statements about the Academy. It was resolved to refer the matter to the General Assembly, and a letter was written to inform Barry of the course proposed. The General Assembly was held on 1 9th March 1799, Barry himself being present, when it was resolved to appoint a committee of eleven members : George Dance, James Wyatt, Thomas Banks, Sir F. Bourgeois, Joseph Farington, Robert Smirke, John Hoppner, Thomas Lawrence, William Hamilton, Richard Westall, and Thomas Stothard, to investigate the charges and report. Barry having demanded a copy of the charges, it was refused him on the ground " that in the present state of the investigation a compliance with his demand would be premature," a decision which seems open to BARRY'S QUARREL WITH THE ACADEMY 129 question. On I5th April 1799, the Assembly met again to receive the report, Barry being present, and after hearing it read and disposing in the negative of a motion by Copley that " Mr Barry have sent to him a copy of the charges contained in the report," and another by Gilpin to postpone any decision on the report, resolved by 2 1 Ayes to 3 Noes, " that James Barry, Esq., Professor of Painting, be removed from that office," and then by 19 to 4 to ballot "Whether James Barry, Esq., be suspended from all the functions of an Academician or expelled." On the ballot being taken there appeared: For Expulsion 13, For Suspension 9. The whole of the proceedings were then laid before the king, and on 24th April the President reported that His Majesty, " after a long and minute inspection " of every- thing relating to the matter, had signified his " approbation of the proceedings of the Council, of the Committee, and of the General Assembly of the Academicians on this occasion, as having been agreeable to the spirit and intention of the laws of the Institution," and that His Majesty to further show his will and approbation had struck his pen through the name of James Barry as signed on the parchment containing the Obligation, and had written on the margin, '*l have struck out the adjoin- ing name in consequence of the opinions entered in the minutes of the Council and of the General Meeting which I fully approve. George R." A letter was then written to Barry acquainting him with the decisions of the General Assembly and the action of the king. And so ended a sorry business. Whatever excuses, if any, may be made for Barry, it would be affectation to pretend that he had not gone out of his way to meet the fate which ultimately befell him. His last years were passed in penury, and although an effort was made at the instance of the Earl of Buchan, and a subscription amounting to 1000 was raised to purchase him an annuity, he did not live to benefit by it, being taken ill suddenly and dying on 2 1 st February 1 806. He was buried in the crypt of St Paul's, near the graves of Sir Christopher Wren and Sir Joshua Reynolds. I 130 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS WILLIAM PETERS, R.A. The name of William Peters is associated with no definite artistic impressions. Few have seen his pictures, and fewer still remember them ; but the bare outline of his career, which is all that exists in printed documents, is very suggestive of romantic interest. In reading it we become conscious of a human soul, possibly of a noble type and with fine instincts, struggling there in the dim distance of the eighteenth century ; and we ask ourselves vainly, were peace and clearness vouchsafed to it ultimately, as the guerdon of its struggles and sufferings. Peters was born in the Isle of Wight somewhere in the first half of the eighteenth century, the exact date is not known, but received his early art education under Robert West in Dublin, where his f-ather held a post in the Customs. Showing great promise as an artist, he was sent to Italy, where he copied pictures, which were bought by English noblemen : he came back, and painted for Boydell's " Shakespeare," also portraits in the natural course of things. In 1771 he was elected an Associate, and in 1777 an Academician. That is all very intelligible, very respectable, and also very commonplace. What is unusual and romantic is that, in 1784, we find him elected chaplain to the Royal Academy, he having, in the interval, abandoned painting as a profession, entered Exeter College, Oxford, taken a degree, and been ordained. He had, in fact, developed into a pluralist, holding livings at Woolstorp, in Lincolnshire, and Knipton, in Leicester, besides a chaplaincy to the Prince of Wales. His chaplaincy to the Academy he resigned in 1788, and his Academicianship in 1790. It is said that this change of front was brought about by the destitute condition in which he one day found Richard Wilson, the greatest landscape painter of that day, who refused to accept a commission from utter inability to procure canvas and colours. However the change may have been brought WILLIAM PETERS 131 about, once it was effected, and the motley garb of the artist finally and definitely exchanged for the black stole of the priest, we might expect things to flow on in the ordinary way. Not so, however, with Peters. In the year 1810 or 181 1 we find him in dreadful trouble and agony of mind, which well-nigh brought him to his end. He had continued practising his art, probably only as an amusement, when a certain sketch, and the incidents con- nected with it, aroused the indignation of the British matrons of his parish. As we gather, the storm was so violent that he had to fly before it, taking refuge at Brasted Place, in Kent, where he lived his troubles down, supported and encouraged by a good wife, who had, in 1811, been his partner for twenty-one years, and who probably understood all about the customs of studios and thought nothing of them. There he finally found rest and peace in 1814. CHAPTER IX ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS continued JOHN BACON, R.A., though his artistic work was not of a high order, deserves notice from the fact that he probably executed more works of sculpture during the last quarter of the eighteenth century than any of his contemporaries. He was born at Southampton in 1740, and began his career as apprentice to a porcelain manufacturer. From modelling and burning little ornamental figures to sculp- ture was a natural transition, and in 1769 he entered the newly established schools of the Academy, and obtained that year the first gold medal awarded for sculpture for a bas-relief of "^Eneas escaping from Troy." In the following year he was made an Associate, and in 1778 an Academician. From that time until his death in 1799 he was incessantly employed, chiefly on public and private monuments, of which perhaps two of the best- known are those to the Earl of Chatham in Westminster Abbey and the Guildhall. JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY, R.A., the father of Lord Lyndhurst, was born in Boston, U.S., on 3rd July 1737; and when the great picture of the "Death of Lord Chatham," which is now in the National Gallery, had 132 JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY 133 spread abroad his name and fame, and when the American colonists had declared themselves an independent nation, Copley was claimed by Washington and John Adams as an example of American genius; but his father, John Copley, and his mother, an Irish lady, only emigrated a very short time before the painter's birth. He was a very illustrious example of that large class of artists, who spring up as soon as Art instruction has become systematised and regularly conducted in any country. We may define that class as composed of men who have no peculiar vocation towards Art ; who feel no imperious neces- sity to express themselves by forms, lines, and colours ; who in presence of Nature, are not overmastered by any one -peculiar set of impressions ; who are never possessed by an artistic idea which riots madly within them until it finds its vent on canvas. They are men of intelligence and observation, who, by dint of industry, comparison, and analysis, create a style of painting which is their own which, as in the case of Copley, satisfies the understanding, in no wise offends the strictest taste, but leaves the imagination of the spectator unmoved. Copley's extraordinary ability enabled him to unravel all the complicated problems which present themselves to the artist, just as the same ability, when transmitted to his son, enabled the latter to clear away all the entanglements of circumstance and casuistry which beset a legal question. Such art as his is the result of an elaborate education, and accordingly we find that after learning the use of his brushes in Boston, where he painted portraits, he spent three years in Italy studying the various schools, and that sub- sequently he visited other parts of the Continent for the same purpose. In 1775 he settled in London at 25 George Street, Hanover Square. The following year he was elected an Associ- ate, and, in 1779, a ^ u ^ member of the Royal Academy. From that time, almost uninterruptedly until his death in 1815, his brush was occupied with large historical compositions, or with 134 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS portrait groups, with which he generally contrived to associate some historical event, as in the picture we have already mentioned, and the " Death of Major Pierson," also in the National Gallery. This last is probably his masterpiece. It would be improper to apply to it the epithet of great, but it is, unquestionably, a very fine picture. It is thoroughly and elaborately studied, the conception is dignified and in keeping with the importance of the subject, there are no conspicuous faults or blemishes, such as are often present in great pictures ; and it may be said that nowhere, either in conception or realisation, in design or execution, in any part or passage, does it fall below a very high level of excellence and attain- ment. The picture at Buckingham Palace, of the Royal Princesses, daughters of George III., is also a very pleasing specimen of his art. Such an artist does honour to a school, and whatever rival claims between the respective governments of Great Britain and the United States may yet remain for adjustment, we trust that no ministry or minister will ever consent to surrender our claim upon John Singleton Copley as an English artist. PHILIP JAMES DE LOUTHERBOURG, R.A., was born at Strasburg in 1740, studied in Paris and Italy, and came to this country an accomplished artist in 1771. English Art was only forming in those days, it was still in a plastic state, and apt to receive impressions. Van Dyck and Watteau, the Venetians and the Dutch, had imprinted an indelible mark upon it ; the arts of Greece, of Tuscany, and Rome had affected it also, though less deeply, and De Loutherbourg, though the fact is much overlooked by critics, unmistakably left his impress upon it. There is little doubt that Garrick's acting spread abroad the appreciation of Shakespeare ; and while Garrick was acting, the public nightly gazed on the art of De Loutherbourg, who had PHILIP JAMES DE LOUTHERBOURG 135 painted the scenes. In the art of the scene-painter, of all other arts, the means appear least adequate to the results. From beyond the footlights, by the aid of strong illumination, he is able to produce an illusion which counterfeits nature, even in her dimensions. Seen near, and by ordinary daylight, his pictures are coarse, unintelligible daubs ; they are mere flimsy screens, destined to destruction when the play has had its run, and the reputation they bring the artist is as ephemeral as their existence. Their success depends upon certain qualities, on composition and the opposition of light and dark ; qualities deemed essential in all forms of pictorial art, but which are often bartered away for others more popularly understood. All De Loutherbourg's scenes have perished, and we know nothing of the pictures he painted before his connection with Drury Lane ; but those we do know him by, such as " Lord Howe's Victory," excel in the qualities which make fine scene- painting, namely, strong light and shade, impressive design, and finely balanced composition. These qualities he imported and engrafted on English landscape Art. His influence on Turner, for instance, seems obvious and unmistakable. If we can with certainty discern the influence of Claude in the " Crossing the Brook," and of Van de Velde in the sea-piece of the Ellesmere collection, we can with equal certainty trace the influence of De Loutherbourg in the " Spithead." After having passed through Turner, we recognise the same influence asserting itself in the works of Sir A. Callcott. De Loutherbourg's painting is deficient in surface qualities, things which do not hail from the banks of the Seine and the Upper Rhine, but his learned com- position and fine light and shade were, for all that, valuable ingredients absorbed into English Art. De Loutherbourg was elected an Associate on 6th November 1780, at the same time as Stubbs ; and on I3th February, in the following year, they were both raised to the higher rank, Stubbs on each occasion being the first chosen. The latter, however, never took up the Academicianship. 136 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS In 1782, De Loutherbourg produced a curious exhibition entitled " The Eidophusikon, or a Representation of Nature," showing the changes of the elements and their nature by means of highly illuminated transparent gauzes. Towards the end of his life he took to being a prophet and healer of diseases. He died at Hammersmith in 1812. EDMUND GARVEY, R.A., was one of the first Associates elected in 1770, but he did not reach the rank of R.A. till 1783, when his election in preference to Wright, of Derby, who came up to the ballot with him, is supposed to have been the cause of Wright's declining the honour which came to him very soon afterwards, and his requesting to have his name erased from the list of Associates. He was huffed that a " painter of gentlemen's seats " should have been preferred to him. Garvey, however, was something more than that, his landscapes being possessed of considerable merit He died in 1813. JOHN FRANCIS RIGAUD, R.A., born in 1742, also one of the first twenty Associates, the date of his election being 1772, was of French or Swiss origin, and painted chiefly historical subjects. He was one of the artists chosen by Boydell to illustrate Shakespeare, and his works have been very much engraved. Leonardo's Treatise on Painting was translated and illustrated by him. He was elected R.A. in 1784, and also received many honours from abroad. In 1810 he was appointed deputy librarian, but died the same year. THOMAS BANKS, R.A., the first eminent English sculptor, was born in Lambeth in 1753. His father placed him under Wm. Kent, architect, sculptor, and painter, who was so remorselessly satirised by Hogarth and on THOMAS BANKS 137 the foundation of the Royal Academy he became one of its students, carried away several prizes, including the gold medal for sculpture in 1770 for a bas-relief of "The Rape of Proser- pine," and finally was awarded the travelling studentship which enabled him to go to Rome where he lived for seven years. The works he executed there and after his return called forth much applause and some genuine appreciation, but the times were not ripe for them. A cloud hung over this land at that period, how caused it is hard to say. The reign of the Puritans in the seventeenth century was no doubt inimical to Art, but its effects, if it was indeed the cause, only showed themselves in the next generation. Architecture lived through it all. As late as the reign of Anne every building erected in this land, to the humblest, the cottage and the barn, was beautified by an exquisite sense of proportion ; and then the dismal night of churchwardenism overwhelmed the land ; darkness set in in every department of Art, out of which it emerged slowly, cling- ing to portraiture, to the one unchanging and enduring fact of human vanity, as its support. And Banks was an idealist. He had conceived the Greek synthesis of the human form working for beauty, and the English public was not prepared to understand him. In 1784, the year of his election as an Associate, he went to Russia, of all places in the world, to try his luck therein. The great Em- press Catherine received him hospitably. His statue of " Love pursuing a Butterfly " tickled her fancy, and she purchased it for her palace at Tsarsko Selo, and then wishing, perhaps, to have all sides of her complex nature illustrated, she commissioned him to execute an allegorical representation of the "Armed Neutrality." This was too much for Banks, and he fled back precipitately to his native country, where, in 1785, he had been elected a full member of the Academy. He produced some fine things, and designed many he was not encouraged to carry out. He languished for want of sympathy, and we can only infer from the evidence of u A Falling Titan," his diploma work, and of the 138 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS bas-relief of "Thetis and Achilles," in the National Gallery, that under liberal patronage the name of Banks might have become as familiar to the world as those of Thorwaldsen and Canova. We admire Banks, and we gladly credit him with virtues which he omitted, as we think him capable of them. It is painful, therefore, to associate his name with certain monuments in St Paul's which are an outrage on common sense, and on what may be called common taste. There is no law in Art which can sanction the representation of a naval officer dying at the Battle of the Nile attired, or rather not attired, puris naturalibus, and being crowned with laurels by a lady carefully dressed in the costume of the third century, B.C. The highest function of Art is to elevate the mind to the perception of the sublime, and none know but those who have tried that difficult ascent how many snares there lie on either side, how many turnings there be which mislead to the ridiculous. Thomas Banks died in 1805. As a man he was in every way admirable ; God-fearing, earnest, and industrious, a devoted husband and father, kindly, generous, and charitable, and there was none to say an ill word of him. JAMES WYATT, R.A., was perhaps the most fashionable architect of the eighteenth century. Born in 1748, a native of Staffordshire, he went to Italy at the early age of fourteen, and returning to England six years afterwards, was, in 1770, when only twenty-four, elected an Asso- ciate. He had already commenced the work which first brought him into notoriety, the old Pantheon in Oxford Street, and from that time till his death he was constantly employed on public and private buildings. Among the former perhaps the best known is the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and among the latter Fonthill Abbey. He succeeded Sir William Chambers as Surveyor-General, and in that capacity was employed at JOSEPH FARINGTON 139 Windsor Castle and elsewhere. He was elected R.A. in 1785, and in 1805 he rilled for a few months the office of President, having been elected when Benjamin West resigned owing to some temporary disagreement with the members. His election never received the approval of the king, and he cannot be con- sidered as having any claim to be enrolled on the list of Presidents of the Royal Academy. He died from the effect of a carriage accident in 1813. JOSEPH FARINGTON, R.A., the son of a clergyman, in Lancashire, was born in 1747, and studied landscape painting under Richard Wilson. He was one of the first admitted students of the Academy in 1769, and became an Associate in 1783, and R.A. in 1785. His reputation in the Academy, however, depended less upon his skill as an artist, than upon the zealous and active part taken by him in the government of the institution, and especially in the manage- ment of its finances ; in fact, so great was his influence and authority that he was called by some who did not altogether approve of him, " dictator of the Royal Academy." It was not, however, until the presidency of West that he came so con- spicuously to the front. His artistic reputation rests chiefly on views of the scenery of Cumberland and Westmoreland, which were engraved by Byrne and others. He died in 1821. JOHN OPIE, R.A. We think of Devon and Cornwall as remote from the great centres of thought and activity, and yet these two fair counties, basking under a more genial sun, and washed by more tepid waves than the rest of Britain, have produced more than their fair share of notable British worthies. Amongst these was John Opie, or Oppy, as he was hight in St Agnes, near Truro, his native parish. Born in 1761, he came to London in 1789, escorted by Dr 140 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS Wolcott, not yet " Peter Pindar," was introduced to the town by a flourish from that gentleman's brazen trumpet, and was received with acclamations. Out of the remote west, from the land of rude fishermen, and tin miners ruder still, there had come a native genius, a self-taught artist. Every one was struck with amazement, and the " Cornish wonder," as Opie was called, became the rage. The facts were not exaggerated ; Opie had had no artistic training, the skill he showed had been acquired by observation, and by painting under no other guidance than his own innate taste. His father was a carpenter, and appar- ently fit for nothing better, but John, the son, was of a different stamp ; at ten he mastered Euclid, and at twelve set up a school ; he saw some pictures, was possessed by the noble rage of emulation, procured brushes and colours, and travelled about painting portraits. On one occasion he came home in a new suit, with ruffles to his shirt, and poured twenty guineas into the maternal coffer ; all which things were noised abroad, and naturally attracted the attention of a world which is ever more solicitous to discover genius than to encourage it when found. Dr Wolcott, as stated above, brought him to London, and for a time Opie's doors were besieged by eager sitters. For a brief spell he became the fashion, and the Cornish wonder, having lasted his nine days, was then neglected. These things have happened before, and had Opie been as the majority of men, they might never have been recorded. But he was no ordinary man ; he was strictly an extraordinary man. He saw at once that Art had a wider significance than the rendering of a man's likeness, that its scope could not be understood without general culture, and that the speech and manners of a peasant were not fitted to get on in the world. These defects he set about to remedy. He read deeply, he studied Art earnestly, he observed men and manners, and gradually he won round to himself the good opinion of the discerning. How much farther Opie might have got, had his life been prolonged, is an open question. Few artists have ever succeeded JOHN OPIE 141 in overcoming the deficiency of early training ; Claude Lorraine and Hogarth are the only striking instances which occur to us ; and Opie, it must be borne in mind, when he came to London at the age of twenty-seven, knew nothing of Art beyond what Jonathan Richardson quaintly calls "face painting." He possessed the enthusiasm, the industry, and the perseverance necessary to success, and he seems also to have had the artistic temperament ; his rendering is never deficient in vigour, but it lacks the tenderness and subtlety which are also necessary ; he never mastered the use of those difficult semitones which are intermediate between black and white, and without which a picture is only the scaffolding of a work of Art. Nor had he, when he died, learnt to penetrate that domain of beauty in which Reynolds and Gainsborough disported themselves, as their own peculiar pleasaunce ; the region of the evanescent, of the lost and found, as it is technically termed. It was no doubt a less difficult achievement to learn to think justly, and to express himself elegantly and forcibly, as he has done in lectures and other writings ; less difficult, because that peculiar sensitive- ness to impressions which Art requires is an attribute of youth ; but he was a man of extraordinary vigour of mind and energy of character, and he might have ultimately conquered the greater difficulty also. He was elected an Associate on 6th November 1786, at the same time as Northcote and Hodges ; and on I3th February, in the following year, again with the same two artists as com- panions, to the full membership of the Academy. In 1800 Opie brought forward in the General Assembly a proposal for erecting a monument to the glory of the Navy of Great Britain, in accordance with a plan which he had set forth in detail in a letter to the Editor of the True Briton. The plan, which involved the erection of a huge building to contain pictures of naval battles, and portraits and statues of naval heroes, was warmly supported by Flaxman, and eventually a Committee was formed who drew up a report which was ordered 142 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS to be presented in an address to the king. This report went beyond the original idea inasmuch as it proposed the erection of " a Dome or Gallery of National Honour consisting of various apartments fitted to contain pictures representing our achieve- ments by sea and land, Navigation, Commerce, Colonisation and all other distinguished Native Excellence, with portraits and statues of the most celebrated worthies." All the artistic and material advantages to be derived from the carrying out of such a scheme were duly set forth in the address, and it was reckoned that this result could be achieved by an annual expenditure of ^5000. But alas for this magnificent project, nothing more seems to have been heard of it. On Fuseli's retirement from the Professorship of Painting in 1805, Opie was appointed to the post. Two years later, on 9th April 1807, ne died rather suddenly of a cerebral malady, at the age of forty-six, and was buried in the crypt of St Paul's Cathe- dral near the grave of Reynolds. Opie had had many sorrows to bear, and not a few anxieties ; the wife of his youth had proved faithless, and he had put her away ; friends had become estranged, and patrons had deserted him ; but all things had righted themselves. He had found a second partner in every way worthy of him, and he had attained to fame and independ- ence ; he was happy at last ; life was going as merrily as the marriage bell which united him to Amelia Alderson. Did he, like the fool in the parable, say to himself that now he would enjoy himself? We cannot tell. His soul was required of him in the midst of well-earned enjoyment, and we close the life of Opie, which is pleasant and instructive reading, with a sigh of regret that there are no more pages to turn over. JAMES NORTHCOTE, R.A., another celebrated Devon man, was born in Plymouth in 1746 ; he was emulous of being an artist from very early youth, though his father opposed his wishes. To a youth of eighteen, a native JAMES NORTHCOTE 143 of Plymouth and enamoured of Art, the name of Reynolds must indeed have been awe-inspiring ; and when the great painter revisited his native country with Dr Johnson in 1762, young Northcote pressed through the crowd to touch his garment, as Hogarth had done in the case of Pope. Eventually he was made known to Reynolds, and his father's opposition having been overcome, was admitted into Sir Joshua's house, with the rare privilege of working in his studio. There he remained five years, working at the same time as a student at the Academy, and then repaired to Italy, and spent another five years in study at what was in those days the recognised capital of Art. On his return he commenced painting historical pieces, and was employed by Alderman Boydell to contribute to his " Shak- speare Gallery." The scheme of that gallery was suggested by Fuseli at BoydelPs table, and though it ultimately proved ruinous to its promoter, there is no doubt that it had a powerful effect in stimulating the productions of a more ambitious form of Art than that in general request. Like all organised and systematic forms of patronage, it had the effect of developing what may be called an eminent mediocrity. Whether the world is the better for that or not, is not a subject we propose to dis- cuss here. The spectacle of energy, activity, and effort must be stimulating to the world in general, and to the individual artist there is no doubt that a steady stream of patronage is unspeak- ably grateful. It enabled Northcote, by the exercise of penuri- ous habits, only second in comprehensiveness to those of Nollekens, to accumulate a large fortune, which was of no use to him, and which he bequeathed to a maiden sister who had superintended his household arrangements for fifty years. Northcote painted many elaborate historical compositions, which are respectable productions, though they are not very exciting to the imagination. He was elected an Associate in 1786, and a full member of the Royal Academy in 1787, sharing the distinction on each occasion with Opie ; and from that time until his death in 1831, he was rather a prominent figure in that 144 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS society. To have been the pupil of Reynolds no doubt gave him considerable prestige, in addition to which he was a lively, sarcastic, and somewhat intolerant little man, of whom the silent members were afraid. He was an author, had been the friend of Hazlitt, and had written lives of Sir Joshua Reynolds and of Titian. His portrait, drawn by Dance, would have interested Fuseli's friend, Lavater ; it seems to us a typical head for the physiognomist. There is certainly physical contraction in all the features, and the theorist who might insist on its correspond- ence with the narrowing of the spiritual faculties, would find an appropriate example in James Northcote. WILLIAM HODGES, R.A., a landscape painter, was born in London in 1744. His father was a blacksmith in Clare Market, Drury Lane. He first studied at Shipley's Drawing School in the Strand, and there became a pupil of Richard Wilson. In 1772 he accompanied as draughtsman, Captain Cook, in his second voyage round the world, and his drawings were published in the account of the expedition. On his return he was employed by the Admiralty to paint some pictures, but subsequently went to India and made a considerable fortune there. It was not till after he came back from India in 1784 that he was made a member of the Academy, being elected an Associate in 1786 and an Academician in February of the following year. He died in 1797. JOHN RUSSELL, R.A., was born at Guildford, the son of a bookseller, in 1744. He became a pupil of Francis Cotes, and afterwards, in 1770, entered the schools of the Royal Academy. He soon obtained a con- siderable reputation as a portrait painter in crayons, and was made an Associate in 1772, his election as an Academician, however, not following till 1788. Some idea of the vogue his JOHN RUSSELL 145 portraits obtained may be gleaned from the fact that there were no less than twenty-two of them in the Exhibition of 1790 He died in 1806. WILLIAM HAMILTON, R.A., was born in Chelsea in 1751, his father being an assistant to Robert Adam the architect. He became a student of the Academy in 1769, but subsequently went to Italy with Antonio Zucchi, and after some years' residence in Rome returned to England and soon made himself a name as a painter of his- torical subjects and of portraits, and also as a book illustrator. Many of his works were engraved. He was elected an Associate in 1784, and an Academician in 1789. His death took place rather suddenly in 1801. HENRY FUSELI, R.A., though we cannot call him a great artist, was a great personality in Art. It accorded with his temperament and the turn of his mind to assume a prophetic mission, to stand forward boldly in a frivolous age, and to bear witness to the highest sublimities of human thought ; and though it fared with him as it does with prophets generally, and though he had to sojourn in the waste places of the earth, his courage never lagged behind his convictions, and he never sacrificed his principles to suit his convenience. Instances abound in the history of Art of men who have elected to play a great part with insufficient endowment, and though we may pity their fate, we scorn their presumption. But in Henry Fuseli's case we feel only admiration and regret ; his endowments were so vast, and his fortitude so unshaken, that his failure, as failure it was, excites our surprise and sets us to search for its secret cause. That cause may be guessed from a perusal of his history. He was born in Zurich in 1741 : the family name was Fuessly, altered by the subject of this memoir to Fuseli. His father was a painter, but destined his son for the Church, and sent K 146 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS him to the University of Zurich, where he graduated, and was ordained in 1761. But the calling was not to his taste; and though he was very intimate with Lavater, and travelled with him, he did not imbibe any of his friend's religious sentimentality. Fuseli was evidently a strong, restless nature, haunted by the desire of some great achievement, and consumed by energy which could find no vent or opening. He tried preaching ; he set up as a reformer of abuses ; he wrote, and he dabbled in Art, to the extent of making fancy sketches and copying prints after Michael Angelo, but seems to have had no particular determina- tion in this latter direction till after an interview he had with Sir Joshua Reynolds when he visited London in 1766, and conse- quently in his twenty-sixth year. That determined him to devote himself to painting, and in 1770 he set out for Italy, and remained there nine years. Most of his time was spent in the Sistine Chapel, and he succeeded in imbuing himself with a taste for the " terrible style," and with a desire to reproduce it. What he, however, neglected to acquire was the technical accom- plishment, and the profound knowledge even to minutest details of form, which make Michael Angelo pre-eminent amongst artists. In his pictures, in his writings and utterances, in every- thing that came from Fuseli, we can trace the same fundamental mistake ; he makes conception the sole criterion of Art ; he had no other aim than to make painting visible poetry ; he seems to have denied that it had its own peculiar laws, and that it ministered to needs other than those of written poetry. Equipped after this fashion, he began his professional career in London in 1779. The boldness, and even extravagance, of his conceptions, procured for him what the French happily term a succes d'estime. But it went no farther. The Royal Academy elected him an Associate in 1788, and R.A. in 1790, the latter election being the cause of Sir Joshua Reynolds' quarrel with the Academy, of which an account has already been given ; and in 1799, on the expulsion of Barry, he was appointed in his place as Professor of Painting. It was in HENRY FUSELI 147 the same year that he started the " Milton Gallery," where he exhibited forty-seven pictures from the works of the poet ; but though he obtained many marks of distinction from persons of note, and some of the Academicians gave a dinner in his honour to celebrate the opening of the gallery, the public would not be drawn ; the bolt had missed its mark. Still the painter never wavered or showed sign of doubt, but continued to his life's end industriously producing after his fashion, though he reaped no substantial success, at least by the practice of his art. That his comrades, however, thought well of him, both as a man and an artist, is shown by their having elected him Keeper in 1804, a post he retained until his death. From the unanimous testimony of his contemporaries, we can discern that Fuseli was a very imposing figure, both physically and intellectually. He was very handsome ; his portrait by Dance, and still more so one by Harlow, presents a fine Jove- like head, which reminds one somewhat of Goethe. The fair sex was evidently not insensible to his attractions ; Mary Moser pined for him in secret, and wrote gushing but ineffectual letters to him ; and Mary Wollstonecraft fell desperately in love with him when he was fifty. He was highly accomplished, was master of nine languages, and, as he tells us, when irritated by professional troubles, he would find a mental solace in swearing in all of them. His classical attainments were very considerable ; he had read widely, had a fine memory and ready wit, and was quite untrammelled by timidity. His imagination, as shown in his pictures, was strictly of the Miltonic type, but, unlike the poet, he took no counsel of facts. In his flight he left mother earth behind him, and never returned to her, not even, as with Milton, in the shadowy semblance of a mirage at sea. He remained suspended between hell and pandemonium, and his Satanic legions contort themselves in a murky atmosphere, which has nothing of our world in it except its bitumen. He cut clean away from facts, notably those of anatomy, a department in which his creative fancy found an apparently inexhaustible field, 148 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS And here we are reminded of an anecdote given by Knowles and repeated by Cunningham, to the effect that Reynolds, one of the shrewdest men of his day, on seeing his drawings, ex- claimed, " Were I the author of these drawings, and were offered ten thousand a year not to practise as an artist, I would regard the proposal with contempt." Reynolds, we may feel certain, quite sufficiently understood the value of ten thousand a year ; we must suppose, therefore, if we accept this anecdote as true, that he over-estimated Fuseli's talent at least tenfold ; he may have been misled by his theoretical craze for Michael Angelo, or, more probably, appearances were specious enough to deceive even him. Tacitus says of a Roman emperor, " Consensu omnium dignus imperii nisi imperasset," and in like manner the talents of young Fuseli may have impressed Reynolds and others with the conviction that he would become a great painter, which was only dispelled because he painted. As an author, Fuseli showed the same audacity as he did as a painter, but it is tempered by a more cultivated taste. His Aphorisms on Art, published by Knowles, are very impressive for the extensive culture they reveal, but as they treat Art almost exclusively from the point of view of conception, and enunciate principles common to both poetry and painting, they are not of much use to the practical student. Allan Cunningham says of him that " the sketches and drawings of Fuseli were of a higher order than the works of his pen ; " and we have heard from an earnest student and critic of Art a similar proposition, but with the terms exactly reversed. If the reputation of Fuseli as an artist rests on the verdict of literary men, and as a writer on that of artists, it must appear to the reader that it rests on shaky foundations ; and possibly it may occur to him that the entire edifice would have fallen ere this had it not been supported by two props instead of one. He died in 1825 in his eighty-eighth year, and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral, between Sir Joshua Reynolds and Opie. FRANCIS WHEATLEY 149 JOHN VENN, R.A., shares with Burch, the sculptor, the honour of being the first alumni of the Academy who served their alma mater in an official position, the latter as Librarian, the former as Treasurer. Yenn was one of the first admitted students in 1769, was elected Associate in 1774, R.A. in 1791, and on the death of Sir W. Chambers in 1796, was appointed by George III. to the treasurership, which he held till his resignation in 1820. He died in 1821. Of his works but little can be said. He gained the architectural gold medal in 1771 for a design for a "Noble- man's Villa," and to buildings of that description his subsequent efforts seem to have been altogether confined. JOHN WEBBER, R.A., the son of a Swiss sculptor, was born in London in 1752. He was sent to Paris for the first part of his artistic education, and on his return in 1775 entered the schools of the Royal Academy. Soon afterwards he was appointed draughtsman to Captain Cook's last expedition to the South Seas, from which he returned in 1780, and after superintending for the Admiralty the engrav- ing of the prints from the drawings he had made, he published a series of views of the principal places he had visited. His drawing of the death of Captain Cook, which he had witnessed, was engraved by Byrne and Bartolozzi. He was elected an Associate in 1785, and an Academician in 1791. His landscapes, to which class of painting he confined himself, were always very accurate in drawing and carefully finished, but somewhat crude in colour. He died in 1793. FRANCIS WHEATLEY, R.A., was the son of a tailor, and born in London in 1747. He was one of the first admitted students of the Academy, but was not 150 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS elected an Associate till 1790; his promotion to R.A. rapidly following in 1791. In his early life he was engaged in decorative painting, and also in the production of small full length portraits, but he subsequently acquired a considerable reputation as a painter of rural and domestic subjects, many of which were engraved. He is said to have led a very irregular life, and to escape some of its consequences went off to Dublin and remained there for a time. Certain it is that for the last few years of his life he was in very distressed circumstances, and received frequent assistance from the Royal Academy. He died in 1801. OZIAS HUMPHREY, R.A. Of the artists who flourished under the presidency of Reynolds, no less than five came like him from the west country. Opie from Cornwall ; Hayman, Cosway, Northcote, and Humphrey from Devonshire. The last named was born at Honiton, in 1742 ; at the age of fourteen he came to London to study Art, subsequently returning to Devonshire, and then learning miniature painting under Samuel Collins at Bath. It was as a miniature painter that he first made his reputation in London on his return there in 1764; but an accident having rendered him unfit for such delicate work, he turned to oil-painting, spending four years at Rome, from 1773 to 1777, in studying its principles. He then came back to London, and was elected an Associate in J 779> Dut did not receive the honour of full membership till 1791, the delay being no doubt in great measure owing to his having gone to India in 1785, and being absent till 1788. In India he painted the portraits of a great number of distinguished persons, and returned with a large fortune. He still, however, continued to work, chiefly owing to his failing sight, in crayons, till 1797, when his eyes completely failed him. He died in 1810. CHAPTER X ASSOCIATES ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS WHO DID NOT BECOME ACADEMICIANS IT now remains to give some account of the twenty-seven Associates elected during the presidency of Reynolds, who never reached the rank of Academician. Of these nine were engravers, to whom at that period the higher honour was not open, and who, as has been already stated in the account given of the institution of the Associate Class, constituted a separate body of six, and were called by the distinguishing title of Associate Engravers. It may for that reason be convenient to deal with them all at once before proceeding to the others. The full number of six was not completed till 1783, only five having been elected in 1770; and Ravenet, one of them, having died in 1774, the election of Green in 1775 still left the number one short. As will be seen, some years often elapsed before a vacancy was filled. THOMAS MAJOR, A.E. This eminent engraver was born in 1720, and spent the early part of his life in Paris, where he engraved several plates after some of the old Dutch masters. Returning to England, he executed a number of plates from pictures by contemporary artists and Old Masters, and in 1770 was elected an Associate 151 152 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS Engraver of the Royal Academy, being the first to receive that honour. He was also for many years seal engraver to the king. He died in 1799. SIMON FRANCOIS RAVENET, A.E. Born in Paris in 1706. After gaining considerable reputa- tion as an engraver in his native country, he came to England, invited, it is said, by Hogarth, about 1750, and was largely employed by booksellers and in engraving pictures by the Old Masters, and also portraits by Reynolds and others. He was elected an Associate Engraver in 1770, and died in 1774. PIERRE CHARLES CANOT, A.E. Also a Frenchman, born about 1710. He came to England in 1740, and engraved a large number of landscapes and sea-pieces by old and modern masters, among them the well-known views of London Bridge and Westminster Bridge by Scott. He was elected an Associate Engraver in 1770, and died in 1777. JOHN BROWNE, A.E., was born at Finchingfield in Essex in 1741. He was the son of a Norfolk clergyman, and was educated at Norwich. When fifteen years old he was sent to London as apprentice to John Tierney, and had William Woollett for a fellow-pupil. He soon reached eminence in his art, and an engraving of Salvator Rosa's picture, " St John preaching in the Wilderness," exhibited in 1768, brought him greatly into notice. Two years afterwards he was elected an Associate Engraver. His chief works are landscapes after the Old Masters. He died in 1801. THOMAS CHAMBERS, A.E. Born in London about 1724. He engraved several large plates for Alderman Boydell, and most of the portraits in VALENTINE GREEN 153 Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting. But though at one time he had plenty of employment, and was one of the Associate Engravers elected in 1770, he was not prosperous, and being in distress for money, drowned himself in the Thames in 1789. VALENTINE GREEN, A.E. A very eminent engraver, who may be said to have shared with M'Ardell and Earlom the credit of being the most cele- brated exponents of reproduction in mezzotint of the eighteenth century. He was born at Halesowen, near Birmingham, in 1739, and was intended for a lawyer ; but after two years in an office at Evesham in Worcestershire, he abandoned the law and became pupil to a line engraver in Worcester. Thence in 1765 he came to London, and without any instructor began scraping in mezzotint, in which style he reached an excellence which has seldom been attained. His two large plates of West's " Return of Regulus to Carthage " and " Hannibal swearing Enmity to the Romans," were the first of that size and impor- tance that had appeared. Several of his best prints are after Reynolds 'and West, but he also engraved many of the works of the Old Masters, among them Rubens' " Descent from the Cross " at Antwerp, and twenty-two of the pictures in the Diisseldorf Gallery, the exclusive privilege of reproducing which had been given him by the Duke of Bavaria in 1789 with the title of " Court Engraver." Unfortunately, the gallery was demolished during the siege of the city by the French in 1798, and Green's prints destroyed. In 1775 he was elected an Associate Engraver of the Academy. On the foundation of the British Institution in 1805 he was appointed keeper, and was very instrumental in promoting its success. The total number of engravings executed by him during the forty years of his activity is said to be about 400. His death took place in 1813. 154 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS FRANCIS HAWARD, A.E., an engraver in both mezzotint and stipple, was born in 1759. He became a student at the Academy in 1776, and was elected an Associate Engraver in 1783. His earlier works in mezzotint comprised portraits after Reynolds, and fancy pieces by W. Hamilton and Angelica Kauffman, and among his later ones in stipple were " Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse," " The Infant Academy," and " Cymon and Iphigenia." He died in 1797. JOSEPH COLLYER, A.E., was born in London in 1748, and after being a pupil of Anthony Walker, entered the schools of the Royal Academy in 1771. He was very successful as a book illustrator, and by his engravings after works by Reynolds, Wheatley, and others, took a high rank in his profession. He was elected an Associate Engraver in 1786, and afterwards became portrait engraver to Queen Charlotte. He died in 1827. JAMES HEATH, A.E. James Heath was a line engraver of considerable dis- tinction. Born in London in 1757, he became a pupil of Collyer's at an early age, and no doubt derived from that master's instruction a considerable portion of the skill which distinguished his style. His early works were chiefly portraits, but he subsequently took to book illus- tration, in which he was very successful, his rendering of Stothard's designs especially being considerably in advance of anything hitherto done in that line, and considerably increasing the reputation of both artists. He engraved some small plates after Smirke, and also executed several large plates, among which perhaps the best known are " The Death of Major JAMES HEATH 155 Pierson" after J. S. Copley, R.A., "The Death of Nelson" after B. West, P.R.A., "General Washington" after Stuart. He was elected an Associate Engraver in 1791, and was sub- sequently appointed engraver to the king. He died in 1834. We now come to the other Associates elected during Reynolds' presidency who never reached the higher honour of Academician. The first of these was EDWARD STEVENS, A., an architect. He was a pupil of Sir William Chambers and a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists. He began exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1770, and was elected an Associate in the same year. Among his drawings were designs for the Royal Exchange at Dublin, and for numerous private mansions. He died at Rome in 1775. GEORGE JAMES, A., a portrait painter. He was born in London, and went at an early age to Rome to study Art, and subsequently practised his profession in London and at Bath. A member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1770, being the first painter so elected, and exhibited there for many years chiefly portraits but occasionally subject pictures. He was, however, independent of his profession, having inherited property, and also married a rich wife, and his works were, as is generally the case under such circumstances, of no great merit. On the other hand, Red- grave says of him that he was a bon vivant, a clever comic singer, and a good mimic. He died in 1795 at Boulogne, where he had gone to reside, from the effects of imprisonment during the Reign of Terror. 156 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS ELIAS MARTIN, A., was born in Sweden in 1740. Thirty years after he came to England and was admitted a student in the Academy schools. He also contributed to the Exhibition in the same year a " View of Westminster Bridge, with the King of Denmark's Procession." He was elected an Associate in 1770, and continued exhibiting a variety of pictures, portraits, subjects, and landscapes in both oil and water-colours. In 1780 he returned to Denmark and ceased exhibiting, but appears to have come back to England, as in 1790 his name, with an address at Bath, appears in the catalogue attached to eight works. After that nothing was heard of him. His name continued to be included in the annual list of members till 1832. Redgrave says that he died in 1804. Others give the date as 1818. ANTONIO ZUCCHI, A., was one of the numerous foreign artists who in the middle of the eighteenth century found more scope for their talents in England than in their own country. Born at Venice in 1726, he followed the example of his father Francesco and his grand- father Andrea in becoming an artist, studying especially archi- tectural drawing and perspective. The brothers Adam, the architects, when travelling in Italy, made his acquaintance and persuaded him to come to England, where he decorated many of their finest buildings. He was elected an Associate in 1770, but his name only appears on three or four occasions as an exhibitor. The subjects both for his pictures and his decora- tions were taken from poetry and mythology with ruined temples and classical buildings. His chief title to fame is that he married Angelica Kauffman in 1781, but the marriage was not a success. He died at Rome in 1795. WILLIAM PARS 157 MICHAEL ANGELO ROOKER, A., was the son of Edward Rooker, who had a considerable repu- tation as an engraver of architectural views, and also pos- sessed another talent, being deemed the best harlequin of his time, and often appearing in that character at Drury Lane Theatre. Michael Angelo was born in London in 1743. He was first instructed by his father in the art of engraving, and subsequently studied at the St Martin's Lane Academy, as well as receiving lessons from Paul Sandby in landscape painting- In 1769 he entered the schools of the Academy, and was elected an Associate in 1770. His contributions to the Exhibition were chiefly water-colour views of great delicacy and finish, in which the figures and animals are well introduced. He is perhaps best known by the views of the Colleges at Oxford, which he drew and engraved for many years as headings to the Oxford Almanac. At one time he was principal scene painter to the Haymarket Theatre. His death took place in 1801. WILLIAM PARS, A., born in London in 1742, received his first instruction in art at Shipley's drawing school in the Strand, going thence to the St Martin's Lane Academy, and becoming a student at the Royal Academy on its opening in 1769. He had previously, in 1764, been attached by the Dilettanti Society as draughtsman to the expedition sent by it to make researches among the antiquities in Ionia ; and on his return accompanied the second Lord Palmerston on a tour through Italy and Switzerland, making many drawings, several of which were reproduced in aquatint by Paul Sandby. In 1770 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy; and in 1774 was selected by the Dilettanti Society as the recipient of the studentship which they had resolved to bestow on some artist to enable him to complete his 158 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS studies at Rome. Pars went to Rome in 1775, and remained there till he died in 1782. The works he exhibited at the Academy consisted chiefly of portraits, most of them small whole lengths, and drawings of ruined temples in Greece and Asia Minor. NICHOLAS THOMAS BALL, A., another foreigner who found his artistic haven in England. He was a native of Denmark, settling in London about 1760. In 1768 he obtained the first premium of the Society of Arts for landscape painting, and in 1771 was elected an Associate. His chief occupation was as scene painter at Covent Garden Theatre, but he contributed several landscapes to the Academy Exhibitions, chiefly views of Yorkshire. He died in 1777. BIAGIO REBECCA, A., of Italian extraction certainly, but where born in 1735 is not known. He entered the Academy Schools in 1769, and was elected an Associate in 1771, in which year he exhibited a picture of " Hagar and Ishmael," and in the next year " A Sacrifice to Minerva." He then ceased to exhibit for many years, being chiefly employed in the ornamentation of stair- cases and ceilings. Some of the rooms of the Academy at Somerset House were decorated by him, and he was also em- ployed at Windsor Castle. He died in 1808. WILLIAM TOMKINS, A., born in London about 1730. He obtained a landscape premium from the Society of Arts in 1763, and was elected an Associate in 1771. His contributions to the Academy Exhibitions, which began in 1769 and continued every year until his death, consisted chiefly of landscapes with birds and dead game. He also painted views of noblemen's and gentlemen's seats, some of which are EDWARD EDWARDS 159 engraved, besides making copies after Claude, Hobbema, and other Dutch masters. He died in 1792. STEPHEN ELMER, A. The date of this artist's birth is not known, but his name is included in the list of members of the Free Society of Artists in 1763. He first contributed to the Academy Exhibition in 1772, when he sent nine pictures, and was elected an Associate in the same year. From that time his name is found in the catalogue every year till his death. His subjects were dead game and still life, which he painted with great truth to nature, and in a bold and spirited style. Three years after his death, which took place in 1796 at Farnham, where he had lived all his life and followed the occupation of a maltster, an exhibition of his works was made by his nephew for sale at the great room of the Haymarket. This exhibition, which was called " Elmer's Sporting Exhibition," contained 148 works, many of which realised very good prices. Many of the unsold ones were des- troyed by fire in 1801. EDWARD EDWARDS, A., the son of a chairmaker and carver, born in Castle Street, Leicester Square, in 1738. He became a student at the St Martin's Lane Academy, and a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, but resigned his membership in 1770, exhibit- ing at the Academy in 1771, and being elected an Associate in 1773. He had previously entered the Academy schools as a student in 1769. His exhibited works, which consisted chiefly of Scriptural and Classic subjects with portraits and landscapes were of no great merit, but he succeeded on three occasions in gaining premiums from the Society of Arts for drawing, historical painting, and landscape respectively. In 1788 he was elected Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy in succession to 160 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS Samuel Wale, and published a treatise on the subject in 1803. Another literary venture of his which contains a good deal of interesting information about art and artists in this country at the beginning of the reign of George III. is Anecdotes of Painters, intended as a continuation of Walpole's work. He died in 1806. WILLIAM PARRY, A., the son of a celebrated blind Welsh harper, to whom he was born in London in 1742. His first instruction in Art was received at Shipley's Drawing School in the Strand, whence he went to the St Martin's Lane Academy, and afterwards, on their opening, to the Royal Academy schools. He was also a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who considered him an artist of con- siderable promise. In 1770, through the liberality of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, he was enabled to visit Italy, remaining there till 1775, when he returned to England, and in 1776 exhibited several full and half length portraits at the Academy, being elected an Associate in the same year. Not meeting, however, with the encouragement he expected, he went back to Rome in 1779, and stayed there till driven back by ill-health to England in 1791, dying in London soon after his arrival. There is a small etching of his for a benefit concert of his father's, repre- senting the latter playing on the harp. JOHN HAMILTON MORTIMER, A., was born at Eastbourne, Sussex, in 1741. His father sent him as a pupil to Hudson, but he soon left him and sought out Pine, the portrait painter; he also frequented the Duke of Richmond's gallery, where he drew under the guidance of Cipriani and Moser, but he does not appear to have followed the fashion of his time, and to have betaken himself to Italy to finish his education. At the outset he painted historical subjects, but after his JOHN HAMILTON MORTIMER 161 marriage he seems to have relinquished them, with other dis- sipations to which he had before been addicted ; and, retiring to Aylesbury, painted pictures with a moral tendency. In 1778 he returned to London, having in the early part of that year been elected an Associate, in spite of the fact that he had never exhibited at the Academy, and he would have been speedily raised to the full honour, but for his untimely death, which occurred in February, 1779. He was buried at High Wycombe, in Bucks, and a large picture by him of " St Paul preaching to the Britons" used to hang in the parish church, but is now in the Guildhall, of that town. There is an excellent picture by him belonging to the Royal Academy, containing portraits of himself, J. Wilton, R.A., and a lad who used to sweep out the apartments of the Academy at Somerset House. It is well drawn and ably and solidly painted, but the colouring is rather harsh and inclined to blackness, and in fact, throughout it lacks that indescribable something, that compound of sharpness and softness, of suavity and translucency, which are the sign manual of the true painter. JAMES NIXON, A., a portrait and miniature painter of some repute in his day, born about 1741. He was one of the first to enter the schools of the Royal Academy, and sent his first contribution to the Exhibition in 1772, becoming an Associate in 1778. It was at one time very much the fashion to sit to him, and he received a good deal of court patronage, being limner to the Prince Regent and miniature painter to the Duchess of York. He died at Tiverton in 1812. HORACE HONE, A., an Irishman, the son of Nathaniel Hone, the Academician, who, as already related (p. 34) got himself into trouble with his brethren over his picture of " The Conjuror," in which he L 162 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS was supposed to have insulted Reynolds and Angelica Kauff- man. Horace, the son, was born about 1755. He seems to have practised in both oils and water-colours, but soon came into fashion as a miniature painter, and began exhibiting at the Academy in 1772. In 1779 he was elected an Associate. Some years afterwards he went to Dublin and practised his profession there with great success. Appointed miniature painter to the Prince of Wales in 1795, he returned to London, and continued in considerable vogue up to the time of his death in 1825. GEORGE STUBBS, A. Although he practised what must be considered an inferior branch of the art of painting, George Stubbs achieved a per- manent reputation, and solicitous Fame still bears him aloft upon her trembling pinions. If we place him alongside his contemporary, James Barry, and contrast the inflated utter- ances, the bumptious life, and ambitious art of the one with the unassuming industry of the other, we cannot but chuckle and rejoice in the irony of fate which has so completely reversed their reputations. What a lively pleasure is felt by every lover of Art when, in some chance visit to a town or country mansion, his eyes light upon a picture by Stubbs ! It may represent a shooting-party counting their game, or my lord and his lady driving in their phaeton in the park, or it may only be a portrait of a dog or racehorse ; it is always admirable, clear and rich in colouring, accurate in drawing, and firm and spirited in its touch. It is Art, Art ennobling and beautifying, and Midas-like, converting everything it touches into gold. This fine artist was born in Liverpool in 1724 ; he studied in Rome, and afterwards settled in London, where he died in 1806. He published a valuable work on the Anatomy of the Horse, the original drawings for which are preserved in the library of the Royal Academy; they are remarkable for their care and their firmness and precision. GEORGE STUBBS 163 Stubbs was elected an Associate in November 1780, and an Academician in February 1781. But as he did not comply with the law requiring the deposit of a diploma work, and sent no explanation of his failure to do so, his -place was declared vacant in 1783, and he consequently never received his diploma nor signed his name on the roll of Academicians. JOSEPH WRIGHT, A. Joseph Wright, commonly styled "of Derby," probably to distinguish him from a marine painter, Richard Wright of Liverpool, whose picture of " The Fishery " engraved by Woollett has sometimes been attributed to Joseph Wright, was born there in 1734. He was also a pupil of Hudson's, and subsequently visited Rome. In 1777 he settled in Derby and remained there until his death in 1797. A small collection of Wright's pictures exhibited by the Royal Academy in the Old Masters' Exhibi- tion of 1886 was the means of making the public better ac- quainted with his talent, as before that time, his works not being much traded in, and moreover being for the most part in private collections in and about his native town, few were able to form a just conception of either the scope or the quality of his art. His portraits are firmly and vigorously painted in what is called a manly style, but they exhibit a certain hardness, which is observable also in those of Hudson, whether imbibed from him or not we cannot say. The style, or mannerism, as we should prefer to call it, for which he was celebrated, was the representa- tion of candle and firelight. There is an example in the National Gallery, " An experiment with an Air Pump," and several were exhibited at the Royal Academy. These things are more calculated to excite surprise than to give pleasure, and Wright of Derby had not the imagination of Rembrandt, which was able to fill the dark recesses of his pictures with interest and suggestiveness ; with the former they are merely black holes, with the latter they are like caverns in which we seem 164 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS to see weird and gloomy shapes cowering and hiding them- selves. Wright's admirers have sought to enhance his reputation by making much of the differences between him and the Academy, but an impartial examination of the facts of the case hardly warrants the assertion that he was badly treated by that body. He first exhibited at the Academy in 1778, having entered the schools in 1775, and gained a Silver Medal there ; and was elected an Associate on 5th November 1781, receiving 14 votes out of 19. On 7th December the Secretary reported to the Council that he had acquainted Mr Wright with his election as an Associate, but had received no answer ; and on 7th January 1782, a letter was read from him thanking the Academy for having chosen him an Associate, and mentioning that he should most probably be in town at the Exhibition. On 26th March in the same year, he asked the Council for " indulgence " for his two pictures, meaning that he should have leave to send them in after the specified date, which was granted. On nth October, nothing having been heard of him in the meantime, the Secretary was instructed to write to Mr Wright, and, that there might be no further delay in his signing the Obligation or Roll of Institution as an Associate, a copy of it was ordered to be sent to him for signature. This brought the following letter to the Secretary : "DERBY, list October 1782. Sir, I take the liberty of troubling you with a letter previous to my signing the Obligation, to know why in the last Catalogue I stood Academician elect, and now on the list of candidates as an Associate? " When I wrote you in February last, it was my intention to have been in town at the ensuing Exhibition, but was pre- vented by business which was not to be delayed. I did not then know the necessity of either appearing or writing, JOSEPH WRIGHT (OF DERBY) 165 otherwise if I could not do the one I should not have omited (sic) the other. I am, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant, "JOSEPH WRIGHT." The Secretary replied as follows : "R.A., 8//fc November 1782. "Sir, I am favoured with yours dated 2ist October, which I should have answered but have been prevented by absence for a few days. "If you will please to refer to the last Catalogue you will find at the beginning that the Academicians are distinguished by the letters R.A., the Associates by the letter A. " After your name you will find A. Elect, and in the list of the exhibitors at the end of the Catalogue you will find Joseph Wright, Associate Elect, Derby. I am, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant, " F. M. NEWTON, R.A., Secretary. " Mr Joseph Wright, Derby." He appears to have been satisfied with this explanation, as we find the Secretary reporting to the Council on 3ist December 1782, that he had received the copy of the Obligation from Mr Joseph Wright, duly signed. The first vacancy that occurred in the ranks of the Academicians after Wright's election as an Associate was filled up on nth February 1783, when Edmund Garvey was elected by 10 votes against 8 given for Wright. Garvey, it may be mentioned, had been an Associate since 1770, and was not, as has been asserted, merely a painter of gentlemen's seats. The next election of an Academician took place on loth February 1784, and Wright was elected by 8 votes against 7 given for J. F. Rigaud. At the meeting of the Council on 26th March following, however, a letter was 166 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER REYNOLDS read from Mr Joseph Wright, wherein he declined being an Academician, and it was resolved " that his name be erased from the List of Associates according to his desire." The Associate's Roll of Institution contains the following entry in the space where Wright should have signed his name : "Mem. Mr Jos. Wright, elected 5th November 1781, resigned" Wright, therefore, ceased to be an Associate of the Academy, and the letter A. ought not, strictly speaking, to be appended to his name. This is further proved by the fact that when he again began exhibiting at the Academy in 1788, his name is not printed as that of a member. He died in 1797. JOSEPH BONOMI, A., was born in Rome in 1739, and studied architecture there. In 1767 he was persuaded by the brothers Adam to come to London, and was employed by them for many years on archi- tectural and decorative work. Having married in 1775 a cousin of Angelica Kauffman's, he was persuaded by her to return to Rome with his wife and family in 1783, but soon came back to London, where he regularly settled down to practise his profes- sion. In 1789 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy by the casting vote of the President, who subsequently, as already narrated, endeavoured to get him elected an Acade- mician, in order that he might become Professor of Perspective. The failure of Reynolds to accomplish this object led to his temporary resignation of the Presidency. Bonomi had a great reputation for architectural knowledge and taste, and designed several well-known country houses. His talents were acknow- ledged in his native town by his appointment in 1804 as Honorary Architect of St Peters. He died on 9th March 1808. Ou w H O W . s I ^f ."s|^ss w :^i jfJlfilirair PriffVJii- CHAPTER XI THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST "ON the 23rd of February, 'twixt eight and nine in the evening, died our worthy President." So runs the heading of the Council Minutes of Sunday, the 26th of February 1792, on which day a meeting had been summoned to make arrangements for the funeral of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The executors of the deceased President were anxious that the body should be conveyed to the Royal Academy the evening before the interment to lie in state there ; but Sir William Chambers reminded the Council that as surveyor of Somerset House, appointed by the king, he was bound not to permit it to be used for any other purposes than those specified in the grant, and that therefore the request of the executors must be refused, which was accordingly done. Benjamin West, however, who was on the Council, appears not to have been satisfied with this result, and to have taken advan- tage of the favour which he enjoyed at court to have Chambers' veto removed ; for at the General Assembly held on 28th February, and of which he was elected chairman, he announced that he had that day waited on His Majesty, and informed him of all the circumstances, and that His Majesty, while approving of the Council's "caution," was "most graciously pleased to signify that it is his royal will that that mark of respect should be shown, and gave his commands for its being so ordered." Accordingly it was resolved " that the body be moved to the Royal Academy the night preceding the funeral " ; and " that a part of the model Academy be enclosed, to be hung with black, sconces, etc., to deposit the corpse." The funeral took 167 168 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST place in St Paul's Cathedral on the 3rd of March, the cost being defrayed by the members of the Academy out of their own pockets, each member subscribing thirty shillings, as may be seen by a list of the payments still preserved in the Academy archives. There were ten pall-bearers, the Duke of Dorset, the Duke of Leeds, the Duke of Portland, the Marquis Townshend, the Marquess of Abercorn, the Earl of Carlisle, the Earl of Inchi- quin, the Earl of Upper Ossory, Viscount Palmerston, and Lord Eliot. A long line of carriages, ninety-one in number, followed, containing, in addition to the members and students of the Academy, all the most distinguished men of the day. The grave is in the crypt, close to that of Sir Christopher Wren. The monument in the nave, which is by Flaxman, was not erected till 1813. The pomp of that funeral, the stately edifice which received the remains of the deceased President, the long procession through hushed streets where shops were closed, the great men who followed mourning, all the circumstances which have marked that day with solemnity, seem appropriate as closing not only the first chapter in the history of the Royal Academy, but a great era of English Art. In saying farewell to the first Presi- dent of the Royal Academy, we are also taking leave of a school, a school as distinct as that of Phidias, and as remarkable for its individual character, for the suddenness of its development, and for the shortness of its duration. Great men followed after, and the succession is still unbroken ; but these in their tendency, the direction of their aim, in their excellencies and in their defects, fail to exhibit the same unity and singleness of purpose. One great artist, perhaps the greatest England has produced, namely, J. M. W. Turner, combined in his practice the excellencies of many schools, but founded none ; he was too many-sided, his imagination was too discursive, and the range of his achievement too vast, to admit of followers ; he stands alone, as such men always do, a solitary beacon, a pharos shining through the darkness of history, and ENGLISH ART IN THE 18ra CENTURY 169 we can discern none like him. Whereas in that group of painters which constituted the nucleus of the Royal Academy at its outset, though there is great difference of merit, we can discern a distinct family likeness ; they had formed the same ideal, and pursued the same object, and the difference between them is chiefly marked by the varying degrees of their ability to attain to it. However this may have come about matters not to us here, but it is a patent fact, that with the death of Reynolds and the Presidency of Benjamin West, English Art entered on a new phase, in which we see more effort, more ambition, but less conviction, less unity of purpose, and con- sequently also less distinctive character. Those who frequent exhibitions and auction-rooms, though they may not have reasoned upon it, are aware that in the depths of their consciousness there is a peculiar type which they associ- ate with the art of Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney ; and if chance brings them to a picture by Cotes, by Dance, by Wilson, or by Chamberlin, they recognise that type, and mentally associate those pictures with that art. They are affected in the first place by a sense of colour, of repose and dignity ; then they become aware that there is very great economy of details, that the design always aims at grandeur, and when it fails to attain to it, falls back into meagreness ; that the colouring aims at richness and depth rather than brilliancy; that there are no strong contrasts, and that pure white is sparingly used. It is an art which is quite peculiar, and which, once observed, can never be mistaken. It reminds one of other things, it recalls remini- scences of Flanders, of Venice, and of Rome, but in a vague and indistinct way ; over and above these, presiding over, guiding, and governing them, there is a distinct expression of nationality. This art has its definite position both in time and in space ; it belongs to England and the latter half of the eighteenth century ; no other age or country has ever produced anything like it. To this phase of English Art we are now going to say good-bye, and not without regret ; it was pure in its spirit and noble in its aim, 170 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST but, alas ! it was not destined to be a starting-point, but a culmination. But if not to be looked upon as a starting-point qua Art, it may certainly be considered so in every sense of the term as regards the Institution founded by its exponents, which, under their fostering care, increased year by year in power and influence. At the death of Reynolds, and, indeed, for some time previously, the Academy occupied a thoroughly stable and independent position. From being housed in a small room in Pall Mall, it had become the occupier of a fine suite of apart- ments in Somerset House. Its exhibitions had increased in size and importance, from 136 works in 1769 to 780 in 1792 ; and whereas of the 136 works 79 had been contributed by members of the Academy, and 57 by non-members, of the 780, 126 were by members and 654 by outside contributors. The annual receipts from the exhibition had also largely increased, having risen from 699, 175. 6d. in 1769 to ^2602 in 1792 ; and from being dependent on the royal bounty to make up the difference between the receipts and the expenditure on the schools and other outgoings, the Academy had become the possessor of more than ; 12,000 of invested moneys, the interest from which was sufficient to cover any deficiency in its annual income. Its free schools had flourished and admirably fulfilled the purpose for which they were founded. From the beginning of 1769 to the end of 1791, 564 students had been admitted, of whom 50 had attained the rank of Associate or Academician ; and among these may be found such names as Cosway, Banks, Northcote, Russell, Wheatley, Stothard, Lawrence, Hoppner, Beechey, Shee, Flaxman, Turner, Soane, Wright (of Derby). Nor had the charitable intentions which were in the minds of the original founders when they presented their memorial to George III. been lost sight of, from 70 to 180 having been given away yearly to distressed artists, their widows and children. It was, therefore, no infant institution struggling into exist- ence, to the chair of which Benjamin West was elected by twenty- ROTATION OF COUNCIL 171 nine votes against one registered for Richard Cosway, on I7th March 1792. By the fostering care of those who had presided at its birth and had carefully nursed its early years, coupled with the immediate and active patronage and protection of George III., the Royal Academy had become, to use the pardonably magnilo- quent language of the address presented in 1793, the year after Reynolds' death, to the royal founder to commemorate the celebration of the twenty-fifth year of the Institution, " a per- manent monument of public utility and royal munificence." The presidency of Benjamin West lasted for twenty-eight years, from 1792 to 1820. During that time forty Academicians were elected, besides fifteen Associates who did not attain to the higher grade. When West took the helm, the Academic ship was sailing in smooth waters, and nothing occurred to ruffle the calm till 1797, when began the unfortunate proceedings which ended in the expulsion of James Barry, the story of which has been already told in Chapter VIII. This was followed by another internal dispute, caused by a newly elected member, Henry Tresham, representing to the king that the law in the Instrument of Institution, by which the seats on the council were to go by succession to all the members, had been systematically violated, the vacancies having been balloted for. This certainly appears from the minutes to have been the case, but no one seems to have objected, probably because the result of the ballot proved generally to be in accordance with the law. However, at the annual election of officers for the year 1 800, on loth December 1799, Tresham, who had been elected an Academician in that year, was not chosen as one of the Council, a position to which he considered himself entitled, and he accord- ingly appealed to the king. This action of his led to a long and acrimonious discussion in the General Assembly, and to a counter appeal to George III., who eventually, while exonerating the Academy from blame, gave it as his opinion that the meaning of the law was explicit, and that each member should serve on the Council in rotation, the names of the newly 172 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST elected members who had received their diplomas being always placed at the top of the annual list. Nor has any change ever been made in this admirable rule, which prevents the conduct of the affairs of the Academy ever falling into the hands of a clique, however able ; gives each member in his turn an opportunity, at any rate, of endeavouring to carry out his own views on any point on which he may feel strongly ; and enables newly-elected members to become acquainted at once with the business and general working of the body to which they belong. Another far more serious cause of difference arose in 1803, involving a dispute between the Council and the General Assembly which was the cause of a great deal of bad feeling. It arose out of a refusal of the majority in the Council of 1803 to allow the receipt of a Report drawn up by a Committee chosen by the General Assembly to report upon an increase in salaries, on the ground that by the Instrument the President and Council having the entire management and direction of the affairs of the Society, no business of any kind could be delegated to a Committee that did not consist of the members of the Council. Feeling ran very high ; and when on the 24th May, the Council passed a resolution stating that it was " in no respect whatever subordinate to the General Assembly," and that the members of the Council were "not responsible either collectively or individually to the General Assembly as to their proceedings in Council " ; and further proceeded to call upon the President to lay the above resolutions before the king and request His Majesty to be "graciously pleased to express his sentiments thereon for the future guidance and direction of the Royal Academy," the General Assembly responded on 3Oth May, by declaring " that the conduct of John Singleton Copley, James Wyatt, John Venn, John Soane, Esquires, and Sir Francis Bourgeois in the Council on the 24th May 1803, has rendered it expedient to suspend pro tempore the said members from their functions as Councillors THE COUNCIL AND THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 173 of the Royal Academy," and appointed a Committee of eleven members to consider the whole question and recommend what measures should be taken. No record exists of the proceed- ings of this Committee ; but on loth August, the President reported to the General Assembly that he with the Secretary had attended at Windsor, and presented to His Majesty " the address of the General Assembly, with the report of the Com- mittee to the General Assembly, and their resolutions, as well as the vote of the General Assembly for 500 as a subscrip- tion to the list of subscribers at Loyds in aid of those who may suffer or distinguish themselves in the present war," and that His Majesty, after glancing over the papers, had said that they seemed to be very important, and that he must have time to look them over, and consult with high authority. West's report goes on to say : "His Majesty then laid the papers on his table, and entered on the subject of the Arts, their patronage, and exhibitions, for more than two hours and a half." On 2ist November, the following statement was read by the Secretary to the General Assembly : " The Presi- dent, Secretary, and Treasurer attended at the Queen's Lodge, Windsor, November I3th, according to His Majesty's com- mands : His Majesty having graciously received us, said as follows, that he had examined those papers presented to him by the President and Secretary in August last, according to the promise he then gave, and consulted legal authority, and that His Majesty's answer was contained in the paper he held in his hand, that he had committed it to writing to pre- vent there being too much or too little said on the subject at the general meeting, when his decision on this business was made known ; and immediately gave it to me, and com- manded me to read, which I did, and is as follows : "'GEORGE R. " ' By the Laws of the Royal Academy, the General Body have no power whatever to apply any part of the funds belonging 174 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST to that Society, without the authority and consent of the Council ; and also no part of the funds can be applicable to any purposes but those of the Institution of the Royal Academy. " * The king therefore disapproves of the donation proposed. " * His Majesty also disapproves of the conduct of the General Body of the Royal Academy, in censuring and suspending some of the members of the Council ; viz., John Singleton Copley, James Wyatt, John Venn, John Soane, and Sir Francis Bourgeois ; and therefore orders and directs that all matters relating to these proceedings shall be expunged from the Minutes of the Royal Academy. And it is further the king's pleasure that this be recorded, as a future guide for the General Body on such occasions. G. R.' > There was nothing for the General Assembly to do but to accept this rebuff with the best grace it could, and a somewhat fulsome address of "gratitude" for His Majesty's " deliberate attention to the proceedings of the Academy " was drawn up, which also stated that "sensibly feeling it to be your Majesty's desire to re-establish harmony and good under- standing among the members of this Institution, we can best endeavour to repay it by seconding in every way those gracious views." Unfortunately, however, the address was accompanied by a series of resolutions of an explanatory and exculpatory nature which did not meet with the king's approbation ; for although West reported on loth December that His Majesty had on the 4th of that month " received the address with every mark of gracious attention, and signified his pleasure at the handsome manner in which the Academicians had shown their attachment to his person and reign, as well as to his communications to them, by seconding his wishes for the harmony and prosperity of the Royal Academy," it was evi- dent that a subsequent perusal of the resolutions made him take a rather different view, since at the same meeting the ACTION OF GEORGE III. 175 Secretary stated that on the /th the Treasurer had handed to him by His Majesty's command a paper which he proceeded to read, in which, as will be seen, the king administered a final and decisive snub to the busybodies who had been trying to stir up strife and make mischief. "GEORGE R. " His Majesty, finding that the communication made by him to the Royal Academy early in the last month has not been clearly understood, he thinks it necessary to convey his sentiments in a manner that will prevent any misunder- standing in future. " His Majesty therefore directs, in order to shew his disap- probation of Committees being appointed by the General Body to transact any business which it is the duty of Council to perform, that the protest delivered by John Singleton Copley, James Wyatt, John Yenn, John Soane, and Sir Francis Bourgeois, shall remain on the Minutes of the Council of the Royal Academy. " And His Majesty also directs that the Motion made by John Singleton Copley on the 24th day of May last and seconded by Sir Francis Bourgeois (a copy of which he has directed to be annexed hereto) shall be re-entered on the Minutes of the Council of the Royal Academy as a further mark of his dis- approbation of the business of the Council being interrupted by any other power in the Academy. "And in order that His Majesty's sentiments and determina- tion on these points may be more clearly understood, he directs that all the Minutes, Resolves, and other Transactions of the General Body respecting the censure and suspension of John Singleton Copley, James Wyatt, John Yenn, John Soane, and Sir Francis Bourgeois, shall be expunged from the recollection of the Royal Academy. " And His Majesty further directs (as it is his wish to restore good harmony, and to see it continue amongst the Academicians 176 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST of the Royal Academy), that the Resolutions of the General Body, of the 1st day of December (as presented to him with the Address) shall be obliterated from the Minutes of that meeting. " The king orders the Secretary of the Royal Academy to carry the above directions into effect and to enter these his Royal Commands in the Books of the Council of the Royal Academy. G. R." The merits of the case, viz., the respective powers of the Council and the General Assembly which caused this unseemly squabble, are not easily determined ; and indeed it may be said that notwithstanding George III.'s very definite interpretation under legal advice of the meaning of the laws and regulations, the matter is one which has constantly been the subject of discussion and friction. In the present instance, so far as can be judged from the minutes of the two bodies, the majority of the Council acted in the first instance without much tact or discre- tion, and the General Assembly displayed even less of those very desirable qualities. To the President, the king's decision must have been rather a disagreeable surprise, as he had, so far as can be judged from the records, strongly taken the view of the General Assembly. In so doing, however, it is permissible to surmise that he was not altogether uninfluenced by a personal feeling. The unfortunate episode of the " Hagar and Ishmael " picture happened in this year, and there is no doubt that West strongly suspected Copley of being the member who, in his absence through illness, drew attention to the fact of the picture having been exhibited before, and persuaded the others of the majority who acted with him to decline to allow it to be exhibited, although they accepted West's explanations that the picture had been so much altered and repainted as to be practically entirely different from the one exhibited in 1776, and sent an official statement to the papers contradicting a garbled account which had previously appeared of what took place when it was first seen by them. West, feeling sure that this FINANCES OF THE ACADEMY 177 garbled account must have been furnished by one of the Council, brought the matter before the General Assembly, and further aggravated matters by denouncing the Council for having given Copley permission, which he did not avail himself of, to send in a picture after the appointed date, and then allowing him to withdraw it after it had been hung. The result of all this was a further washing of dirty linen in public. Tantcene animis ccelestibus ires. The whole story is an unpleasant one, and redounds to nobody's credit As has been already stated, the finances of the Academy, thanks to the liberality of George III. in the first years of its existence, and to the careful management of Sir William Chambers, were, on the accession of West, in a very flourish- ing condition. On the death of Chambers in 1796, and the appointment of his successor, John Yenn, a consideration of the state of the exchequer showed that there had been an average saving for the last ten years of .400 a year, and that the interest derived from invested property, some 300 a year, was sufficient to guard against any probable deficiency in the annual income. It was accordingly resolved to devote all the future savings, after payment of necessary expenses, to increasing the charity fund, which already amounted to .6000, and as soon as the fund reached 10,000, to give pensions out of the interest derived from it to Academicians, Associates, and their widows, who should produce satis- factory proofs of their circumstances being such as to make them require it ; each claim to be investigated by the Council, and proper discrimination made " between imprudent con- duct and the unavoidable failure of professional employment " as regarded the members, and satisfactory evidence obtained " in respect to the moral conduct of the widows." The amount of each pension was very small : to an Academician, a sum not exceeding 50 a year, provided the annual sum given did not make his annual income exceed 100 ; to an Associate, the maximum was 30, the total income not to exceed So ; the M 178 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST widow of an Academician received the same amount as an Associate, under the same conditions as to income, and the widow of an Associate 20, the annual income not to exceed 50. These amounts were to be increased when the fund reached 15,000, to 60, 36, 36, and 25 respectively, the total income remaining in each case the same as before ; and when it reached 20,000, to 70, 50, 50, and 30 respectively, no change being still made in the total amount of each income. Any Academician or Associate who did not exhibit in the Royal Academy for two successive years was to have no claim on the Pension Fund. The 15,000 was reached in 1809, and the 20,000 in 1817. It was never added to, and was some years after merged in the general funds. The amount of the respec- tive pensions, however, has been increased on four subsequent occasions, and they now stand, for an Academician, a sum not exceeding 300, and for the widow of an Academician, a sum not exceeding 200, provided the sum given does not make the total income in either case exceed 400; for an Associate, a sum not exceeding 200, and for his widow, a sum not exceed- ing 150, provided the sum given does not make the total income in either case exceed 300. The charities of the Academy had been by no means limited to members of their own body. From the first, grants were made annually at the close of the exhibition to indigent artists, their widows and children. 157, ios. was the amount given the first year, one of the recipients being Mrs Hogarth, widow of William Hogarth. Subsequently the gifts were confined to those who had been exhibitors at the Royal Academy, their widows and children. Grants are now made twice a year, in February and August, and their average annual amount has been 1200. The same person cannot receive a grant more than once in any one year, nor can a larger sum than 100 be given to any one applicant. In connection with the finances of the Academy, it may be mentioned that in 1799 the General Assembly voted 500 to CHANGES IN THE SCHOOLS 179 the Government as a contribution towards the heavy calls made upon the public purse by the French war and other causes of expenditure. A similar grant of 500 in 1803 towards the subscription for the relief of the sufferers by the war, to which allusion has already been made, was vetoed by the king, on the ground that the moneys of the Academy could not be given for such a purpose. It is difficult, however, to see why, if the former grant was allowed, this was forbidden. George III. continued to the last to exercise a more than nominal control over the Academy finances, and always considered himself, as indeed the sovereign still is nominally, responsible for any debts contracted by the Academy which it might not be able to pay. This is shown by the terms of the Royal warrant appointing Venn Treasurer, which have been quoted in a former chapter. The Academy, however, was not quite so dependent on the king and his special officer, the Treasurer, after Chambers' death. Up to that time all moneys received were paid to Chambers, and even the investments stood in his name until 1792, when the first trustees were appointed. On Venn's nomination as Treasurer, the Academy opened a banking account of its own, Messrs Drummonds, of Charing Cross, being appointed bankers by the Council on 7th May 1796, and the same firm have continued to hold the post down to the present day. During Benjamin West's long tenure of the Presidency, many matters of interest occurred both in connection with the Academy specially, and also affecting the prospects of Art generally. To the Professorships of Painting, Anatomy, Archi- tecture, and Perspective established at the foundation, was added in 1810 a Professorship of Sculpture, the first holder being John Flaxman, R. A. The period of studentship which had originally been fixed at six years, and increased in 1792 to seven years, was in 1800 further extended to ten years ; and, to continue the story, at that it remained till 1853, when it was again reduced to seven years; in 1881 it was further reduced to six years, divided into two periods of three years each ; and subsequently, 180 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST in 1890 to five years, divided into two periods of three years and two years, the second period being dependent on passing an examination; while the privilege of life studentship which had been granted in 1853 to a ^ students who had obtained medals was abolished. The number of works contributed to the exhibition had risen from 856 in 1793 to 1248 in 1819. Some changes were made in the printing of the Catalogue in 1796 and 1809, and in the latter year the price was raised from sixpence to a shilling. The so-called "Varnishing Days" were established in 1809, at least for members of the Academy. They continued till 1852, when they were abandoned, but were subsequently renewed and the privilege extended to non-members, for whom a special day is now set apart, the members having two or three days to themselves. When the Royal Academy attained what would now be called its Jubilee in 1818, it was proposed to celebrate the occasion by the preparation of a history of the Institution with an account of all its members, illustrated. The idea, however, was unfortu- nately abandoned, and much interesting information of various kinds thereby lost. An attempt had been made a few years previously by Prince Hoare, who had been appointed Honorary Secretary for Foreign Correspondence in 1799, to provide some of the materials for such a history by the publication in 1804 of a small quarto volume called Academic Correspondence, giving an account of " the principal occurrences and transactions relative to the Royal Academy" in 1802 and 1803, together with some correspondence between him and the Academies of Vienna and St Petersburgh on the subject of the Fine Arts, and a description of the public monuments erected to distinguished sailors and soldiers since 1798. This was followed in 1805 by a similar volume on an enlarged scale published with the authority of the Academy under the title of Academic Annals, A subsequent volume similarly entitled, issued in 1809, did not on account of the war contain any correspondence with foreign Academies, THE BRITISH INSTITUTION 181 but gave the transactions of the Academy from 1805 to 1809, a list of the public monuments, and an account of the recently established " British Institution." For some reason which does not appear, these Annals were discontinued, and it was not until 1859 that the series of Annual Reports from the Council to the General Assembly, which are now regularly issued, was begun. The British Institution just mentioned was founded in 1805, " for promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom," by a number of distinguished amateurs, with the purpose of " encourag- ing Art by exhibitions of both living and deceased artists, by buying pictures, and by giving premiums." A project of a similar character had been advocated by Benjamin West two or three years before, to be called " a National Association for the encouragement of works of dignity and importance in Art," and he had applied to Pitt and others for Government support ; and Martin Archer Shee, in his Rhymes on Art, had done the same, but the times were not just then propitious. The idea, however, eventually bore fruit in the foundation of the British Institution under the patronage of George III., a patronage not extended until the king had been convinced by West that there was no intention in any way of interfering with the objects of the Royal Academy. The founders subscribed a sum of nearly ;8ooo, purchased Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall, and opened their first exhibition in January 1806. Subse- quently, two exhibitions were held annually, one of works for sale by modern artists in the early part of the year, and the other a loan exhibition of works by old masters. A school was also instituted to which students were admitted for the purpose of copying the old pictures lent, and prizes were also given for original works both in painting and sculpture ; and from time to time at a subsequent period the founders purchased pictures and presented them to the national collection. In 1870 the Institu- tion practically ceased to exist, and the funds in the hands of the trustees remained idle till 1885, when they were handed over to the Charity Commissioners, who drew up a scheme for founding 182 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST and maintaining scholarships for young British artists to be called " British Institution Scholarships." The loan exhibitions of old masters' works were taken up and continued by the Royal Academy. Another institution founded in 1 805 was what was known as the " Old Society of Water- Colours," now the " Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours." Water-colour painters felt that their works, which had not then the solid rich colouring now in vogue, suffered by comparison with oil-painting, and they decided on forming a Society which should exhibit nothing but water-colour drawings exclusively by its own members. It began its career in some rooms that Van der Gutch the engraver had built in Lower Brook Street, and after moving first to Bond Street and then to Spring Gardens, finally settled in its present abode at Pall Mall East. The foundation of the Dulwich Picture Gallery is men- tioned in the account given of its donor Sir Francis Bourgeois, who died in 1811. In addition to the pictures which he had inherited, subject to Mrs Desenfans' life interest, from the picture dealer Noel Desenfans, he left ; 12,000 for the purposes of the Gallery. This amount was supplemented during her lifetime by Mrs Desenfans with 6000, and the Gallery was completed and opened in 1814, just before her death. In her will was the following clause : " .... And whereas it was the intention of Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois to direct that the President and Academicians of the Royal Academy of Arts should be invested with the power of ascertaining from time to time that the collection of pictures, frames, and prints bequeathed by him to the Master, etc., of Dulwich College was properly preserved and kept, and for that purpose that the President and Academicians should be requested to visit the collection once in every year on St Luke's Day, and give their opinion as to the state and preservation of the same, and that on their annual visit a dinner be given to them in the gallery at Dulwich College. Now, approving as I do of the propriety of such annual visitation, DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY 183 and being desirous of carrying into effect the intention of my said dear friend, I give and bequeath the sum of five hundred pounds to the said Master, Warden, and Fellows of Dulwich College, upon trust to invest the same in Government or real securities at interest, and apply the interest to arise therefrom for ever, towards the entertainment of the President and Acade- micians ; and in order that the said annual dinner may be properly and suitably given, I do hereby bequeath the following articles to the Master, etc., of Dulwich College, which I direct shall be preserved by them and never be used on any other occasion for any other purpose whatsoever. . . ." And then follows a list of the articles, including silver, glass, cutlery, linen, china, etc. The first of the dinners thus provided for was given on 1 8th July 1818, and seems to have been a sumptuous affair, costing considerably more than one year's income from the bequest, but this scale was not maintained every year, more modest entertainments being substituted. The custom still continues, and every summer the President and Council pay a visit of inspection to the Gallery, and are hospitably entertained, the entertainment in late years having taken the more modern if less sociable form of a garden party. Immediately on the completion of the Gallery the authori- ties of the College requested the advice of the Academy as to its arrangement and management, and offered to grant facilities to the students for studying and copying the pictures. It was decided that the best way of accomplishing the latter object would be for a certain number of pictures to be lent to the Academy from time to time, to be copied by the students, and accordingly for this purpose the Academy instituted a School of Painting, the schools up to this period having consisted only of an Antique School and a School of Drawing from the living model. The new school was opened on 8th January 1816 with a curator and visitors, as in the Drawing School. Many changes have taken place in this school since that date, and at the present time copying old 184 THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST pictures forms a very small part of its curriculum, but the loan of pictures from the Dulwich Gallery still continues, and is looked upon as a valuable privilege. There was a short break in the custom for a few years, the Governors of the College having decided in 1867 to discontinue it and to substitute a day in the week on which the students should study in the Gallery. The Academy, however, did not see its way to avail itself of this alternative, and happily, in 1878, the old arrangement was reverted to. It may be added that in the Scheme (1882) now in force of the Charity Commission for the administration of Dulwich College and the Picture Gallery, provision for the preservation and custody of the pictures and works of art is to be made by the Governors " with the sanction of the President and Council of the Royal Academy " ; and that the expenses of management include "those of the annual visitation as directed by the will of Margaret Desenfans." By the scheme, too, one of the Governors is nominated by the President of the Royal Academy. It is significant of the estimation in which the Academy was held that in 1798 the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury requested its aid in the preparation of designs for a new coinage, and the General Assembly appointed a committee to prepare drawings and models, and to discuss the matter with the representatives of the Government. CHAPTER XII BENJAMIN WEST AND THE ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING HIS PRESIDENCY THE second President of the Academy and the fifty-five artists elected during his tenure of the office now claim our attention. Of these fifty-five, forty reached the rank of Academician, including two future Presidents, Lawrence and Shee, with whom, however, it is not proposed to deal till the period of their election to that office is reached. BENJAMIN WEST, P.R.A. The election of a successor to Reynolds was, as those who have followed the course of these chapters will readily acknowledge, a thing by no means easy. Men like Reynolds make the task of their successors unpleasant, and the Academy acted wisely and selected the only possible man in Benjamin West, who was one of the foundation members of the body ; he was in high favour at court, he was universally respected, and all the geniuses being dead, he became eligible as perhaps the most eminent in a secondary rank. He came of a family which traced its descent from the Lord Delaware who fought under Edward III. and the Black Prince. It was settled at Long Crendon, in Buckinghamshire, and in the seventeenth century produced Colonel James West, who was a friend and companion in arms of John Hampden. Buckingham- 186 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST shire, at that period, was the headquarters of the Quakers ; all their chiefs, Fox, Penn, Burrough, Penington, Ellwood, and Whitehead, were natives of the county, and in the dismal persecutions which followed the passing of the Act of Conformity, the gaols of Aylesbury, Wycombe, and Uxbridge were filled with stubborn sectarians whose indictment rested solely on the grounds that they refused to take an oath or to take their hats off. At the side of a by-road near the village of Seer Green, equidistant between Chalfont and Beaconsfield, there stands a square unpretentious and also very ugly building ; before it is a lawn trimly kept, and behind it are beech and cherry whose crimson and orange leaves in late autumn flutter downwards, and bestrew the graves ranged in long rows, where sleep the earliest fathers of the Society of Friends. It is known as Jordan's Burial Ground, and is still revered by the remnant of that once numerous sect as their Kaaba, their most sacred temple. West's family became Quakers. John West, the father of the President, accompanied William Penn on his first voyage to America, and on his second transported himself with his family, determined never more to suffer persecution for conscience' sake so long as there was a wilderness where the savages were unruly only in carnal matters. How it fared with them there we know not precisely. They seem to have been comfortable and well- to-do. Mrs West had borne nine children to her husband, and when the tenth came into the world, the parents christened him Benjamin, in the hope probably that he would be the last, a hope which was happily fulfilled. As the boy grew up he ran about the settlement with others of his age, he picked hickory nuts, eat corn-cobs, and learnt to understand the speech of the red men round about. Those wild fellows would often come in to barter skins for weapons and fire-water, and it is said that when his propensity for drawing had shown itself, it was from a band of Cherokees that he learnt how to prepare red and yellow ochre for painting with. When he visited Rome years later, and was WESTS BIRTH AND ANCESTRY 187 shown the Apollo Belvidere, he exclaimed, " It is a Mohawk warrior " ; which exclamation is suggestive of a great deal that might have been, but which was not unfortunately. The aborigines of America have always been treated sub- jectively ; with one class of writers they are the type of unsullied humanity, brave, generous, and eloquent ; with another they are skulking, thievish, drunken rascals ; and we have no longer materials for judging between these two opinions. In West's day the great Five Nations were still flourishing : the Delawares, Mohawks, Hurons, Algonquins, and Iroquois. They styled themselves Leni Lenappe, the men of men, and from all testi- mony we must suppose them to have been a race apart, nobler and more civilised than the Prairie Indian ; but they have passed away, and no vestige of them remains. The crouching figure in West's picture of the " Death of General Wolfe," and those in his " Treaty of Penn with the Indians," are the only authentic representations extant which can give us information of the aspect of this bygone people. Catlin came later, when the Five Nations were scattered, and he deals only with Prairie Indians. Does it not appear that here was a great opportunity wasted, an opportunity for historical painting in the strictest sense of the word ? What more beautiful or interesting subject could an artist desire than those naked Mohawk warriors, graceful as the sons of Latona ? But they have been permitted to pass away without a record, and the one man who could have left us that record, who knew them and had lived amongst them, preferred to follow the beaten track which had been trod by hundreds before him. On the evidence of three or four of his pictures, we know that West could paint admirably things which he had seen, and it is vexatious to find him wasting his talent and his time in trying to paint things which he had not seen and was powerless to imagine. West was born on loth October 1738, at which time European immigrants were only settled on the verge of the Atlantic sea- board. Behind them was the primeval forest, still teeming with 188 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST mystery and romance ; and young Benjamin, if he wandered abroad, must often have found himself in a forest glade where the sunlight glinted down between the parted stems of hickory and maple, and have seen there, like a bronze statue, the figure of some wild native of the woods, a Cherokee or Mohawk, with eagle plumes drooping from his shaven crown, his eyes alert, and his sinewy arm grasping a bow or tomahawk. What an education was there for a painter ; and if we can imagine such a creature as a Hawthorne in painting, what a world of mystery, of weird interest, would he have cast around that primeval forest and its wild denizens ! But West had nothing of the poet in him. He had all the outward seeming of a native-born genius, and in the little world of Springfield, Pennsylvania, was looked upon as such. He hid himself in lofts, and painted pictures with brushes made of hair filched from poor pussy, his mother's pet cat, and these strange ways invested his person with respectful interest. A certain Peckover, at a prayer- meeting, had felt so powerful a visitation of the Spirit, that the thunders of his oratory and the terrors of his prophetic denun- ciations had brought West's mother prematurely to bed ; and the preacher prophesied that the child born under such unusual circumstances would be invested with an unusual show of grace, and turn out a very remarkable man. A high-wrought condition of spiritual excitement naturally brings with it a belief in prophecy, as in the case of Savonarola ; and there can be no doubt that the Quakers, who left their country and their homes to settle in the wilderness for conscience' sake, were in such a high-wrought condition. When West's parents were hesitating as to the propriety of allowing their son to follow his bent and become a painter, they summoned a meeting. After a lapse of silence a certain Williamson spoke, and declared his conviction that though an unusual calling for a Friend, the boy ought to be a painter. This was looked upon as an authoritative message from the Spirit ; the case was settled, and he was formally dedicated to WESTS EARLY LIFE 189 the profession. He was then presented with two books, the only volumes he had ever seen besides his Testament Du Fresnoy's Art: of Painting and Jonathan Richardson's Essay on Painting two books which, by a singular coincidence, are closely connected with Reynolds, who annotated the one, and was moved to become a painter by reading the other. In course of time West was sent to Italy to study, where he was well received, and looked upon as a wonder. There was a combination of novel attractions about him which were no doubt very fascinating. He was a good-looking youth, and a Quaker who would not take his hat off even in the presence of Princes ; he showed an uncommon talent for painting, had come from the wilds of America, and knew all about Cherokees and Mohawks. A certain mendicant improvisatore with whom he came in contact, and who judged his man shrewdly, as such folk do, lauded him to the skies in extempore verse, and prophesied that he would become the greatest painter of his age. This fortuitous and unsolicited corroboration of Peckover's testimony was very satisfactory to the young Quaker, who looked upon himself thenceforth as predestined to greatness ; he certainly possessed talent which might have carried him very far, had other ingredients of his mind been either more liberally supplied or more carefully assorted. He came to England in 1763, apparently with no view of settling there, but his star was in the ascendant, he was intro- duced to the young king, George III., who took a liking to him ; West's Quaker sedateness and gravity, the unimpeachable correctness of his principles, found ready sympathy with the virtuous monarch, a sympathy which was not likely to be disturbed by a little general dulness. West was induced to settle in London, and for nearly thirty years occupied much the same position at the Court of St James's as Velasquez did at that of Madrid, with the exception of the deadly Aposentadorship. Of course he was the object of envy, and consequently of calumny ; Wilson growled and Barry fumed, and even the great Reynolds 190 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST is said to have been nettled and to have complained, or allowed his friends to complain for him, that though he had the painting of Church and State, that of Royalty belonged exclusively to West. West planned a cycle of great works, many of which he executed for the king. Nothing came amiss to him ; from Edward the Black Prince to the Recording Angel, he was equal to them all. He was commissioned, at his own request, to illustrate " Revealed Religion " in a series of great works for the king's chapel at Windsor, and would indeed have undertaken to illustrate anything on earth below or in heaven above, so strong was his belief that his imagination was equal to any task, whether it was to depict the battlefields of Crecy and Poitiers or the supernal grandeurs of the Apocalypse ; and yet he could do nothing but what he had seen, and that he could do supremely well. His " Death of General Wolfe," his " Treaty of Penn with the Indians," his "Battle of La Hogue " and the "Quaker Family," which must be a beautiful picture, but which we know only from engravings, are works of a very high order of merit. He tells his story clearly and with probability ; at the same time his design is rich and imposing, his drawing truthful and severe, and his execution precise and scholarly in a high degree. All the rest of his works, scriptural, historical, and allegorical, only deserve to be forgotten, a consummation which they have pro- bably already attained. This infirmity of his judgment went on increasing, as the scale of his works went on expanding, with advancing years. The " Christ healing the Sick," in the National Gallery, which is painted on a canvas 9 feet high by 14 feet wide, represents the medium size which he affected when only sixty- four years of age, and was far exceeded later on in his life. Of what strange stuff are mortals made ! and what is this passion, disease, or mania which we call ambition? and how shall it be regulated ? On the one hand it is the special attribute of great men, and the means which lifts them to greatness ; on the other it is the ruin and the stumbling-block of fools ; it is light and it is darkness ; to some it is the beacon which guides WESTS PATRONAGE BY GEORGE III. 191 them surely on their course ; to others it is night which over- takes them and makes them wander from their road, as in the case of Benjamin West. We are judging by the wisdom which comes after the event ; during his lifetime he especially, and his contemporaries partially, thought differently ; there was no sign of remonstrance, and his professional career was uniformly successful as long as the king retained his reason. In 1801, when the first symptoms of his malady showed themselves, there was a temporary cessation of West's pension and employment ; when the king recovered he was told " to set to work again," but it was not for long. After the death of Princess Amelia, dark- ness and chaos settled over the good king's wits. As Thackeray says, " All light, all reason, all sound of human voices, all the pleasures of this world of God were taken from him," and West's occupation was gone. The fallen favourite, as is the way of the world, was attacked and slandered. The press joined issue with him on his emoluments, endeavouring to prove that he had plundered the king to the amount of ^"34,000 ; to which he answered, calmly and triumphantly, that he had indeed received money amounting approximately to that sum, but it was earned by thirty-three years of untiring labour. It is curious to think of West's intercourse with George III., at whose court etiquette and all humdrum observances were most rigorously insisted on. Did he keep his hat on, as he had done before the Duke of Parma, or did he imagine that he had received a special dispensation from the Spirit, which gave him liberty to consult his worldly interests and to conform to general usage in the interests of high Art? On this point we can arrive at no information from biographers. Perhaps he may have thought that, because in the community of Springfield, in consequence of prophecies and the signs of genius which he showed, he had been allowed to relax the strict rigour of Quaker tenets, he was therefore free to set their observances at naught whenever they interfered with his prospects. On these points, as we have said, we know nothing, but certainly in West's letters 192 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST and in his utterances recorded by his friend Gait, there is no trace of " thee " and " thou " or of other Quaker mannerisms. Benjamin West was, as we have said, elected President of the Royal Academy in March 1792, and held the office with a short interval till 1820. On his election the Duke of Gloucester called upon him, to intimate to him that the king was desirous of conferring the honour of knighthood upon him. His answer is remarkable, as coming from a man of fifty-four, and as show- ing that in all those years, and with his opportunities, he had not succeeded in picking up either tact, adroitness, or knowledge of the world. He wanted a baronetcy and a pension, failing which he would have been glad of knighthood, but he played his cards so badly that he got neither. Allan Cunningham says that " he was the first and last President of our Academy who found spelling a difficulty " ; and he also cynically implies that West, by a certain sedateness and gravity of manner which came of his Quaker training, and by observing a prudent silence, gained a reputation for latent wisdom, which he would have sacrificed had he been loqua- cious. He was certainly a benevolent, generous man, but he was utterly colourless, unless we accept a strong infusion of vanity as giving him a characteristic tint ; he was cold and passionless, and succeeded, probably without any difficulty, in living up to the virtuous and altruistic platitudes with which his mind was stored As President, he appears to have been on the whole decidedly popular ; he was suave, and worried no one, though on one occasion, as recorded in the last chapter, he displayed a sad lack of discretion and temper. He was very popular, too, among artists generally, as he was always ready to advise, and, when the occasion arose, to assist with his purse. When he went to Paris after the peace of Amiens to see the Musee Napoleon, he lost his head slightly ; he lauded Buona- parte to the skies, who, like the improvisatore he had met in his youth, had shrewdly guessed the way to take him. On his ROBERT SMIRKE 193 return he was either conscious that he had made a fool of himself, or he imagined that others thought so ; this, coupled with the fact that at the annual election on loth December 1804, on ty twenty votes were given for him, as against seven for James Wyatt, the architect, caused him to resign the Presidency, whereupon Wyatt was elected to succeed him, but Wyatt's election was never formally approved by the king, and in the following year, 1 806, West was re-elected, and continued to hold office till his death on the I ith of March 1820. The story which is told of what happened, according to some at the election of 1803, and according to others at that of 1806, viz., that Fuseli voted for Mary Moser, or rather, as she then was, Mrs Lloyd, on the ground that "one old woman was as good as another," is ben trovato but non vero, as there is no record in the Academy minutes of any vote having ever been recorded for that lady at the annual presidential election. West was buried in St Paul's, his grave being in the crypt near that of Reynolds. His body lay in state at Somerset House, and the arrangements for the funeral, which took place on the 1 9th of March, were the same as for that of his illustrious predecessor. ROBERT SMIRKE, R.A., was born at Wigton, near Carlisle, in 1752. He became a student of the Royal Academy in 1772, and four years after- wards commenced his long career as an exhibitor. It has been said that " all Smirke's pictures are of an imaginative character, and the subjects generally selected from the Scriptures, Shake- speare, Cervantes, the Arabian Nights, etc." These have frequently been the sources of works of an "imaginative character," even unto this day. We are not aware ot any peculiarly imaginative quality with which Smirke succeeded in heightening the works he selected for illustration, and, indeed, we are bound to confess ourselves somewhat ignorant of his N 194 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST pictures. We know him by engravings after his works, and even there we find it difficult by an act of memory to differentiate his contributions to periodical illustration from those of Westall, Liverseege, and others, all of which seem grouped together, forming a distinct category. They belong to a period prior to that when archaeology became a handmaid of painting. The fundamental tenets by which they were guided in the matter of costume seem to have been, that all Europeans whatsoever, who lived before the eighteenth century, wore knee-breeches, padded round the loins, and that all Asiatics wore dressing-gowns and slippers. In an age which above all things craves for accuracy, we may be excused if we demur that this rule must have had exceptions. Smirke was elected Associate in 1791, and Royal Acade- mician 1793. In 1804 he was elected Keeper in place of Wilton, but the king objected to the nomination, because of Smirke's ultra-radical principles in politics, and he was not installed. The entry in the minutes of the General Assembly of 20th November 1804, reads thus: "The President then produced the Paper he had presented to His Majesty informing him of the election of Robert Smirke, Esq., to the office of Keeper of the Royal Academy, to which His Majesty was pleased to write as follows : ' Rejected, must proceed to a New Election.' " Smirke lived to the age of ninety-three, and died in 1845. SIR PETER FRANCIS BOURGEOIS, R.A. Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois, who was of Swiss descent, was born in London in 1756. His father was a watchmaker in St Martin's Lane. The accident of a picture dealer named Noel Desenfans coming to lodge in his father's house, seems to have influenced him in the choice of the arts as a profession. In 1776 Bourgeois travelled on the Continent, and went to Poland, carrying letters of introduction from Desenfans to King SIR FRANCIS BOURGEOIS 195 Stanislas, who conferred on him the knighthood of the Order of Merit, and this honour was subsequently confirmed to him by King George III. On his return to England he practised his profession, and was elected an Associate in 1787 and an Acade- mician in 1793. He painted landscapes in the style of De Loutherbourg, whose pupil he had been, and when we have subtracted from the art of De Loutherbourg what invention and imagination he possessed, and all his technical dexterity, it leaves us but a poor residuum wherewithal to furbish forth an eulogium of that of Bourgeois. But if not remarkable as a painter, Bourgeois is noteworthy to us as the donor of the Dulwich collection. The visitors who frequent that Gallery are probably little mindful of the storms which drifted those Art treasures into their present haven. To account for their presence there, they would have to search backwards into troublous times, to the days of the Great Frederick of Prussia and the partition of Poland. Their history is curious and mysterious. They were purchased for Stanislas Poniatowsky, the last King of Poland, by the picture dealer of whom we have already spoken, Noel Desenfans. Stanislas seems to have supplied certain sums of money for this purpose, but he does not appear either before or after his abdication to have claimed the pictures, and they remained with Desenfans, and were left by him at his death, in 1 804, to his friend Bourgeois, who bequeathed them to Dulwich College, together with a sum of 10,000 to build and keep in repair a gallery for them and 2000 to provide for the care of them. The gallery was built by Sir John Soane in 1812, and the remains of Bourgeois, who died of a fall from his horse in 1811, and of Desenfans were buried in a chapel attached. An account of the connection of the Academy with the Dulwich Gallery is given in Chapter XL 196 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST THOMAS STOTHARD, R.A., was the most eminent English painter of the eighteenth century in the department of historical painting ; eminent, that is, not in the sense that he was the most widely celebrated or the most richly rewarded, but because he exhibited the most genuine inspiration and the widest knowledge of the resources of his art. His life, written by Mrs Bray, should be a very instructive book, though it is not presumably an entertaining one. There is something in the nature of the material which would have presented insuperable obstacles to writers more gifted and more sparkling than Mrs Bray. The contemplation of undeviating regularity, of scrupulous probity, of thrift, industry, perseverance, and of talent triumphing over obstacles, is probably the highest gratification of the perfect mind ; but it fails unfortunately to touch the heart-strings, to arouse to music the subtle chords of sympathy, in the hearts of ordinary mortals. Stothard was born in London in 1755. His father kept an inn in Long Acre, under the sign of the " Black Horse," and continued to exercise that industry until his son had attained the age of fourteen, when he was called away, leaving his widow and young Stothard a sum of money barely sufficient for their maintenance. The boy's share, Mrs Bray informs us, was 1700, upon the interest of which he contrived for years to subsist He was bound apprentice to a pattern drawer for brocade silks at Spitalfields, but that employment failed him after a year, and he tried his hand at drawing illustrations in the Toivn and County Magazine. Whether by luck or good guidance the round peg had fallen into the round hole, and from that date until that of his death, he never lacked employ- ment as an illustrator. There are five large folio volumes in the library of the Royal Academy filled with engravings after his designs ; they are mostly adapted to an octavo volume, and show great versatility. His contemporary Chodowiecky, in Germany, was filling every publication of his day with THOMAS STOTHARD 197 exquisitely dainty engravings, which are the delight of all students of costume, and though we are not informed of the fact that Stothard was acquainted with the productions of a German artist who was his senior by some years, the internal evidence points strongly to the fact. Admitting it to be the case, Stothard is still the better man ; though he was far behind Chodowiecky in artistic accomplishment, in scholarly drawing, and in truth to nature generally, he possessed what the other had not, an elevation of sentiment, and a sense of beauty. To him had been given " Spiritum Graiae tenuem Camenae," and that raised him far above his rival. In 1777, at the age of twenty-two, some years after he had commenced work as an illustrator, Stothard became a student at the Royal Academy, and exhibited his first picture, " Ajax defending the dead body of Patroclus," in the following year. His pictures possess all the qualities of his designs, but our enjoyment of them is marred by a certain sense of luridness and over-lusciousness in colour. It would have been, perhaps, more judicious on his part had he introduced the greys of nature, as a touch of sordid earth, as a foothold to give stability and probability to his ideal figures ; as it is they float in the regions of fancy, and of such abstract beauties as those of crimson and orange, and there is little doubt that in this age they are too far removed from realism to be popular. But his art is not cold and pedantic as is that of West, it is warmed by a genuine touch of inspiration, it is never commonplace or vulgar, and always graceful ; we are tempted to say, if it is unreal, so much the worse for the state of things ; that is the way they should be. Stothard's life was too good for the most of us, but he lived it, and we know that he followed a true ideal as far as that was concerned ; may he not have been equally well inspired in his art ? The details of Stothard's life are soon summed up: like nations, he was happy in leaving no annals. Very early in his 198 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST life he bought a house, No. 28 Newman Street, out of the profits of his earnings as an illustrator, and the interest on 1700. There he lived until his death in 1834. Thither in a very calm and sedate manner he introduced his bride, Rebecca ; there he laboured unceasingly in a room, which in these days of palatial studios would appear little better than a garret, and built up a reputation which we are inclined to think will never quite cease to be, however times and manners may change, or fashion shift her motley garb. Stothard was elected an Associate in 1791, and a Royal Academician in 1794. In 1814 he succeeded Burch as Librarian, and held that office until his death. The design hitherto in use on the reverse of the gold medals awarded by the Royal Academy is from a drawing by Stothard. RICHARD WESTALL, R.A., like many other artists, owes his name and place to the fact that he contrived to supply a demand which arose in the circum- stances of his time. He, no doubt, often engrossed his mind with the conception of great works in painting, and occasionally essayed to give his dreams reality, but these things he found of no avail, and he became by the necessities of the times an illustrator of books, such as Crabbe's Poems, Moore's Loves of the Angels. He also executed several of the designs for Boydell's Milton and Shakespeare galleries, and a series of illustrations of the services of the Church of England. As we have said in the notice of Smirke, it is difficult to distinguish him from his contemporaries. Naturalism, in England at least, was not the spirit of his age, and it is difficult now to be judicial, to affirm that Westall had more grace of a conventional kind or more grandeur in certain prescribed conditions than others ; to us they appear all alike in their artificiality. Their lines all flow in obedience to the same imperious demand for elegance ; there JOHN HOPPNER 199 is no contrast, no rest to the aesthetic faculty, it is surfeited and tired out. Westall was born at Hertford in 1765, and after being apprenticed to an engraver on silver, entered, in 1785, the schools of the Royal Academy. He was elected Associate in 1792, and Royal Academician in 1794, the same year as his friend, Lawrence (Sir Thomas), with whom he lived for many years at a house in Soho Square. Perhaps his chief title to fame is that he gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria in her early youth. He died on 4th December 1836. JOHN HOPPNER, R.A., was born in London in 1758. He bore his mother's name, and in his childhood toddled about the passages and corridors of St James's Palace, where he was looked upon as a little chance person. He became a student of the Royal Academy at the age of sixteen, and when he started on his career as portrait painter, he found timely little streams of patronage flowing in which made matters tolerably smooth for him. Eventually, he became fashionable, and divided the town with Lawrence, as Romney had done with Reynolds. He was elected Associate in 1793, and R.A. in 1795, and lived for the greater part of his life in Charles Street, St James's, where he died in 1810, at the early age of forty-nine. With regard to Hoppner's merits as a painter, what we have said before holds good here, the art of the English portrait painters of the latter half of the eighteenth century is peculiar and unlike any other, its features are very salient and easily recognisable. It is very dignified, demure, and sober, and also rich and mellow. If we try to judge of it by the standard of Bronzino, Raphael, Titian, Rubens, and Van Dyck, we shall not estimate it fairly, and this process would be more par- ticularly damaging to the art of Hoppner. He takes his place, justly, as we think, amongst the four great masters 200 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST of the early English school. Reynolds is at the head of it, Gainsborough towers on another eminence, after them, come Romney and Hoppner ; we leave our readers to adjust the balance between them. SAWREY GILPIN, R.A., was born at Carlisle in 1733. He was sent to London with a view to a business career, but soon abandoned it for Art, and in 1849 became the pupil of Samuel Scott the marine painter. His inclination, however, led him to choose animals for his subjects, and especially horses. Of this branch of his work his diploma picture is a good example. The scenery in which his horses are depicted is said to have been often the work of George Barret, R.A., for whose landscapes he provided the animals, while Zoffany is credited with some of the figures. He was elected an Associate in 1795, at the ripe age of sixty-two, and an Acade- mician in 1797, dying ten years afterwards, in 1807. SIR WILLIAM BEECHEY, R.A., was born at Burford, in Oxfordshire, in 1753, and began life, some say as a house painter, others as articled clerk to a solicitor. While serving his time in London, he became acquainted with some Academy students, and, deserting the law, himself entered the schools in 1772. In 1791 he went to Norwich, and remained there four or five years, painting portraits chiefly. Returning to London, he soon obtained con- siderable patronage and celebrity as a fashionable portrait painter, and was much in favour at the Court. He displayed qualities in his art, which, had public apprecia- tion been guided more by prescriptive canons than by the fascinations of colour and rich tone, would have raised him to a much higher rank than he now holds. He was a deft, thoughtful, rr M\ /. 4?y x^ (O TVCU^L SIR WILLIAM BEECHEY 201 and scholarly painter, but his work, compared with Reynolds and others, looks thin and meagre. He was elected an Associate in 1793, and Academician in 1798, in which year he was knighted by George III. He died in 1839, at the age of eighty-six. HENRY TRESHAM, R.A., owed both his birth and his artistic education to Ireland. He came to England in 1775, and subsequently spent fourteen years abroad, chiefly at Rome, becoming, thanks to his studies of the antique and of the Old Masters, one of the most correct draughts- men of his day, though his colouring left much to be desired. He also wrote poetry, but we do not know that his poetry has lived more than his painting. Soon after his return to England he was elected an Associate in 1791, and was raised to the full rank of an Academician in 1799. An account of his claim to take his seat on the Council, and of the subsequent proceedings in . connection with this claim is given in Chapter XI. In 1807, he was chosen Professor of Painting in succession to Opie, but, owing to failing health, only held the office for two years. His death took place in 1814. THOMAS DANIELL, R.A., was born at Kingston-on-Thames in 1749, and became a student at the Royal Academy in 1773. His earliest efforts were as a painter of heraldry, and also of landscape scenery, but in 1784 he went to India with his nephew, William Daniell, then a boy of fourteen who himself afterwards became a member of the Academy and the two, for ten years, travelled over and sketched the country from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas. Soon after his return, in 1796, Thomas Daniell was elected an Associate, and in 1799 an Academician. The results of the uncle's and nephew's labours were published in 1807 in a work of six 202 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST volumes, called Oriental Scenery. Daniell, who, after his visit to India, seldom painted anything but Indian subjects, lived to the great age of ninety-one, dying on iQth March 1840. Here ends the roll of Academicians in the eighteenth century. With the nineteenth there began an entirely new phase of British Art. The portraitists still clung to the tradi- tions inherited from Reynolds and Gainsborough, but illustrated them with less depth and richness, and also, it must be con- fessed, with less invention and spontaneity. In every other department, in lieu of the severe restraint imposed upon them- selves by the earlier school, we find a widespread tentativeness, a diffuseness, and a tendency to explore new fields, which eventually brought about what modern French critics recognise as the peculiar characteristic of the English school that is, its personal character, and its entire independence of all schools and traditions. Surveying British Art from the imaginary standpoint of the year 1800, we see little splendour or attractiveness in what is known as history, genre, or figure painting, in our immediate foreground. There is a long dreary interval on which no light is shed save by luminaries of a low order of magnitude, but, on the other hand, we see landscape painting attaining a splendour and brilliancy such as was never seen before. In this depart- ment, and out of grimy, smoky London, there arose an epoch- making artist, who set his seal on the art for ever as the master of space, light, and atmosphere. With his name and that of Flaxman the roll of Academicians in the nineteenth century made no unworthy beginning. JOHN FLAXMAN, R.A. The annalist of Art is perforce occupied for the most of his time with the uninteresting degrees of talent and accomplish- ment which have been exhibited by masters of a school. The JOHN FLAXMAN 203 geniuses, when he comes to them, are like plums, and he has often to complain that they are so few compared to an intolerable amount of pudding. But he finds the short history of British Art perhaps more thickly studded than any other ; native-born geniuses are neither few nor far between ; and among them, as far as gifts of nature are concerned, must be placed John Flaxman. The birth into the world of an artistic genius is so rare and momentous an event that it would seem becoming and grateful to take him as we find him, and not to criticise overmuch. But there is a disturbing reflection connected with British Art which will slide in and mar our self-satisfaction. At the christening of every great British artist there seems to have been a crabbed old fairy godmother, or a crabbed old fairy who was not asked to be a godmother, who threw in a gift which undid the benefit of all the rest; she seems to have muttered to herself, " Yes, you are a genius of the first order, but because you have offended me, I will see to it that you don't make the most of that genius." Hogarth was a born painter, with a wonderfully dramatic imagination, but he wilfully and perversely refused to see the merit of the great painters of the past, and starved his genius in consequence. Reynolds had supreme gifts and a mighty hand, he cited Michael Angelo as the ultimate culmination of artistic greatness, and so did others of his contemporaries. Gainsborough, inspired as perhaps none other ever was by nature, spoke of Van Dyck as having attained to apotheosis. In quite recent times, again, we have had Alfred Stevens, the sculptor of the Wellington Memorial, who also placed the great Florentine sculptor, painter, and architect on the highest pinnacle of fame. These men all had genius, and yet neither national prejudice nor vanity can tempt a reasonable critic to credit them with supreme achieve- ment. Their allusion to Michael Angelo is especially unfor- tunate, as it seems to point out the weak point in our national 204 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST genius. Everybody must be impressed by the grandeur of his style and the sublime transports of his imagination ; but these alone would not have sufficed to make the Michael Angelo we know and recognise. He was the man, of all others, that ever lived, who took his art most seriously, who was most untiring in his observation and investigation, who penetrated the most profoundly into all the capabilities of his art, who understood and could discriminate the individual and the typical, and who could imitate nature with the greatest knowledge and subtlety. To arrive at this he paid a price which no British artist unfor- tunately seems to have been willing to pay, and the excellencies of our school, though striking and brilliant, are not free from the reproach of falling short of attainable perfection : in other words, of the taint of superficiality. We have been led into these discomforting reflections by finding ourselves immediately face to face with the task of tracing the career of John Flaxman, who was both one of the most gifted and the most superficial of British artists. Mr Sidney Colvin has justly said of him that he was a natural classicist ; he loved in his heart, and was truly inspired by the severity, simplicity, and grace of Grecian Art ; though it would be more precise to say, of the art of Praxiteles and his followers, for with Phidias, the greatest of the Greeks, he seems to have had little or no spiritual kinship. This may have been partly the fault of his time : for though Flaxman was an original genius he was strictly of his time. In his age, or at all events in the age immediately preceding him, though there had been infinite talk on the sublime, there had been little evidence of it in Art, which seldom got beyond the graceful and elegant. One is tempted to think that the virtuosi and cognoscenti of that period, the Beaumonts, Walpoles, and others, who talked so volubly, did not really understand what was grand and impressive in Art ; it is difficult on any other supposition to account for their toleration of the gingerbread Gothic of Arlington Street and Strawberry Hill. Many of the mannerisms, such as the attenu- FLAXMAN'S ART 205 ated grace, the long ogival curves, which are so wearisome in the works of Cipriani, Angelica Kauffman, and West, reappear in Flaxman, but they are so beautifully balanced and harmon- ised that they do not offend ; the worst that can be said of them is that they somewhat emasculate his art, and that in the midst of graceful and voluptuous curvature we are made occasionally to sigh for a little ruggedness and angularity. But the personality of the artist had no doubt more to do with this than the influence of his time. Flaxman's was not a strong, vigorous nature; he was a gentle, loving, and pious creature, who had been rickety and sickly in his childhood, and had remained delicate and frail all his life. We are quite aware that we are treading on dangerous ground, and that there may be no natural connection between physical vigour and a masculine intellect. We have seen the spectacle of Pope, as someone somewhere said of him, quivering in every nerve, and yet penning the savage and scathing sarcasms of the Dunciad ; but for all that, it is hardly possible to imagine a Mirabeau writing the poems of Maurice de Guerin. Be that as it may, Flaxman was most successful, and touched nearer to greatness, when his theme naturally called forth a pensive and peaceful frame of mind ; as, for instance, in his monumental effigies, where he represented the grief of parents and orphans, and the pious resignation of Christians, or in his drawings in such scenes as the "Sleep and Death," and "Thetis and the Nereids " ; and he failed when he attempted the heroic vein, most signally in his drawings where he depicted the righting heroes of Grecian mythology, straddling and frowning feroci- ously at each other over the rims of their monstrous shields. In the drawing of " Prometheus bound to the Rock," there is more of melodramatic exaggeration than of real grandeur and impressiveness ; his Prometheus struggles violently with his captors, as the unfortunate king of France struggled with his executioners. Flaxman was a long way from raising him- self to the sublimity of Shelley's Titan, who when taunted by 206 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST the messenger of Jove with the length of years he would have to suffer torments, answered proudly, " Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pass." The estimation in which he is held, both in his own country and abroad, rests entirely on his merits as a designer, on the beauty and novelty of his compositions, and on the graceful combination of his lines and masses. As a sculptor, that is, as one who practised the art of representing the human form, he falls immeasurably below the completeness which is attained by perhaps half-a-dozen men in every exhibition of the Paris Salon. He skimmed the mere surface of the sculptor's art. His form, his anatomy, his proportion, although all right so far as they go, stop short at a certain point, beyond which he could not step for want of closer study. It is vexatious to see a powerful genius failing to attain to the highest excellence for want of what mediocrity has at its command. Much of Flaxman's work has been lost to the world. He was as one who wrote his tablets on the sea sand, and the tides have effaced them. For many years he was engaged in fashioning the beautiful cameo-like reliefs which adorn Wedgwood's pottery. To admire that ware heartily, with a whole mind, is not altogether possible. There is something spurious about its undoubted charm. Its interest is like that of the scrap-book, which is not admired for its text, its type, or its binding, but for the little pictures which have been collected together from all sorts of sources. It is too artificial, finicking, and minute for application to the purposes of pottery. It was at one time in fashion, and, like many other things, went out of it again. The careless housemaid has been in all ages responsible for much destruction of crockery, and the specimens of Henry II. pottery extant may have dwindled into the column of units they now occupy by passing through generations of housemaids' hands, but in the case of Wedgwood, it is said, that it was at one time and of malice prepense cast into the Philistine dust- bins of a former generation, and with it no doubt perished many FLAXMAN'S HOME LIFE 207 beautiful memorials of Flaxman's genius. But luckily the rage of the collector has come to the rescue, and like posthumous fame, " penna metuente solvi," it will save what is left for the admiration of future generations. John Flaxman was born in York in 1755, but only six months after his birth his father removed to London, and opened a shop as a figure-moulder in New Street, Covent Garden. The plaster-cast man is the lineal descendant of the image maker of the Middle Ages, whose workshop was the nursery of so many artists, and frail, rickety little John Flax- man, propped up in a chair in his father's workshop, a chair from which he could only toddle away with the help of crutches, sat there drinking in Art impressions when other children of his age were only playing with marbles which were not of the classical sort. There is a strong air of the marvellous in what we read of his early history. A certain Mr Matthew finding him drawing and modelling in the intervals of reading Homer, and his notice being attracted, as it well might be, by such a phenomenon, takes him into his house, where there is a talented and accomplished Mrs Matthew. We must presume that the boy's first acquaintance with Homer was through a crib, but Mr and Mrs Matthew, we are informed, did succeed by their united encouragement and assistance in enabling him to read with facility Virgil, Homer, and even ^Eschylus in the original. At the age of fifteen he was admitted as a student into the schools of the Royal Academy, and his connection with Wedg- wood appears to have begun soon after. He gained the silver medal for a design in sculpture, but, quite contrary to his expectations, was defeated by Thomas Engleheart in the com- petition for the gold medal, the subject of which was Ulysses and Nausicaa. In 1782 Flaxman was married to Ann Denman, and removed from his father's house to 27 Wardour Street. On this occasion Reynolds, like the confirmed old bachelor that he was, told him 208 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST that he was ruined as an artist, a mere delusion which has been shared by others. On the question of matrimony or celibacy as best for the artist, the balance of reasoning pro et con should be in favour of the blessed state, seeing that it is conducive to a quiet domestic life, and we have it on the authority of Goethe, that " Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, Ein charakter in dem Strom der Welt." The experiment in the case of Flaxman, at all events, was eminently successful, as Ann Denman proved herself a sympa- thising and helpful partner of his life, though the determined misogynist might object that the experiment in his case was not carried to its usual disastrous consequences, for no children were born to them. In 1787 the Flaxmans migrated to Rome, where they so- journed till 1794. The peaceful annals of an artist's life draw the mind away from wars and strife ; we think of Flaxman in Rome drawing his designs from Homer, Dante, and jEschylus, and executing his groups of Athamas and Cephalus and Aurora ; and it does not occur to us to think that the world was all ablaze behind him the while, that kings, principalities, and powers were being piled as on a huge holocaust, and going up into the skies in smoke and shrieking and lamentation. When the earnest, pious little sculptor left his home in England, the kingdom of France was in its death throes, and when he returned, it was dead ; and there was to be seen daily one of the most gruesome spectacles of history, the famous Tricoteuses seated at the foot of the scaffold, and counting the heads as they were shorn off. ^ On his return to London, Flaxman settled himself in No. 7 Buckingham Street, Fitzroy Square, where he seems to have lived to the end of his life. In 1797 he was elected an Asso- ciate, and in 1800 a full Academician. This was the monu- mental period of his art life, and as we have said before, it FLAXMAN AND TURNER COMPARED 209 was in memorial effigies to the dead that he showed his greatest originality, and attained to his highest excellence as a sculptor. In this department he set the type ; such monuments as those to Lady Baring in Micheldever Church, and to Mary Lushington, in Lewisham Church, would seem to be the ideal application of sculpture as introduced into a Christian temple. The ages of innocence, of iron, of heroes, all had passed away, the mythology of Greece lingered only amongst the learned as an artificial cultus ; Flaxman succeeded as no sculptor before him or after him ever succeeded, in drawing a noble inspiration from a living faith which still held possession of the hearts of men. He showed this especially in the lectures which he delivered at the Academy as Professor of Sculpture, a post to which he was elected in 1810. In 1818 he returned to his classical love, and sought for inspiration once more in Helicon. The shield of Achilles which he modelled, faithfully following the description in the eighteenth book of the Iliad, is truly a colossal monument of industry, genius, and taste. Its circumference is nine feet ; the circular boss in the centre represents Apollo in his chariot, the " sol curru nitido," who is the central type of the ancient conception of the universe ; around him concentrically are arranged all the scenes described by Homer as illustrating the polity of a state and the occupations of men. In 1820, the peaceful days of industry, bringing with them their silent satisfaction and the uninterrupted flow of accustomed comforts, came to an end for him. His wife died, and after that event he is described as living more retired ; though, perhaps, owing to deafness, he had never sought society eagerly. His industry continued unabated for six years, when the call came to him also. He caught a cold on 3rd December 1826, and died on the 9th in his seventy-third year. In passing, as we are now about to do, from John Flaxman to J. M. W. Turner, we seem to be making a prodigious leap which touches the two extreme points of difference by which o 210 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST the arts of sculpture and painting are separated ; as they each of them illustrate in a somewhat exaggerated degree the qualities which are especially characteristic of those two branches of art Turner, the painter, loved to record the aerial, evanescent, and intangible features in nature, which no science can demon- strate and no art but that of painting pourtray. He pursued this, his favourite theme, even beyond the boundaries of the vague and unintelligible. If it be permissible to judge the direction of prevailing tendencies by the evidence of excesses occasionally committed, we must infer that, in Turner's mind, form, which represents the concrete element of his art, gradually lost its importance ; and that his attention was concentrated, more and more, on that drapery of light and colour with which Nature clothes her form, and which corresponds with the abstract. In the work of John Flaxman, on the opposite hand, we find the rigidity and solidity which are peculiar to sculpture equally carried to excess ; his forms are large and simple, but they are generalised even to meagreness, and he persistently neglected to render those delicate undulations of surface by which the sculptor suggests colour and texture. Between his art and that of Turner can be traced an infinite number of gradations by which sculpture and painting have approached each other, and as instances of such approximation may be mentioned the statues of Canova and the pictures of Andrea Mantegna. CHAPTER XIII ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST continued JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER, R.A. A very momentous event in the history of Art, and one pro- bably enacted in a corner, took place in the year 1790, when an unpretentious and somewhat puerile water-colour drawing of Lambeth Palace was exhibited on the walls of the Royal Academy. It was signed W. Turner. From that small beginning uninterruptedly for sixty years there followed a series of pictures and drawings ; and for fifty years, we may say with certainty, they increased in splendour and imaginativeness, transcending the limits which previous conceptions could have assigned to human versatility and invention. Of this painter, it is perhaps more true than of most others that his life is best studied in his works. Walter Thornbury wrote two bulky octavo volumes of Life, into which he crammed every anecdote and saying of the great man which he could collect, at a time when many of Turner's friends and acquaintances were still alive, and the result as a biography is not convincing. It fails to supply the mind with the visual pre- sentment of an individual. We learn from these volumes that he was short and thick-set, with large eyebrows and piercing grey eyes, that his nose was hooked, his mouth compressed, and that in middle life he was tanned and weather-beaten like a sailor, but very little else that we care to know ; with his 211 212 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST niggardly ways and with whatever other sins of omission or com- mission are imputed to him, we have no concern. We must be satisfied with a vague and enigmatical conception of one of the world's greatest painters. He was evidently a self-contained, taciturn, and even inarticulate man. His industry was prodi- gious, his mind extraordinarily active, and controlled by intense earnestness of purpose and loftiness of aim, while it was also kept in motion by the pressure of a thousand horse-power of will. He shunned society to live entirely in and for his art. His father was a hairdresser, who kept a small shop in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, and there Turner was born on 23rd April 1775. It is said that the painter of the "Garden of the Hesperides " and " Ulysses deriding Polyphemus " received a very rudimentary education, and his art training has also been made the subject of some severe strictures by Mr Ruskin. According to him Turner's bad architecture, in other words, his preference for the classical and Palladian, and his want of sympathy with Gothic, are attributed to his studies under Mr Hardwick ; whilst his " meaningless classical compositions," such as his " Carthage," " Bay of Baiae," etc., are traced to the false teaching he received in the schools of the Royal Academy, with its casts from the antique and its classical traditions. Mr Ruskin is sometimes very hard to please, especially when his text seems to require a little smart satirical flavouring ; but con- sidering that he has published five bulky volumes in which he proves to demonstration that Turner's art was based on Nature more completely than that of any painter who ever lived, that he had more profoundly studied her and penetrated more deeply into her mysteries, it does seem a little captious, to say the least of it, that he should cavil at a slight amount of instruc- tion having been given him in conventional ideas, which have been universally accepted for centuries. It is our opinion that in the case of Turner the accidents of fate and fortune, acting on a peculiar temperament and turn of mind, produced as perfect a form of art education, and one as TURNER'S EARLY LIFE 213 consistently practical and progressive as that enjoyed by Raphael who was the favoured nursling of fortune in that respect. Just think of it. As a child almost, in a small back room in a dark slum of this great city, we find him engaged in copying drawings by Paul Sandby and others which had been lent to him. Then he is sent to an architect's office, where he is taught perspective and the precise drawing which is essential to that branch of Art. Then in 1789 he is admitted to the schools of the Royal Academy, drawing from the antique and the life, and picking up advice and encouragement from the different visitors. Between whiles, to earn bread, he tints architectural drawings and washes in skies and foregrounds ; he is commis- sioned to make drawings of gentlemen's country seats ; he draws assiduously on the Thames, Lambeth, Chelsea, and Greenwich, training his hand to precision. Besides which a certain Mr Munro, who possessed a fine collection of drawings, allows him, with his friend Girtin, to copy them as they please. What can be more perfect ? He is brought face to face with Nature and with Art, and even the necessity of earning is salutary ; it teaches him not to be dilatory, to be prompt and decided, to seize what is important, and to produce something which shall look completed. Later in his life Turner was described by a countryman as " that short thick-set man with a pencil in his hand," a descrip- tion which brings him before us as vividly, physically, and mentally, as anything that has been written about him. He wandered over Europe with that untiring pencil in his hand, up and down the great rivers, over the Alps into Switzerland amongst the snows and avalanches, through Italy with its rivers to his loved Venice, where sky and water meet. He tossed about in the Channel and North Sea on board nameless smacks and colliers to learn the trick of the waves, he was in turns in almost every part of England, Wales, and Scotland. Wherever he went that pencil, with a deftness and certainty bred of con- stant practice, was tracing the forms of Nature, eliminating as 214 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST by instinct what was accidental and unimportant, whilst it recorded all that was characteristic and essential. This was certainly fine training, but we must bear in mind that it was not the training that made the Turner. What distinguishes him from every other painter is that in all his constant intercourse with Nature he never for one single instant forgot Art. Every- thing he did, to the hastiest pencil scratch, underwent transfor- mation in the doing ; it was disintegrated and recombined into an organic whole. In the National Gallery there are, let us say, many hundreds of sketches by him, and there is not one which does not suggest the elements of a completed picture. But, unfortunately, in his completed pictures there is not always the charm suggested by his sketches ; they, many of them, have a look of things not taken au grand serieux, of canvases upon which he amused himself by practising alterations. Occasionally, as it appears to us, he seems to have been untrue to his mission, and to have sat down indolently and carelessly to multiply un- necessary detail, and, moreover, to insist upon it with the unmeaning emphasis which belongs rather to tapestry than painting. The first essential to insure just and instructive criticism is, that it be directed from the standpoint of the artist, without which his work must be seen in false and distorted perspective ; but after making every effort to align ourselves with Turner, it appears to us that in such pictures as the "Bay of Baiae," " Apollo," and the " Sibyl " in the National Collection, the result does not justify the means either from the point of view of Nature or of Art. On the other hand, such canvases as " The Frosty Morning," " Spithead," " Crossing the Brook," " Ulysses deriding Polyphemus," " The Old Ttmeraire? and " The Build- ing of Carthage," are completely convincing. They are all perfect and of a piece, without a discordant feature ; we follow the painter's conception through all intricacies, and are never turned aside. These six pictures place Turner at the head of the landscape THE QUALITIES OF TURNER'S ART 215 painters of all time. If we indulgently admit that Claude has equalled or even surpassed them in grace of form and trans- parency of atmosphere, they soar immeasurably above him in imaginative power, as they do above Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Van de Velde, Wilson, Ruysdael, Constable, and the modern French school. In describing the qualities of Art we are forced to adopt terms which refer to cognate sentiments in other departments of thought, terms which are accepted as established metaphors ; hence we speak of majesty and dignity as descriptive of certain combinations of forms, tones, and colours which impress the mind in a peculiar way. These qualities Turner possessed in the most eminent degree. Indeed, he had the faculty of invest- ing the face of Nature with an aspect corresponding with the momentousness, the importance, or even the playfulness of the subject he was representing ; and his " Liber Studiorum," though unfortunately never completed, is still the most varied record of artistic adaptability to sentiment which the world has seen. Ruysdael, in such pictures as " The Windmill," " On the Maas," and Corot, in his best works, touch a deep note of melancholy solemnity, but that was nearly all they gave, whereas Turner seems to play on the whole gamut of human emotions. He is so subtle that he defies analysis. Take, for instance, "The Frosty Morning " and ask what there is in that picture, either in what it represents, or in the lines of its composition, to account for its extraordinary popularity? Nothing, so far as we can see, and yet that picture in some mysterious way is fraught with memories ; before it the mind reverts to other days and far-off scenes : it is as suggestive as those most suggestive lines "When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail." And to have achieved this in a picture so simple indicates the highest amount of imaginative power. 216 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST We do not agree with all the sentiments expressed in Modern Painters. It was not necessary in order to enhance the fame of Turner to detract from the true merits of others ; but it seems to us established beyond contention on the evidence of his life's work, that Turner's imagination in depth, variety, and scope far exceeded that of any other landscape painter. If we turn from imaginative qualities to the rendering of facts of Nature, to the objective truth of representation, we seem to see a still greater interval. But here, to form a just opinion, recourse must be had more particularly to his water-colour draw- ings. They represent in an unbroken series the whole art energy of his life, and all the phases of its development ; they are utterly untouched by whatever circumstances may have turned awry or thwarted his development as an oil painter. There appears to have been something wrong, either in Turner's theory or practice as an oil painter. In the National Collection there are one hundred and ninety-five oil pictures by him, and it contains a larger proportion of failures, of incongruous, ill-digested, bizarre, and obscure things than should be with a man of his genius. But not so with his drawings. There the record of earnest, uninterrupted, progressive, and profoundly thoughtful effort to attain perfection is unbroken. After the age of twenty his drawings began to show ever more and more firmness and accomplishment. He was learning to manage and co-ordinate large masses, and to give depth of tone, influenced evidently in this latter respect by his friend Girtin. In 1802, when he was twenty-seven, he executed a large drawing of Kilchurn Castle, Loch Awe, which was re-exhibited in the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1887. Here we find him completely emancipated from all the thraldom of prescription. We find in it a mountain rightly drawn for the first time in the history of Art. He has given the inclination of its beds, their weathering and fissuring by the action of water, the piling-up of detritus in hollows and at its base ; the construction of it, in fact, is made apparent, and if we compare this with the conglomeration of TURNER'S WATER-COLOURS 217 unclassified matter which had in previous Art done duty as a mountain, we must acknowledge that it was a creditable step in advance for a young man of twenty-seven to have made. From that time forward he never ceased in his onward progress, ever analysing and observing, rendering with more and more certainty and knowledge the forms of the solid earth, the growth of trees, the forms of water, of waves, torrents, clouds, spray, and mist, delighting beyond measure in the glamour of flitting light and shade which mists and vapours shed over a landscape, giving it a touch of mystery and indistinctness which excite the imagina- tion like a tale half told. Between the years 1816, when he executed a beautiful series of drawings in the West Riding, and in Richmond in Yorkshire, to the year 1820, he attained the highest perfection in the delineation of form. His colouring up to this time had been subdued, his palette had been charged only with pale blues, browns, greys, and olive greens. But after 1820 he entered upon what is known as his second period. He may have said to himself at that time, that he had done enough in the way of form, that there was another world of impalpable evanescent beauties, of colours and reflections, things like dreams which pass and go, leaving no trace behind them, and these he set to work to record. Like Humboldt, who began his Kosmos with stating the elementary laws of physics and ended with a description of all the most abstruse pheno- mena of mind, Turner felt his Kosmos would not be complete without the intangible dreamy side of nature. Accordingly, after 1820 we find him indulging in gorgeous colouring, in fleeting effects, seen only at rare intervals, such as sunsets amongst cirrous clouds, and mountains glowing in the last rays of the sun. Amongst oil pictures "Polyphemus" in the National Collection is a very typical example of this period, and amongst water-colours " Knaresborough " and " Rivaulx Abbey." His touch in water-colours now became easier and lighter, he was less precise, often suggesting quantity and 218 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST detail by play of colour, and the drawings of this period in which he set himself simply to record scenes in nature are, as Mr Ruskin says, "faultlessly magnificent." But it was also the period of extravagancies, of composi- tions encumbered with detail, and the love of light which was growing upon him led him into endless subtleties of gradation which sometimes injured the solidity and unity of the effect. In his later years this desire for intensity of light gave rise to one of the strangest whims that ever entered into a painter's brain, as M. Chesneau has pointed out. Turner dis- integrated colours into their primary elements of red, blue, and yellow, using these independently in touches placed side by side. His idea, no doubt, was that their combined effect on the retina would produce the effects of white light. There is no denying the intense brilliancy of some of his later works, such, for instance, as " Phryne going to the Bath," but it is extremely questionable how far that is owing to the artifice he adopted. Reason and common sense tell us that when a painter violates the impressions of nature generally received, he must put himself out of court, and accordingly we find that Turner's later pictures are an enigma to ordinary mortals. It is quite possible to those who will it, and it is very tempting to those who wish to be superfine, to see in them transcendent merit which is only revealed to the highest culture. We do not ourselves profess to be utter Philistines. In his latest works, even in the wildest of them, we recognise a grand artistic faculty, but they seem to us to be faulty, because they insist upon one quality at the expense of all the others. It is a very grand effect, and one which has fascinated all great painters and colourists, when large masses of light are seen to be defined and yet to melt into one another ; but the definition is essential ; without it a picture merely represents the aspect of primordial chaos after the first fiat, " Let there be light." And Turner himself had, in his second period, given the most TURNER'S LATER PICTURES 219 superb and masterly rendering of this effect, to take one instance out of many, in his " Knaresborough," where the town with its ruined castle all aglow with full evening light, is relieved against an equally luminous sky, while below it is the hill equally ablaze, with a white path, cattle and figures relieved against it sharply, light telling against light, one merging into the other but never losing itself, maintaining its sharpness and definition. But it is said, and there seems a certain colour of probability in it, that late in his life Turner's sight became intensely astigmatic. In many of his latest Venetian pictures and sketches there is hardly an indication of a horizontal line, everything is on the vertical principle ; and the inability to discern horizontal lines is said to be a symptom of astigmatism. According to Mr Ruskin, the last picture Turner painted with quite undiminished powers was " The Fighting Temeraire towed to her Last Berth." That grand old ship, which had stood the stress and the piled-up agony of so many hours of doubtful strife, has ended her career and is going to be broken up. Her past glories are sinking with the setting sun, and the coming night is already above the horizon. It is a picture typical of Turner's own career ; he too had fought as none else had done, and this, his last great effort, is tinged with the glory of a gorgeous sunset. In some respects it is the most splendid of his works, not technically, perhaps, but imaginatively. It appears to focus all his views on Art, to explain and account for many aberrant strivings. It is not given even to an intel- lect like Turner's to command and control the wayward flights of a great imagination, but in this picture of the " Fighting Temeraire " we see the complete synthesis, the union of objec- tive truth with sentiment, which is the underlying effort of his life's work. Turner, in the early part of his career, lived with his father the hairdresser in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, but in 1793 his address in the catalogues is changed to Hand Court, 220 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST Maiden Lane, where he continued until after his election as Associate of the Royal Academy in 1799, when he was twenty- four years of age. The Royal Academy was evidently not slow in recognising his genius, as we find that only three years after he was elected full Academician, and in 1807 Professor of Perspective. His first trip abroad, which resulted in Lord Yarborough's beautiful picture of the " Vintage of Macon," was made in 1802, the year of his election. In 1800 he moved to 64 Harley Street ; the year after to 75 Norton Street, Portland Road ; and in 1804 back again to 64 Harley Street. In 1812 he bought the house in Queen Anne Street. From 1809 to 1811 in addi- tion to his London address he gives also West End, Upper Mall, Hammersmith; and from 1814 to 1826 he had a country house at Twickenham, which he called Sandycombe Lodge. In 1851 Turner was missed from his accustomed haunts, he appeared no more at the meetings of the Royal Academy, which he had always regularly attended, and he had dis- appeared from his house in Queen Anne Street. All his life through he had encompassed himself with mystery, and had let none know of his goings to and fro ; but on this occasion as his health was known to be breaking there was a great anxiety amongst his friends, and his faithful old housekeeper, Mrs Ellen Danby, was in great trepidation. By accident a clue to his whereabouts was discovered, and he was found dying in a small cottage in Chelsea, where he had been known by the name of Booth. Such was the end of this remarkable man, un- questionably one of the great geniuses in Art, the select few who can be enumerated on the fingers of your hands. He was buried with much pomp and circumstance in St Paul's Cathedral, on the 3rd December 1851, and a statue was erected to his memory, with a sum of money which he bequeathed in his will for that purpose. Of this will itself we shall speak presently. Thornbury says that Turner in his youth was disappointed in a love affair, and that this event cast a gloom upon his life ; TURNER'S FRIENDSHIPS 221 he became a blighted being, with no hope on this side of the grave, or on the other, and drifted into an "entangled and ill-thought-out existence." Ruskin puts his case differently. t( Imagine," he says, " what it was for a man to live seventy years in this hard world with the kindest heart and the noblest intellect of his time, and never to meet with a single word or ray of sympathy, until he felt him- self sinking into the grave. From the time he knew his true greatness, all the world was against him ; no one understood him, no one trusted him, and everyone cried out against him." It would seem from these two accounts that the exigencies of fine writing may at times lead authors into extremes. From Mr Fawkes of Farnley, Mr Munro, and Mr Trimmer, not to mention a number of other life-long friends of Turner, he must have received "a word or ray of sympathy," and after all a man does not become embittered and disappointed except he is neglected and has to suffer poverty. Turner all through his extraordinary industrious life amassed money hand over hand, by the sale of his drawings and by the profits of the engravings of his works; and he died worth 140,000. It does not seem likely that the non-sale of his oil pictures should have affected him much, especially when we find that he bought back those that he had sold whenever he had a chance. We doubt very much whether Turner was a morose and disappointed man. He had an especial affection for the Royal Academy the body that early recognised his merits, and enrolled him amongst its members ; and towards it he felt a life- long gratitude. The Royal Academy was " his mother," as he used to say, and on the annual varnishing days before the exhibition, he perpetrated nearly all the jovial sayings and doings which are recorded of him. He dearly loved a social meeting of his brother artists, and in fact left money in his will to provide an annual dinner. He had a natural love of mystification, of putting people off the track ; he was secretive, and would let no one into his 222 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST professional secrets, and he was utterly absorbed in his art. Probably also he had an infirmity frequent in superior minds, an impatience with commonplace people ; he was not called upon to tolerate them, why should he bother himself? On the face of it the idea of Turner's life having been a sad one is an absurdity ; every man takes his pleasure where he finds it ; what but joy, intense love and delight could have been in the man's soul who through long years wandered over Europe in all weathers, conscious of the supreme gift of artistic genius, pour- ing himself out in his matchless drawings in never-ending fulness and versatility. He was singular and not like other men, in more ways than one ; and if he never found a sym- pathetic mind, it was probably because, either from shyness, from indolence, or indifference, he did not take the trouble to look for one. But no doubt if any of us were allowed to take Turner's imagination on trial for a week we should ask for no better companionship for the remainder of our lives. When visitors called upon Turner in Queen Anne Street, they were shown into a dingy room on the ground floor and asked to wait. After a time there was a shuffling sound of slippered feet on the staircase, and the great painter entered, presenting, so it is said, a somewhat fuliginous appearance, like Vulcan issuing from his forge. Into the sanctum of the studio none was allowed to penetrate except Mrs Danby, his house- keeper, and she 4 related that when she went in of an evening and saw what he had done in the day she used to say to herself, " He must be a God." In drawing up his will and its four codicils, Turner seems to have been actuated by a mixture of selfish and unselfish motives. He desired to perpetuate his name and fame by the bequest of his pictures to the National Gallery, the erection of a monument to himself, the founding of the Turner Medal, and the scheme for bettering the condition of the unfortunate in his own pro- fession by the foundation of a sort of superior almshouse to be TURNER'S WILL 223 called " Turner's Gift." Three of these objects were certainly for the benefit of other people, and one of the three was a benevolent project of the highest order. Saving and almost miserly as Turner was, many stones are related of his genero- sity, and both in these instances and by the contents of his will, he showed that he did not save for the sake of hoarding. The original will is dated the loth of June 1831, and after sundry small bequests to Turner's uncles and nephews, and annuities to his housekeeper, Hannah Danby, and some of her relatives, it provides that the whole of the remainder of the funded property be applied and disposed of for the purpose of founding a charitable institution "for the maintenance and support of poor and decayed male artists, being born in England, and of English parents only and lawful issue." A " proper and suitable building or residence" is to be provided for this purpose, "in such a situation as may be deemed eligible and advantageous." The institution is to be called " Turner's Gift," and the management of it is to be in the hands of four trustees, of whom two are to be members of the Royal Academy. The will also contains the gift to the National Gallery of the two pictures, " Dido building Carthage " and " The Sun Rising in Mist," on condition of their being hung between the two works by Claude, " The Seaport " (embarkation of the Queen of Sheba), and " The Mill " (marriage of Isaac and Rebecca), this bequest to be void unless accepted within twelve months. On the 2Oth of August 1832, a codicil was added to the effect that if, after five years from his death, it was found impossible, owing to there being any legal objection, to carry out his wish for the establish- ment of a charitable institution for poor artists, then so much as was necessary of the property was to be used for the purpose of forming, at his house in Queen Anne Street, a gallery in which to keep all his pictures, to be known as " Turner's Gallery," and of which Hannah Danby was to be custodian, with 150 a year as salary, and her two nieces assistants, with ;ioo a year each. After these bequests had been provided for, the residue 224 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST was to go to the Royal Academy on condition of their giving every year on his birthday, the 23rd of October, a dinner to all the members of the Academy at a cost not to exceed 50. The Academy is also to give 60 a year to a Professor of Landscape to be elected from the Royal Academicians, and a gold medal worth 20 for the best landscape every second or third year. If the Academy does not accept the bequest, then the residue is to go to Georgiana Danby and her heirs, " after causing a monument to be placed near my remains as can be placed" A second codicil was executed on the 29th of August 1846, but as it was subsequently revoked, its contents need not be stated. The date of the next codicil is 2nd August 1848, and it is requested that it may be taken as part of the will and of the first codicil and as revoking the second, and in it his bequests to his relatives and the Danbys are cancelled, and all his pictures given to the National Gallery, " provided that a room or rooms are added to the present National Gallery to be, when erected, called 'Turner's Gallery,'" and till this is done they are to remain in Queen Anne Street, as arranged for in the original will, and if not done within five years, then the gift is to be void. Again a fourth and last codicil, dated 1st February 1849, extends the time for the construction of the room or rooms at the National Gallery to ten years, but if the conditions are not carried out by that time, then the gift is to be " null and void and of none effect," and the pictures are to be exhibited gratuitously to the public at the house in Queen Anne Street till within two years of the expiration of the existing lease, when they are to be sold. A sum of 1000 is to be expended in erecting a monument to him in St Paul's Cathedral, " where I desire to be buried among my brothers in art," and annuities of 150 each are left to Hannah Danby and Sophia Caroline Booth, his housekeepers respectively at Queen Anne Street and Chelsea. If the pictures are sold, the Pension Fund of the Royal Academy is to receive 1000 of the produce, provided they give the medal already referred to, and there are legacies THE COURTS CONSTRUCTION OF TURNER'S WILL 225 out of it of 500 each to the Artists' General Benevolent Fund, the Foundling Hospital, and the London Orphan Fund. The residue is to be " for the benefit of the intended hospital in my will mentioned." There are also legacies ofiooeach to Mrs Wheeler and her two sisters, Emma and Laura. Turner died on the ipth of December 1851, and on the 6th of September 1852, the will and four codicils were proved, the effects being sworn under 140,000. It was not likely that such confused documents, full of interpolations and contradictory instructions, would be allowed to take legal effect without opposi- tion, and accordingly, we find the next-of-kin first trying to prove that the testator was of unsound mind and incapable of making a will, and then contending, in opposition to the trustees and executors, who had petitioned the Court of Chancery to give its construction of the will and administer the estate, that no con- struction at all could be placed on the will, and that it was therefore void ; and that even if it could be carried out, it was still void, as the bequests came within the statute of mortmain. For four years the suit (Trimmer v. Danby) dragged its slow length along ; but at last, with the assent of all the interested parties, a compromise was effected, and on the igth of March 1856, Vice-Chancellor Kindersley delivered a judgment in accordance with which all the pictures, drawings, and sketches, whether finished or unfinished, were to go to the National Gallery, 1000 was to be expended on erecting a monument in St Paul's Cathedral, 20,000 was to be paid to the Royal Academy, the heir-at-law was to have the real estate, and the remainder was to be divided amongst the next-of-kin. As the result of this decision the National Gallery received ninety-eight finished oil pictures, and two hundred and seventy unfinished ones, and several hundreds of drawings and sketches, some on ragged scraps of paper and the backs of letters, but all of great interest. The monument in St Paul's took the form of a statue, executed by P. McDowell, R. A. The 20,000 given to the Royal Academy was unaccom- P 226 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST panied by any restrictions, but it was immediately decided to keep the sum quite separate from the other property of the Academy, and to invest it in Consols as a distinct fund under the title of the " Turner Fund " ; and further, to apply the interest derived from it to carrying out Turner's expressed wish as regarded a medal, and to giving effect, so far as might be, to the benevolent instructions of his will. A prize of a gold medal for a landscape was instituted, called the " Turner Gold Medal," to be competed for biennially by the students of the Academy, in the same year as the other gold medals. The designs for this medal were made by Daniel Maclise, R. A., at the request of the General Assembly, and were modelled by Leonard Wyon. The portrait of Turner forms the obverse, while on the reverse is represented a student of nature amidst the symbols and charac- teristics of landscape, and above are three figures personifying the primitive colours. The first recipient of this medal was Nevill O. Lupton, in 1857. In 1881 a scholarship of 50, tenable for one year, was added to the medal. It was, however, by its endeavours to carry out the benevo- lent intentions of the testator that the Academy most fully justified the appropriation to it of a portion of the property. Although there were no conditions as to how the money was to be used, it resolved to expend the income derived from the in- vested 20,000, less the sum required for the medal and scholar- ship, in giving aid to distressed artists ; and after making sundry grants in the first two or three years, finally, in 1860, determined on the institution of annuities of 50 each, to be granted by the Council to " artists of reputation, not members of the Academy, who, through the unavoidable failure of pro- fessional employment, or other causes, may be in circumstances needing such aid." It is true that at first this resolution was not fully carried out, only six annuities being given, and the balance carried to the general account of the Academy; but in 1867 the number of annuitants was raised to nine, in 1868 to ten, and in 1 879 to twelve. In 1881 it was resolved that the whole of the THE "TURNER ANNUITIES" 227 accumulated balances which had been carried to the general account, amounting to 5695, should be repaid to the Turner Fund, together with simple interest. This made a gross total of 8060, and when invested in Consols, increased the Turner Fund to 30,939, 1 8s., and allowed the annuities to be raised to fifteen and the scholarship already mentioned to be added to the medal. Further balances have since been invested from time to time, and the total amount now stands at 31,737, us. 2d., and the number of annuitants at sixteen. The two main points in Turner's will were the gift of his pictures to the nation, and his benevolent scheme for the benefit of poor artists. Whether he would be satisfied with the manner in which the first has been realised, we are not concerned to express an opinion ; but, at any rate, the Royal Academy has done its best to endeavour with the means placed at its disposal to carry out the second. CHAPTER XIV ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST continued SIR JOHN SOANE, R.A. LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS is not a fashionable resort, though it is not quite unknown to the inhabitants of the West. As you enter it from Great Queen Street you are impressed by its fine architecture, its dimness, and its vast expanse on few occasions is the far side of it visible through the smoky atmosphere and also by its stillness. There seems to be no traffic but that of lawyer's clerks carrying blue bags, and you might imagine it was an obsolete and decaying remnant of old London, did you not know that around you, and on every side, though unseen, like the forces which underlie the dormant volcano, there are busy brains at work, forging the fetters and furbishing up the dread machinery of law and litigation. Its stillness impresses the imagination and daunts the spirit ; it is like the torpor which hangs over estates whose title is dis- puted, or great concerns which have gone into liquidation. This would not seem an atmosphere congenial to Art, and, indeed, few people are aware that in the midst of it there stands a perfect treasure-house of Art ; even the policeman on his beat, so it has been said, is often unable to direct a stranger to Sir John Soane's Museum. It stands on the north side of the square, at the distance of about one quarter of the entire frontage from the corner of Great Queen Street; its 228 THE SOANE MUSEUM 229 facade is singularly mean, to which meanness a touch of vulgarity has been added by two plaster figures perched upon the cornice ; this seems characteristic of Sir John Soane's mind. He showed wonderful invention and a striving after originality in the buildings he constructed, and yet his eye was able to tolerate solecisms in portions of them which entirely marred their general effect; and when we find ourselves inside the museum, crammed as it is with beautiful things, quite a neat little physiological problem presents itself to our mind, namely, how the man who delighted in such things, and himself created so many beautiful designs, could daily go in and out of that ugly house and not feel his eye offended. The internal arrange- ments of this unique domicile are truly wonderful, they entirely upset our accustomed notions of upstairs and downstairs, of kitchen and parlour ; nothing is as it should be, but all is unusual and unintelligible; even the walls are a delusion. When we have finished admiring some pictures and drawings we see hanging up, our obliging attendant turns a handle, and hey, presto! the wall, pictures, and drawings vanish, and we have before us a vista of another gallery filled with drawings, low reliefs, statues, and Art things of every kind, massed together, we are bound to confess, in rather bewildering pro- fusion ; in fact, this multitudinousness becomes overwhelming, and we are glad to escape at last, saying to ourselves that Sir John Soane's Museum cannot be done justice to in one visit, but requires two or three. Of course, amongst so much, there must be some rubbish ; in the antique department there is an undue proportion of plaster compared with intrinsic marble and bronze, and the drawings, which cover almost every available inch of wall-space, do not always satisfy our aesthetic cravings ; but for all that there is much to see and admire. There is a picture of the " Grand Canal in Venice," which appears to us one of the finest pictures painted by Canaletto ; this, with the " Rake's Progress," and the Election series by Hogarth, and an exquisite early 230 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST drawing of " Kirkstall Abbey," by Turner, would alone repay a visit to Lincoln's Inn Fields. But perhaps the strongest impression we carry away with us when we leave the place and tread once more the deserted flagstones of the great square is wonder and admiration for the man, for the energy, perseverance, and intensity of fixed purpose which enabled him in the course of one lifetime to pile together such a mass of fine things, and for the ingenuity which enabled him to house them all. His carefulness, tidiness, ingenuity, and supreme faculty for packing things together must appear truly miraculous to those not possessed of these faculties, or who only possess them in that rudimentary con- dition which is exemplified in the art of pitching things into a portmanteau and then sitting on them, a condition in which they exist in the vast mass of untidy humanity. Soane's Museum is undoubtedly overcrowded, and one cannot help regretting that its choicer treasures, such as Hogarth's pictures, the exquisite MSS. of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, one or two great vases, etc., could not have been displayed with more margin round them, where they could have lived in an atmosphere of their own undisturbed by alien attractions. This very remarkable man, John Soane, was born in Reading, in 1753, and was the son of a bricklayer. His sister was a servant in the house of George Dance, the architect, and probably through her influence he was taken into the office, as errand boy and general fag ; later he was admitted as a pupil, but the greater part of his time, up to his start for Italy as gold-medal student of the Royal Academy, was passed in the office of Henry Holland, an eminent architect in his day. He had entered the Academy schools in 1771 and obtained the gold medal in 1776, being awarded the travelling studentship in the following year, mainly owing to the all-powerful recom- mendation of Sir W. Chambers, who was much pleased with Soane's design for a "Triumphal Bridge" which had won him the medal, and the fortunate student would have been better SOANE'S WORK AS AN ARCHITECT 231 advised, or more happily inspired, had he been satisfied to let well alone, and had he not published a volume of designs which came out the year after he left England, and which did him so little credit that in after years he was glad to buy up every copy he could meet with. It is seldom a biographer has such an opportunity as he finds in this man's life, and were it worth seriously and minutely recording, which it probably is not, a writer of insight could produce a truer picture of a man's mind than is usually found in such books. His executed works and his designs, his museum, and the collection it contains, seem to explain the man and make him familiar to us, with all that was worthy and unworthy in him, with his merits and his meannesses, with all his contra- dictory qualities. And this is much ; when we reflect how few out of the vast and never-ceasing procession of human lives which issues out of the darkness and the unknown, to disappear into it again, ever leave behind them the slightest trace of their passing, or any recognisable proof that such a man once lived and was thus fashioned. Sir John Soane, at all events, erected a monument to himself durable as brass, and though we may not altogether sympathise with him, we are bound to give him an honourable place among English worthies. What is abundantly evident is that he had no genius for architecture, only a bright fancy and a sense of adaptability, as also very great industry. He was, moreover, a supremely lucky man, and there is merit in that, as has been said. It was lucky that he was appointed to the travelling student- ship before the publication of his first volume of designs ; it was lucky that when in Italy he made the acquaintance, perhaps even acquired the friendship, of Thomas Pitt, afterwards Lord Camelford, to whose influence he owed his appointment of architect to the Bank of England ; which was followed by that of clerk of the works of St James's Palace ; then of architect to the Woods and Forests, and surveyor of Chelsea Hospital, all lucrative posts. And finally he was lucky that in his 232 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST marriage he drew a prize which, though we know nothing of its spiritual preciousness, represented a fine material value in the shape of a handsome fortune. And so it came about that this son of a Berkshire bricklayer, without any transcendent qualities that we can discern, was spared the pangs of dis- appointment, the quips and scorns which patient merit of the unworthy takes, and which have broken the hearts of so many men of genius ; fickle fortune dropped one good thing into his lap after another, and he spent his life in one long luxurious course of fadding. But to his honour be it recorded, he also designed the north- west corner of the Bank of England, one of the most graceful features in London street architecture. He seems to have executed many buildings, public and private ; but in the opinion of the most competent judges he was only successful in bits, and a painful poverty of design is always apparent in some portion of his work. He had ideas, but no idea ; no large sense of unity and com- pleteness, or of structural consistency ; and that summing up of his merits which was current at the commencement of this century, though it sounds futile and ridiculous to us, is perhaps a just one, namely, that the great claim to originality of Sir John Soane consisted in his having been the first to adopt, and to dis- seminate, that particular form of architectural confectionery known as Tivoli-Corinthian. When Soane was admitted a student of the Royal Academy, his name was spelt "Soan," and is found so printed in the Academy catalogues from 1772 to 1784, when the final "e" was for the first time appended. He was elected an Associate in 1795, and an Academician in 1802, on the same evening as Turner; and in 1806 he was appointed Professor of Archi- tecture. His tenure of this post was marked by an incident strongly illustrative of the somewhat cantankerous and obstinate character of the man, At the beginning of 1810, the Council passed a SOANE'S DISPUTE WITH THE COUNCIL 233 resolution, which is still in force, " That no comments or criti- cisms on the opinions and productions of living artists in this country should be introduced into any of the lectures delivered in the Royal Academy," and the reasons given were : " 1st, because the lecturers of the Academy are in matters of Art the public organs of the institution, and are supposed to deliver sentiments approved of generally by the body ; the sanction of such an authority therefore should not be used to prejudice the talents or depreciate the productions of artists whose interests may be materially affected by unfavourable animadversions thus officially delivered ; 2nd, because the introduction of such com- ments or criticisms has a direct tendency to disturb the peace and harmony of the Academy, and create a spirit of dissension in the art ; 3rd, because it seems unfair to bring the talents or works of living artists to trial before a tribunal where they have no means of defence or justification, and because we conceive that there are materials sufficient for all the purposes of example or illustration without resorting to the productions of artists who, if members of the Academy, have a claim to the protection of the body to which they belong, and who, if not members, have a right to a liberal and indulgent consideration of their merits in an institution which presides over the interests of the Arts at large." This resolution was moved by Howard, afterwards Secre- tary, and seconded by Shee, afterwards President, and carried unanimously, the other members present being Flaxman, in the chair, Yenn (the Treasurer), Marchant, and Phillips ; the President (West) is described in the minutes as being "in gout" and the Secretary (Richards) as "ill." A copy of the resolution without the reasons was sent to each of the professors with a request that they would conform to the same ; and none of them appear to have raised any objection with the exception of Soane, at whom it may therefore be presumed the resolution was chiefly aimed. He replied with a request to be informed of the names of those present at the Council when the 234 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST resolution was passed, and also of the reasons on which it was founded, both of which requests were refused as " unusual and irregular," and he was reminded that the books of the Academy were " always accessible to Academicians " ; and he was also asked to state when it would be " convenient to him to resume his architectural lectures." To this inquiry his reply is described in the minutes of iQth February 1810, as "evasive and unsatis- factory." Such as it was it left him master of the situation apparently, as he delivered no lectures that year, and the matter was allowed to drop until the time again came round for the dis- charge of his duties as professor, when a similar correspondence was begun, the situation being further complicated and an almost comic aspect given it by the presence of Soane himself on the Council. This time, however, the Council lost patience with him and declared the professorship vacant ; but when the resolution embodying this decision was submitted to the General Assembly in March 1811, that body was not prepared to endorse so extreme a measure, and though it pronounced Mr Soane's conduct to have been " highly improper and disrespect- ful," did not consider him as having thereby vacated the pro- fessor's chair; and the President at a subsequent meeting of the General Assembly expressed the hope that " the professor would now resume his functions." And this he appears to have done in 1812, though he ended his course with a protest that he could not continue to perform the duties of his office unless the Academy would revise and retrace their proceedings relative to him since the delivery of his fourth lecture in January 1810, which we may conclude was the offending lecture that gave rise to the original action of the Council. Accordingly, in 1813, we find him beginning the old game again ; but the Council declined to enter into a correspondence with him, as " after so much ineffectual discussion all tending to the same point and producing the same conclusions, in which Mr Soane has inflexibly opposed his single opinion to the general sense of the Academy and trifled with its lenity, it would be deroga- SOANE'S CHARACTER 235 tory to the character and dignity of the Society to proceed further in communicating with him on the subject " ; and further stated that " Mr Soane having made it apparent that he will not resume the duties of his office but upon conditions prescribed by him- self, in direct opposition to the laws of the Society," they " felt themselves compelled to declare that the office of Professor of Architecture is vacated." This prompt action and plain language appears to have had an effect on the recalcitrant and obstinate professor. At the General Assembly convened on 29th January 1813, to consider the Council's decision after the application of a little soothing syrup in the form of a declaration, stating that the Academy had been actuated solely by a con- sideration of duty to the institution, etc., in passing the law of 1810 with reference to professors, and that they did not hesitate to express their regret that their Professor of Architecture should have considered himself injured or aggrieved by any pro- ceedings respecting it Soane got up and declared that "he wished that everything past should be buried in oblivion, and that he was ready to accede to the wishes of the Academy." Thereupon it was decided that all further proceedings were un- necessary, and the Council were in their turn smoothed down by an expression of approbation for the zeal and attention they had exhibited in the matter. And so after three years the struggle ended, and Soane discharged his duties as professor till his death in 1837. The same unyielding and obstinate temper as was displayed in this episode was also shown by Soane in his treatment of his only son, with whom he had a deadly quarrel on account of some offence to his vanity, and whom he never could bring himself to forgive. Indeed, so rancorous did his feelings ultimately become that he not only alienated all his property, but when it was pro- posed to do him honour, he refused a baronetcy because it offered some reversionary benefit to his son. A later incident in his Academic career shows him in a more favourable light. At the death of Sir Thomas Lawrence 236 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST in 1830 an effort, set on foot by the Academy, was made to purchase for the nation the collection of drawings by Old Masters formed by him, and so strongly was the proposal supported by the Academy that it voted a sum of 1000 towards it in spite of an influential opposition led by Turner, Callcott, and Chantrey, who wanted to pronounce an emphatic Academic blessing on the scheme without giving any money towards its realisation. At the meeting at which the final decision was arrived at, Turner read a letter from Soane offer- ing to give 1000 towards the purchase of the collection " pro- vided they can be obtained for the Royal Academy, and placed solely at its disposal." But it was felt that there was more chance of raising the money for the purpose of placing the drawings, as advocated by the Academy, in the British Museum or National Gallery, and Soane's offer was, there- fore, declined, with a handsome expression of "high admira- tion of your very liberal intentions " and " best thanks for the noble proof you have given of your zeal for the true interests of Art, and your brotherly regard for the honour of the Royal Academy." JOHN CHARLES FELIX Rossi, R.A., was born in 1762 at Nottingham, where his father, a native of Sienna, practised medicine : he was apprenticed to a sculptor under whom he worked as a journeyman. This occupation awoke in him the consciousness that he also possessed original talent, and aroused his ambition ; so he betook himself to London in 1781, and became a student of the Royal Academy. In 1785, having gained the gold medal the previous year, he was awarded a travelling studentship, and went to Rome for three years. When he returned he found patronage awaiting him. Those would seem to have been halcyon days for sculptors : and the huge masses of monumental marble which adorn or encumber JOHN CHARLES FELIX ROSSI 237 the naves and transepts of Westminster Abbey and St Paul's, testify not only to the gratitude of the public, and of admiring relatives, but also to the complacency of the Deans and Chapters of those days. There seems to have been no rule or sense of fitness in the matter ; influence, as we presume, backed by wealth and some colourable show of achievement on the part of a deceased warrior, naval or military, sufficed to secure a commanding place in the two Cathedrals, where relatives were left free to pile on marble and mix up fact, allegory, and heathen mythology so long as their purses held out. Of the unfitness and paganism of many of these monuments we need say nothing, but their ridiculous violation of common sense makes them the legitimate property of the satirist ; they remind us of the celebrated statues in the groves of Blarney " Bold Neptune, Plutarch, and Nicodemus, All standing naked in the open air." But Millikin's verses, which were purposely ridiculous, are in reality not more absurd than Westmacott's representation of a British officer falling on the field of Waterloo, with nothing on but a Greek helmet. Rossi executed several large monuments in St Paul's, one of which is to Captain Robert Faulkner, R.N., who was killed on board the Blanche frigate during the fight with the French frigate Pique, on the $th January 1795, at the age of thirty-two. It occupies a position under the dome, corresponding to Flaxman's monument of Nelson on the other side of the nave, and is of almost equal dimensions. Captain Faulkner is repre- sented falling into the arms of Neptune, who is seated on a rock amongst the sea-weed and star-fish, whilst Fame approaches from behind and crowns the dying hero with a laurel wreath. The British naval officer is very scantily clothed ; wears, in fact, quite a minimum of clothing. He carries a shield on his left arm and a broken Greek sword seems to be dropping from 238 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST his right hand. Surely a marble tablet, with or without Neptune, somewhere on the walls of the nave, would have been a quite sufficiently adequate national recognition of the services of Captain Robert Faulkner. However, Rossi was in no way to blame in this matter ; he executed a commission given to him, and in doing so, put in his very best work ; at least his best in St Paul's. It would be too hard a saying that bad was that best, as Rossi was scholarly, and exhibited a certain vigour of chiaroscuro, but he had a hard manner, and was deficient in invention, in design, and in the feeling of grace. An opportunity makes a man, it has been said, and it is doubtful if Rossi, without the great monumental commissions, would have succeeded in charming the public by his artistic gifts; indeed, as it turned out, when those commissions ceased he produced no more, though he lived to old age. He was elected an Associate in 1798, and full member in 1802. Some years before his death he appears to have got into monetary diffi- culties, as, in addition to a pension from the Academy, he was continually applying for, and being granted, pecuniary assist- ance. He died in 1839. HENRY THOMSON, R.A. His name conveys no meaning to the world at large, and the image of him as an artist has vanished into nothingness. He is said to have displayed considerable talent in historical painting, in which style of art he practised for many years, but we cannot call to mind receiving any impression from a work of art bearing his name. He was the son of a purser in the navy, and was born in London in 1773. I n ! 79 ne entered the Academy schools, and was elected an Associate in 1801, and Academician in 1804; he succeeded Fuseli as Keeper of the Royal Academy in 1825, but was forced by ill-health to throw up the appointment after only two years' tenure ; he then retired HENRY THOMSON 239 to Portsea, and lived there to the end of his life in 1843 on ty occasionally practising his art. When he retired from the office of Keeper he wrote a long letter to the Council, which, if somewhat stilted and diffuse in style, is certainly a model of dignified and polite letter-writing. In it he says : " To the Royal Academy I am indebted for my early professional education, and to obtain its honours was one of the dearest objects of my ambition. To sustain those honours with the credit which becomes an artist and the respectability which belongs to the character of a gentleman has been my undeviating desire, and I trust I shall not be deemed presump- tuous if I express a hope that they have not been tarnished in my hands." At the same time he presented the Academy with several valuable gifts, among them being the pictures by Giorgione and Mola in the diploma galleries. The Academy on its part showed its appreciation of his services by presenting him with " a gold snuff-box, handsomely enriched and with a suitable inscription." WILLIAM OWEN, R.A., was born at Ludlow, in Shropshire, in 1769. His father was a clergyman, in so far, at least, that he had gone through the ceremony of ordination, but having committed the imprudence of marrying into a very respectable Gloucester family, before patronage had given him the means of living, he abandoned the ministry and devoted himself to bookselling. Young William was educated at Ludlow Grammar School, was admitted a student of the Royal Academy in 1791, and at some time probably previous to that date, attracted the favourable notice of Sir Joshua Reynolds by a copy he made of "Perdita." He is also, more or less conjecturally, supposed to have been a pupil of Catton. These facts are given by Allan Cunning- ham, who seems disposed to hang a veil of mystery over the early years of the future R.A. What is perfectly certain is, that 240 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST in the Somerset House exhibition of 1792, there were two works, a landscape and a portrait, by William Owen, then aged twenty- three, and from that time forward he was a constant annual exhibitor. He often painted fancy, quasi idyllic scenes of rustic life such as the "Cottage Girl," but his chief occupation was portrait painting, and the vast number of works of this class he left behind him shows that patronage was never wanting. He used to complain, however, that he only got the leavings of his three most formidable rivals, namely, Hoppner, Beechey, and Lawrence. Hoppner was Court favourite, and was in some mysterious way connected with the Court. Owen said of him, that when he was at a loss, the Prince would sit to him and help him to sell the picture. Sir William Beechey, according to the same authority, sat with the feathers of princesses fanning his brow ; whilst the indictment against Lawrence probably included the possession of inordinate good looks and gentle manners, as well as a general tendency to flummery and hum- bug, which excited the wrath of Owen. But in spite of these hindrances he was able to hold his own, and the long list of distinguished men who sat to him shows that he enjoyed a popularity of a decidedly substantial kind. In 1810, the year of Hoppner's death, and probably after that event, Owen was made portrait painter to the Prince of Wales, and three years later " principal portrait painter to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent," at which time he was also offered knighthood, which he declined. He had been elected an Associate in 1804, and a full Academician in 1806. As a painter we must place him very high ; he had acquired, possibly from that early copy of " Perdita," something of the rich, unctuous, yet crumbling method of laying on the colour which is conspicuous in Reynolds. Owen's execution was truly admirable, and had it only been guided and controlled by a more subtle and watchful sense of colour, his reputa- tion as an artist would have stood very high. In his lifetime WILLIAM OWEN 241 he was accused of being too literal and of not rendering his sitters at their best, but this we think could have been only very partially true. It may be conceded theoretically that the world loves truth rather than falsehood, but with relation to the visual presentment, the artistic simulacrum of individual humanity, it were more true to say that the world shrinks from perfect truth, and very much prefers the sort and degree of falsehood which was supplied by the courtly Lawrence and by Beechey, fanned by the plumes of princesses. Owen probably fell short of their standard, but if he refused to conduct his sitters into the inner recesses of that paradise, in which a certain class of persons love to dwell, he certainly planted them on its outskirts, else they had forsaken him and turned to other and more complaisant guides. And this the world never did, but, on the contrary, maintained him in affluence until the close of his career in 1825. In the last five years of his life he had fallen into a state of utter debility, from which he was relieved, we are almost inclined to say mercifully, by the mistake of a chemist who mixed a poison in his dose. SAMUEL WOODFORDE, R.A., was born at Castle Gary, Somersetshire, in 1763. Having shown at an early age a great talent for art he was enabled by the help of Sir R. C. Hoare to enter the Academy schools in 1782, and the same kind patron sent him three years later to Italy. While in Rome he followed the usual course of artistic educa- tion, than which nothing it was then thought could be more perfect. It obeyed the laws of an eclecticism which had been originally borrowed from the Carracci, though subsequently perfected by restricting the field of study to Raphael and Michael Angelo for design and to the Venetians for colouring, and into this hole all the pegs, round, square, or whatever their shape may have been had to be fitted. Woodforde returned to England in 1791, where he very Q 242 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST soon acquired a conspicuous position as a painter of history, choosing classical scenes by preference and exhibiting very correct drawings, with " an attractive mode of treatment." He was elected an Associate in 1800, and an Academician in 1807. He died of a fever at Bologna in 1817. HENRY HOWARD, R.A. Henry Howard was born in 1769, and after being a pupil of Philip Reinagle, entered the Academy schools at the age of nineteen. Two years afterwards, on loth December 1790, he obtained the two highest prizes awarded, viz., the first silver medal for the best drawing from the life, and the gold medal for the best historical painting, the subject being " A Scene from Mason's ' Caractacus.' " In the following year he went to Rome, and studied there with Flaxman, not returning to England till 1794. Six years afterwards he was elected an Associate, and an Academician in 1808. In 1810 he was appointed Deputy Secretary, and on the death of Richards, in i8ii,was elected to succeed him as Secretary, a post he held till his death, in 1 847, though his age and infirmities rendered the appointment of a deputy necessary at the beginning of that year. The minutes kept by him are models of precise verbiage and neat handwriting till near the end of his time, when the writing certainly shows distinct signs of feebleness. He was also elected Professor of Painting in succession to Thomas Phillips in 1833, and held this post likewise till his death. He had been connected with the Academy in one capacity or another for sixty-one years of his life. Howard, when a young man in Italy, had devoted himself with immense industry to the study of Grecian sculpture. In conjunction with a sculptor of the name of Deare, he made a series of exquisite drawings after the masterpieces of ancient art, and to this culture he adhered unswervingly all his life. Both by examples in his works and by precept in his lectures HENRY HOWARD 243 he maintained the ideal theory as based upon Greek models. He was a man of great taste and refinement, qualities which were happily combined with earnestness, industry, and single- mindedness, and with their aid throughout a long life, he pro- duced a vast number of pictures of a high average of excellence, though he failed necessarily in attaining the point of mastery. His art is strictly academic, and it is difficult to detect in it any inspiration from nature, as derived directly from her without transmission through another mind. Howard, though born in 1769, and touching hands with Reynolds and the fathers of English Art, is also associated with artists who were living and painting in the nineteenth century ; he was a competitor for the Westminster cartoons in his seventy-fourth year, and received a premium of 100 at the same time with Watts, Horsley, and others ; and his life becomes doubly interesting, not only for his influence and activity as a member of the Royal Academy, but as bridging over a wide gulf of time. We know that Reynolds saw Pope, Howard saw Reynolds, and no doubt Watts saw Howard four lives suffice to fill up the interval between the first decade of the eighteenth and the first decade of the nineteenth centuries. THOMAS PHILLIPS, R.A. Thomas Phillips is a name of considerable note in British Art history; though his work is interesting perhaps quite equally from an historical as from an artistic point of view. He had the good fortune to paint most of the eminent literary and scientific men of his time ; he lived in an era of great literary splendour, and it is by his pencil, more particularly than any other, that we have been made familiar with the features and appearance of Byron, Scott, Southey, Coleridge, Campbell, and a number of other great men. His portrait of Byron in a Greek dress is the standard 244 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST likeness of the poet, as it is the most beautiful ; indeed, the engraving after Phillips, which forms the frontispiece to the 1815 edition of the poems, appears more beautiful than any face ever seen in life ; it is the face of a poet, and beautiful with a Hyperion beauty, etherealised and sublimated until all earthly coarseness has disappeared. It is not only the poets, but the great scientific men of his age, Sir H. Davy, Faraday, Sedg- wick, Sir Joseph Banks, and others, whose likenesses have been handed down to us by Phillips, and they are seen probably at their best ; indeed, one cannot help suspecting him of having occasionally flattered his sitters, either consciously or uncon- sciously. Of conscious flattery in portrait painting, all that need be said is that it destroys character, and is a step towards man- nerism. But in unconscious flattery we often have the highest attainable truth about a man ; it is a glimpse into his inner being, a sort of intuition which has been vouchsafed to the painter which he has followed, and rendered, perhaps unknow- ingly to himself; what may be called the central idea of that man, what he was intended to be by nature, and what he is painfully struggling to be in a world full of carnal impediments. This Thomas Phillips came from Dudley, in Worcestershire, where he first saw the light in 1770. He had had some partial instruction in Art, and came to London provided with a letter of introduction to Benjamin West, who found employment for him in glass painting at St George's Chapel, Windsor. In 1791 he became a student of the Royal Academy, and after certain preliminary and tentative efforts in historical and even landscape painting, seems finally to have settled down to portraiture in 1796. Like most portrait painters, Phillips would at times grow impatient of the restraints and the more or less mechanical conditions of his occupation, and would indulge his fancy with some historical or poetical conception such as the " Venus and Adonis" which he presented to the Royal Academy as his diploma work. But his long and industrious life, prolonged for THOMAS PHILLIPS 245 seventy-five years, was mainly devoted to portraiture, and, as we have already said, he handed down to posterity a mass of authentic documents of the highest biographical interest. From 1804 to the time of his death he resided at No. 8 George Street, Hanover Square ; he was elected an Associate in that same year, and a full Academician in 1808. He suc- ceeded Fuseli as Professor of Painting in 1825, a post which he held for seven years, and he died in 1845. His manner as a painter was sprightly and entertaining, he is never dull or heavy ; he was a correct draughtsman, and his colouring, like his handling, is bright and lively. One cannot reckon him amongst the great men ; he had much more affinity with Lawrence than with Reynolds or Gainsborough ; but he is very characteristic of his age, and his works are easily recognised. To the tutored eye the touch of Phillips is no doubt like the handwriting of a friend seen on an envelope before it is torn open, and whatever may have been the man's merits or demerits, one charm he has, namely, that of being uniformly interesting and individual. NATHANIEL MARCHANT, R.A., was celebrated as a sculptor of intaglios, medals, and poetical designs for cameos ; he held several appointments in connection with these arts such as assistant engraver to the mint, gem sculptor to the Prince of Wales, engraver to the king, and chief engraver of stamps. He was born in Sussex in 1739, and after studying under Burch, became in 1766 a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists. In 1773 he went to Rome, and remained there till 1789, when, having already obtained a great reputation for his gems, he returned to London, was elected an Associate in 1791, Royal Academician in 1809, and closed his worthy and respected life in 1816, in his seventy-seventh year. It may be mentioned, as not without interest, that Marchant 246 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST first offered as his diploma work a set of impressions of gems he had cut, and when these were refused on the ground that they were not, as required by the Academy, " original work," he sent a cast of a female head, which likewise was declined : "casts not being deemed admissible from sculptors." Subse- quently, he submitted a gem which was accepted. The impressions offered in the first instance were afterwards presented by him to the Academy. CHAPTER XV ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST continued SIR AUGUSTUS WALL CALLCOTT, R.A. SIR AUGUSTUS CALLCOTT may justly be looked upon as the first of the many painters of distinction who have rendered the classic neighbourhood of Kensington famous for the number of its studios. He was born in " The Mall," and he lived and died there. Kensington at the commencement of the nineteenth century was a mere country suburb, the Bayswater Road which connects North Kensington with the metropolis being at that time a lonesome thoroughfare at night, beset by roughs and foot- pads ; even in 1812, when Wilkie came to live in Phillimore Gardens, he was always nervous as to walking home from town at night unaccompanied, declaring that "Several people had been lost there " ; though he would, with characteristic Scottish caution, somewhat qualify his remark by adding, " But on the other hand several people have been found there." Callcott's father was a builder, with a considerable business in that neighbourhood ; the old Orangery in the gardens of Kensington Palace was undoubtedly built by him, as was also probably The Mall itself, and most of the other old houses of that period in the vicinity. Augustus Wall Callcott, born in 1779, was nine years younger than his brother, the celebrated musical composer, John Wall Callcott, under whose influence he made considerable progress in 247 248 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST the study of music, and when a boy occupied a seat in the choir at Westminster Abbey. It was not long, however, before young Callcott, inspired it is said by the sight of Stothard's exquisite illustrations to Robinson Crusoe, resolved to abandon music and devote himself entirely to painting. He became a student of the Royal Academy in 1797, and about that time he was also working in the studio of Hoppner, the portrait painter. In 1799 he exhibited a portrait done under the tuition of his master, who soon afterwards expressed himself as so pleased with his pupil's works that he recommended him to put down his name for election as an Associate ; this, however, he does not appear to have done, as his name is not found on the list of candidates till the election of 4th November 1805, when he received no vote. On the next occasion, however, 3rd November 1806, he was successful. Whether his disappointment on the first occasion had anything to do with it or not, it was about this time, or perhaps earlier, that Callcott devoted his talents entirely to land- scape, and with such success that he had not to wait long for his election as an Academician, which took place on loth February 1810, the same night, curiously enough, on which the death of his master, Hoppner, was announced. As a student of the Academy and from his work in Hoppner's studio, young Callcott, no doubt, must have pretty well mastered the drawing of the human figure, which not only accounts for the ability shown in the figures occasionally introduced into his landscapes, but prevents surprise at the success which he after- wards obtained by the exhibition in 1837 of his picture " Raphael and the Fornarina." It is, however, as a landscape painter that Callcott will probably be long esteemed as an artist of very distinguished merit. Though his love of calm evening effects and the placid, soothing character of his landscapes and marine pieces have gained for him from his admirers the title of the " English Claude," the monotony of his scheme of colour and its lack of sparkle, depth, and richness, place him, in the eyes of all competent SIR AUGUSTUS CALLCOTT 249 judges, on a far humbler pedestal than that on which the illus- trious "pastrycook" will ever stand. But though not an " English Claude " or an " English Cuyp," he was a thoroughly good English painter in his own way ; his pictures possess great breadth of treatment, able drawing, and a sweet simplicity which cannot fail to gain him many admirers. Owing to the sound- ness of his technique and the workmanlike character of his execution, his pictures have lasted well, time having done them little harm, and, if anything, some good, by mellowing a certain coldness a fault which was sometimes advanced against them by the critics at the time they were painted. Callcott's works in a way reflect the estimable and quiet character of the man himself, who, though slightly reserved, was social and hospitable, possessed many friends and no enemies. He was married in 1827 to the widow of Captain Graham, R.N., a lady who had previously been known as an authoress, and who published in 1836 her Essays towards the History of Painting. She is, however, better known to fame by her Little A rthuSs History of England^ a work still, we believe, much in vogue. In 1837 Callcott received the honour of knighthood from the Queen ; and in 1844 he was appointed to succeed Mr Seguier as Conservator of the Royal Pictures, an office which he held for a few months only. Lady Callcott died in 1842, and on 2$th November 1844, he also departed this life, at Kensington, in his sixty-fifth year, and was buried at Kensal Green, where a flat table-tomb marks the site. To the believers in heredity, it may be interesting to note that the late Mr J. C, Horsley, R.A., was a grandson of Sir Augustus Callcott's elder brother, John Wall Callcott, the distinguished musical composer. SIR DAVID WILKIE, R.A. " There is a queer, tall, pale, keen-looking Scotsman come into the Academy to draw. N.B. There is something in him ! he is 250 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST called Wilkie." So wrote a Royal Academy student, named John Jackson, in July 1805, to another Academy student, named Benjamin Robert Haydon, who was away in Devonshire at the time. The said student Haydon when he came back to town found in the queer, tall Scotsman an artist already possessed of very considerable accomplishments rather than a raw student. From his infancy David Wilkie, who was born in 1785, had evinced a strong propensity to draw whatever he saw, beginning when a wee, bare-headed, bare-footed urchin, with a burnt stick on the walls of his father's house at Cults. All the aversion of father and mother and grandfather to his following, what they considered, as usual, an idle and unprofitable pursuit, only served to verify, as it always does, the adage of Horace " Naturam expellas furca ; tamen usque recurret." His father's successor in the ministry has mentioned that when he first came to Cults he found the walls of the nursery completely covered with eyes, noses, hands, and other parts of the human body, boldly executed, not with crayon, but with the charred end of a stick. These early drawings were afterwards obliterated by an energetic house painter. The parents and the grandfather often shook their heads at little David, and one day, as he was drawing, the old man said : " Ah, my mon Davie, it will be a long time ere daubing wi' a stick wull do anything for thee." David was not to be deterred, however, and carried his predilection to such lengths that though the son of a Scottish clergyman, and more accustomed than others to have the sanctity of the Sabbath continually impressed on his youthful mind, he could not help at church, in the intervals of prayer, filling up the blank edges and pages of his Psalm books with sketches of any peculiar characters that caught his eye amongst his father's parishioners; who, after a bit, went to his father in a body, and complained of master Davie. At length Wilkie's father and friends, seeing it would be WILKIE'S EARLY LIFE 251 cruel, if not hopeless, to attempt crushing his predominant passion, considered it more sensible to regulate it than to extinguish it, and with great judgment David was sent in 1802 to Edinburgh, and placed in the admirable school then kept by John Graham. Wilkie always spoke of Graham with respect and affection. Whilst at this school he contended for a prize in historical painting, the subject given being the murder of MacdufFs wife and children. One important lesson that Wilkie learnt from his father, whose income was rather straitened, was the value of money ; he began, therefore, very soon to exercise his profession as a means of subsistence so as to relieve his father, and by dint of portrait painting between the years 1803 and 1805 had, through his exertions and thrift, saved money enough to enable him to carry out the project he had formed of coming to London to enter the schools of the Royal Academy. It was at this time, too, that he painted "Pitlessie Fair," a large picture containing about one hundred and forty figures, most of them portraits ; and for which he received 2$. Burnet writes of him "that from the first he surpassed all his companions in comprehending the character of whatever he was set to draw." In a letter to a Scottish friend, Thomas Macdonald, I7th March 1805, Wilkie says, "I assure you I am getting into extensive business, and am covering a great deal of canvas in the country, for, in addition to what you send, the carrier brings me great pieces of it every week ; and there is one advantage attends me, that is, I am well paid, and I believe I will raise as much money as will keep me in London for some time." Having accumulated the necessary sum he sailed from Leith, and on arriving in London took up his abode at a lodging in Norton Street. Haydon gives several characteristic anecdotes of the early years of Wilkie in London. One morning Haydon was invited to breakfast with the young Scotsman. On his arrival he was 252 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST greatly astonished to see David sitting, in puris naturalibus> drawing himself from the glass ! Without the slightest apology for this position, he, with the greatest simplicity, replied to Haydon's inquiry as to breakfast, " It's capital practice, let me tell you : just take a walk," upon which Haydon did as he was bid, and walked till the study was finished and the breakfast ready. Not long after this practice from the nude, Wilkie made his first great success with " The Village Politicians." This picture was painted on commission for Lord Mansfield for 15, which sum, after a little fencing with the artist, who had in the meantime been offered 100 for it, was increased to 30. On the Sunday following the private view of the Exhibition of 1806, a very flattering notice of Wilkie's picture appeared in The News. " Wilkie, my boy, your name's in the paper ! " cried his fellow student Haydon. " Is it re-al-ly ? " said David. The puff was read and with a cheer Wilkie, Jackson, and Haydon joined hands and danced round the table until they were tired. This success introduced Wilkie at once to the notice and patronage of Lord Mulgrave and Sir George Beaumont, and he was dined and feted as the artistic lion of the season by all sorts of people of fashion ; but we learn from his friend Haydon that, amidst all this triumph, much to the honour of his heart, his thoughts went homewards, whither he despatched two new bonnets, two new shawls, ribbons and satins, and other things for his mother and sister ; these his landlady and her daughter helped him to pack so that they should escape injury on their voyage northwards. " All the time," Haydon writes, " Wilkie stood by, eager and interested beyond belief, till his conscience began to prick him, and he said to me, ' I have just been very idle/ and so for a couple of days he set to, heart and soul, at ' The Blind Fiddler' for Sir George." Haydon tells us of an expression that Wilkie continually made use of, " Come, jist be doing," which might have been taken to heart, to their great WILKIE'S PICTURES 253 advantage, by his friends, the easy-going Jackson and the combative Haydon. Wilkie followed up the successes of " The Blind Fiddler " and " The Village Politicians," both painted in 1 806, by a goodly series of pictures of a similar style and class of subject, which do not perhaps excite so much wonder and admiration now, as in the days when they were first exhibited, nor indeed as they are entitled to; chiefly, no doubt, owing to the number of inferior pictures that have since been painted by innumerable artists, either in direct imitation of them or on their lines. It is in 1809 that we first find his name among the list of candidates for the Associateship, and on 6th November in that year he was elected. Nor had he to wait long for the full honours of the Academy, being chosen R.A. on nth February 1811. The pictures which Wilkie painted between 1806 and 1825, which all belong to what may be termed his first style, are no doubt those on which his fame will chiefly rest. The greater number of them were engraved, and the plates secured an extensive popularity. Wilkie was much interested himself in extending the sale of these engravings, for on a visit to Paris in 1814, with his friend Haydon, he took a selection of them with him which he tried to introduce to the notice of the French publishers. His extraordinary ability in the com- position of groups of figures and accessories, and in render- ing truth of character and expression, is seen at its best in these earlier works ; no painter has, perhaps, ever exceeded him in the deftness with which he could express the twinkle of an eye or the quiver of a lip. As a superlative example of his brush work at its very best we should be inclined to select the marvellously painted monkey in the picture of "The Parish Beadle " in the National Gallery. The expression and character of the animal has certainly never before or since been given by any other painter with equal truth and fidelity. The little face has just that look about its eyes which caused 254 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST Jeffreys to say of monkeys that they always seemed to remind him of poor relations. After Wilkie's visit to Spain in 1827, he adopted a change of style, for which no doubt the fascinating works of Velasquez were answerable. Such pictures as " The Maid of Saragossa," and " John Knox preaching before Mary Queen of Scots," still show Wilkie's powers of composition standing him in good stead, and wherever he gets a chance he displays his old dex- terity in the expression and character of the heads ; though he is not nearly so much at home with lords and ladies or Spanish monks as he is with Highland pipers or Fifeshire peasants. At this period of his life he had become the abject slave of asphaltum, which seductive but treacherous pigment, though it might for a time produce something approaching the deep shadow tones of Rembrandt, would by no means help him to the sombre and sedate greys of the mighty Spaniard. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Excited to a new departure in breadth of treatment by seeing the works of Velasquez, it is marvellous how Wilkie totally failed in catching the aspect and spirit of the Spanish master. In one respect, indeed, he may claim resemblance to him, and that is in the intenseness of his nationality. Just as Velasquez was the very essence of a Spaniard, so Wilkie was the most Scottish of Scotsmen ; he might almost be considered the Burns of Art, for his picture of "The Penny Wedding" breathes with the very soul of Burns. He is never so successful in the expression of life and character as when the scenes and the people he represents are those of his native land. So imbued is he with this feeling that he imparts a sort of some- thing Scottish into the greater part of all the faces he paints. Even in " Her Majesty's First Council " there is something of the Scottish lassie plainly discernible in the Royal countenance. This picture, painted in 1838, is perhaps the most remarkable of all Wilkie's later works. None of the Royal pictures that have been painted of late years excels this in the happiness of WILKIE'S CHARACTER 255 the subject and in masterly composition ; it is in every sense a perfectly satisfactory historical work of Art, and it is even more, for surely there is poetic sentiment of a very high order in the sweet simplicity of this figure of the Maiden Queen seated amidst the representatives of the strength and wisdom of her kingdom. When Wilkie was engaged on this picture he told C. R. Leslie that Mr Croker made so many objections to this and that in the composition, "that," said Wilkie, "though I don't like to have words with any man, I was re-al-ly obliged to have words with him." This little story shows how confident Wilkie must have felt in his true sense of composition as well as how ignorant of the subject Mr Croker must have been. Leslie tells of another occasion on which Wilkie stood out for his composition even against so great a personage as The MacCallum More, for when he was painting " George IV. entering Holyrood House," he had a good deal of difficulty with the Duke of Argyll, whose fine face and figure are con- spicuous in that picture. The Duke, among other things protested strongly against the round Highland shield, because he had not carried one on the occasion ; but Wilkie, who wanted its form in the composition, persisted in retaining it The following extract from Leslie's Autobiographical Recol- lections, as it gives a very reliable account of the personality of Sir David, ought to find a place here : " The recollections of all my intercourse with Wilkie, and I knew him for about twenty years, are altogether delightful. I had no reason ever to alter the opinion I first formed of him that he was a truly great artist and a truly good man. The little peculiarities of his character, as they all arose from the best intentions, rather endeared him to his friends than other- wise. He was a modest man, and had no wish to attract attention by eccentricity ; and indeed all his oddity, and he was in many things very odd, arose from an extreme desire to be exactly like other people. Naturally shy and reserved, he forced himself to talk. I can easily conceive, from what I knew 256 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST of him, that he had a great repugnance to making speeches at dinners or public meetings, yet knowing that from the station he had acquired he must do such things, he made public speak- ing a study. He carried the same desire of being earnest into lesser things, not from vanity, but from a respect for society, for he considered that genius did not give a man the right to be negligent in his manners, even in trifles. When quadrilles were introduced, Wilkie, who like most other people; of his rank had danced reels and country dances only, set himself in the most serious manner to study them. His mind was not a quick one, and I am told he drew ground plans and elevations of the new dances to aid his memory in retaining the lessons of his master. Then, in dancing them, he never omitted the proper step, never for an instant walked, and never took a lady's hand without bowing. All this, so different from common ball-room habits, gave a formality to his manner that was extremely amusing, and his dancing, as indeed his mode of doing most things, was from the same cause very unlike that of anybody else. He was always ceremonious ; but, as I have said, from modesty and not from pride or affectation, for no man had less of either. Long as I knew him, and latterly in very close intimacy, he never addressed me but as * Mr ' Leslie." His death took place on the ist of June 1841, when he was returning from a visit he had paid to the Holy Land, on board the steamer Oriental ; he was seized with illness between Alexandria and Gibraltar, which in a few hours terminated fatally. His old fellow student, Haydon, thus alludes to his burial : " As his death was touching, so was his burial romantic ; for what Briton, ' whose march is o'er the mountain wave, and home is on the deep,' would not glory in anticipation at the poetry of such an entombment as Trafalgar Bay ! " It is no doubt partly the romantic character of this burial, and partly his desire of paying a tribute to the memory of his friend, that induced Turner to make it the subject of his remarkable picture, now in the National Collection. JAMES WARD 257 JAMES WARD, R.A. Thames Street, in the very heart of the City of London, with its narrow thoroughfare thronged from morn till night with the picturesque forms of busy life, always to be found in the vicinity of the ports or harbours of large mercantile towns, would, even in the present day, afford a most congenial and suggestive neighbourhood in which an English artist might pass the early years of his childhood. But in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when no doubt the skies were bluer, and the costumes of the cosmopolitan population more quaint in colour and variety, it must have formed an environment that could not fail to have had a healthy influence on the youthful imagination of such a truly English artist as James Ward, who was born there on 23rd October 1769. The robust energy which is displayed so conspicuously in all the works of this painter, is somehow just what would be expected from one brought up amidst the manly toil and never-ceasing activity of Thames Street. Very little is known of these early years of his life. Owing to some untoward family circumstances he had but a small amount of ordinary education, and we learn that when twelve years old he was sent to learn engraving under John Raphael Smith and William Ward his elder brother, who employed him chiefly as an errand boy. James Ward, however, knew how to use his eyes, and occupied his spare time in making drawings in chalk on any bits of paper he could obtain ; and after serving an apprentice- ship of nine years to engraving, turned his attention to painting. At first his style was much influenced by the works of his brother-in-law, George Morland, so much so that many of his early pictures are said to have been sold as Morland's. Ward, however, had far too much spirit and individuality to remain long as the mere imitator of another man's style. Resenting very bitterly the criticism on one of his exhibited works, R 258 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST that " it was by a pupil of Morland," he determined to discard for ever this brother-in-law's delightfully liquid and facile execu- tion ; and with the view of developing his own power, devoted what spare time he had from his occupation as an engraver, to the study of anatomy and animal painting. His heart was evidently more with the brush than the burin, though with this latter implement in his early career he attained much success and considerable emolument. In 1794 Ward was appointed painter and engraver to the Prince of Wales, and for many years was chiefly employed in painting portraits of favourite animals. He soon afterwards entered his name as a candidate for the Associateship of the Royal Academy, but being principally known as an engraver, he did not at first succeed, since it was for his works as a painter in oil that he solicited the honour. The exhibition, however, of several large pictures, such as " A Boa Constrictor seizing a Horse," " Deerstalking," and many other similar ones, at length gained for him the reputation as a painter which he desired, and after his name had appeared on the list of candidates for some ten years, without ever securing a vote, he was at length in 1807 elected an Associate, and was raised to full membership in 1811, on the same night as, and immediately after, Wilkie. In 1817 Ward gained the premium offered by the British Institution for " An Allegory of the Battle of Waterloo," and was commissioned by the Directors to paint a large picture from the design for ;iooo. This picture was exhibited in the Egyptian Hall in 1820, but met with no success. Following up this fanciful idea, Ward next painted sundry religious allegories, none of which were favourably received, although his scenes of animal -and rustic life, intermingled with these more venturesome works, still displayed the great abilities of the artist. One of his most remarkable pictures was painted in 1820-22, as the artist himself informs us, at the suggestion of West, in emulation of the celebrated picture of a bull by Paul Potter; it represents, in life-size, a bull, cows, calf, and JAMES WARD'S PICTURES 259 some sheep in a meadow. This picture is now in the National Gallery. James Ward's pictures are remarkable for their vigorous boldness and originality ; they arrest the attention at once. His delight is in rather startling effects of line and light and shade, which at times lays him open to the charge of exaggeration ; a fault, however, which one soon overlooks on account of the many beautiful passages of tone and colour with which his works abound. His favourite scheme of colour and love of curving line, seem derived from the enthusiastic admiration with which he had evidently studied the works of Rubens. His knowledge of the anatomy of the animals he portrayed was very remarkable. A fine example of the use to which he put this knowledge can be seen in the masterly way in which the white fighting bull, in the picture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is so to speak " built up " and put together by his powerful brush work. In the rendering of the human subjects introduced into his pictures, Ward is not always so successful, though in his sketches and drawings from nature of children and peasants, numbers of charming examples can be found. His technique was in all cases sound and thorough; he had a perfect mastery of the difficulties of glazing, and with the exception of a few cracks in their extreme depths, his pictures have stood the test of time well. Ward does not appear to have taken much part in the busi- ness of the Academy during the forty-one years that he was a full member. He served the regulation two years on the Council three times, 1813-14, 1821-22, and 1830-31, but on the three following occasions when his turn came he declined to serve ; nor do his attendances at General Assemblies appear to have been very frequent. Almost the only occasion on which his name appears in the minutes of either body is in 1814, when there is the following entry on the Council minutes of 7th January, in that year : " Mr Ward presented to the Royal Academy, a work containing observations on two extraordinary 260 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST fasting women, for which the chairman (Sir Thomas Lawrence) returned Mr Ward thanks in the name of the President and Council." This book is still in the library, and is entitled, Some Account of Mary Thomas, of Tanyralt, in Merionethshire, who lias existed many years without taking food ; and of Ann Moore, commonly called tlie Fasting Woman of Tutbury, accompanied with Portraits and Illustrative Etchings. By James Ward, Esq., R.A. The dedication runs as follows : " To the Right Honour- able Sir Joseph Banks, Baronet, President of the Royal Society, the supporter of science by a liberal and enlightened patronage ; the disseminator of knowledge by many ingenious productions ; and eminently distinguished by the devotion of wealth to the cause of Literature, this short narrative of some singular aberra- tions in the animal ceconomy (sic) is dedicated with perfect respect and esteem by the Author." There are seven large plates from sketches by Ward, giving portraits of the two fasting women, and views of the houses where they lived. He appears from the narrative to have originally thoroughly believed in both women. Ann Moore, as stated by Ward in an appendix, was subsequently proved to be an impostor, and he admits thr^ his belief in Mary Thomas, who had died in the previous year, was thereby somewhat shaken. It is a curious story, and is quaintly told. The veteran Academician continued to exhibit until 1855, having contributed altogether 298 works to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy since he was first represented on its walls in 1792, besides 91 works to the British Institution. Towards the close of his long life, he appears to have been in pecuniary diffi- culties, as at the beginning of 1858 he applied to the Council of the Academy for some assistance, and received a grant of .50 ; and at the end of the same year a similar sum was given him in response to a letter from his wife speaking of his increasing infirmities and the need of help to provide necessities for his failing health. His death took place in his ninety-first year, on the I ;th of November 1859. SIR RICHARD WESTMACOTT 261 SIR RICHARD WESTMACOTT, R.A. Sir Richard Westmacott, R.A., was born in London in 1775, and was the son of a statuary in Mount Street, Grosvenor Square. He first learnt his art in his father's studio, and afterwards, at the age of eighteen, went to Rome, where he became a pupil of Canova. Being a diligent and capable student he soon made rapid progress, and gained the gold medal for sculpture of the Academy of St Luke, for a bas-relief of " Joseph and his Brethren," and shortly afterwards the first prize for sculpture at the Academy of Florence. In 1796 he returned to England, and exhibited his first work at the Academy in the following year. His marriage took place shortly afterwards, and he settled down to a prosperous career at 14 South Audley Street, not far from the residence of his father. His work received rapid recognition. Commissions poured upon him from all quarters, and his being appointed to superintend the arrangement of the Townley Marbles in the new building of the British Museum showed that his taste and judgment were highly appreciated. Westmacott executed many poetic works, all more or less in the style of Canova. He also helped largely to further encumber our cathedrals with examples of the large pseudo-classic monuments to departed worthies so much in vogue at that time. Among them are Pitt and Fox, in West- minster Abbey, Sir Ralph Abercromby and Captain Cook in St Paul's. The statue of Fox in Bloomsbury Square, that of the Duke of Bedford in Russell Square, and of the Duke of York on the column in Waterloo Place are amongst the best known of his street monuments. His adaptation of the Monte- Cavallo statue, entitled " Achilles," cast from cannons taken at Waterloo, which stands at Hyde Park Corner, has been severely criticised ; the substitution of the property shield and sword for the reins of the horse which the original figure is represented as holding, being especially taken to task. 262 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST Westmacott was elected an Associate in 1805, and was pro- moted to the full rank of Academician in 1811, being chosen on the same night as James Ward and Sir Robert Smirke. In 1827 he succeeded Flaxman as Professor of Sculpture, and continued to hold the post till his death. The first lecture he delivered contained a glowing eulogy on his gifted predecessor, in which he says : " If to have procured esteem whilst living, and to have rendered himself useful to his fellow labourers, both by his practice and the examples he has left us, demand applause, few men have died with stronger claims on posterity." And in another lecture the following passage occurs : " But the greatest of modern sculptors was our illustrious countryman, John Flaxman, who not only had all the fine feeling of the ancient Greeks (which Canova in a degree preserved), but united to it a readiness of invention and a simplicity of design truly astonish- ing. Though Canova was his superior in the manual part and high finish, yet in the higher qualities, poetical feeling and invention, Flaxman was as superior to Canova as Shakespeare to the dramatists of his day." The honour of knighthood was conferred upon Westmacott in 1837, and the same year he received the degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford. This period marked the termina- tion of his active career, as he executed very few works during the last twenty years of his life. His death took place in 1856. SIR ROBERT SMIRKE, R.A. The artistic world at the commencement of the nineteenth century, at any rate as far as sculpture and architecture were concerned, was animated by a marked endeavour at a closer approximation in style to the chaste severity of pure Greek art. Extended exploration and the advanced enlightenment of antiquarian research had produced a feeling of dissatisfaction with what had hitherto passed as respectable in the classic style. SIR ROBERT SMIRKE 263 The good old useful Palladian architecture was no longer in vogue. In sculpture the reign of the gods and goddesses, nymphs and fauns, and Roman emperors of the periwig period, was over. It can scarcely be wondered at, for the Greek craze was rampart everywhere ; the very dandies were then styled " Corinthians," and the " girl of the period " emulated in her dress the scant simplicity of the Greek chiton. In those days the Antique School of the Royal Academy was in the very zenith of its glory ; Fuseli, its enthusiastic keeper, shouting to the students, " The Greeks vere Gods ! the Greeks vere Gods ! " On this great wave of Classic Revivalism Sir Robert Smirke and Sir Richard Westmacott, twin brethren Academicians, with steady hands and unimpassioned hearts, without encountering let or hindrance of any sort, steered their respective courses to honours and success ; whilst others, less fortunate, like Haydon, were dashed to pieces on the rocks of overweening ambition, or, like the modest Flaxman, left stranded on the cold mud-flats of neglect. Sir Robert and Sir Richard both possessed the happy knack of exactly satisfying the popular taste. Every building that was entrusted to Smirke for execution, whether theatre, post-office, church, or museum, was sure to possess the required amount of classic simplicity and dignity, the Ionic portico and pediment generally forming the most important feature in the design ; whilst in all the monumental figures from the hand of Westmacott that haunt our public squares, churches, and cathedrals, we plainly perceive a more or less successful amalga- mation of the modern gentleman with the hero of antiquity, a result greatly due to the skill bestowed on the heavy draperies with which they are clothed ; which draperies, besides giving a classic aspect to the figures, ingeniously help to support them on their pedestals. Perhaps the most successful example of the genius and skill of these two Academicians may be found in the building of the British Museum, where the sculpture of Westmacott adorns the 264 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST pediment of Smirke. Sir Richard's figures, although a long way behind those of the Parthenon in point of art, fill their spaces well, and help much in the matter of decoration towards the general effect ; whilst Sir Robert's work, in spite of the hostile criticisms to which it has been subjected, is grand and dignified in the noble simplicity of its proportions, and, as it stands at present, is one of the few modern public buildings in the metropolis of which the nation may feel justly proud. The fine open space in front of the British Museum, which allows so ample a view of it from Great Russell Street, may have something to do with the satisfactory feeling which it affords us, but much is undeniably due to the good taste of the architect in the arrangement and design of the various parts and proportions. Sir Robert Smirke was the eldest son of the painter, Robert Smirke, R.A. He was born in 1780, and after receiving from his father a careful training in the knowledge of Art entered the schools of the Royal Academy in 1796 and obtained the gold medal in 1799 for his design for "a National Gallery for Paint- ing." He subsequently travelled abroad and on his return in 1805 published some of the results of his study of the remains of ancient Art. Thanks to the influence of his father and other friends, his undoubted talents were soon busily employed in supplying London with buildings, for all sorts of purposes, in the improved classic style which he had adopted. Amongst other examples may be cited the large Doric portico of Covent Garden Theatre burned down in 1856, a building further remarkable as being the only one in London which was adorned with sculpture from the hand of Flaxman, an adornment for which it was indebted to the good taste of the sculptor's friend, John Kemble ; the Royal Mint, the General Post Office in St Martin's le Grand, the College of Physicians, and the Union Club. Modern Architecture having no real style of its own, is peculiarly liable to the fickle changes of fashion, and an architect, SMIRKE'S RETIREMENT 265 if he wishes to keep in constant employment, has to partake considerably of the accommodating character of the celebrated Vicar of Bray ; it is not, therefore, astonishing to find Sir Robert taking up occasionally work in the Gothic style, the revival of which was so soon destined to supplant the classic in public favour. Thus, in 1830-31, he designed the Library of the Inner Temple in Gothic, and about the same time was employed to restore York Minister, after the fire of 1829. In later years Sir Robert worked much in conjunction with his younger brother Sydney, and of this union of effort the Oxford and Cambridge Club affords a good example. Smirke was elected an Associate in 1808, and a Royal Academician in 1811. In 1820, on the resignation of John Venn, he was nominated by the king, George IV., to fill the office of Treasurer. That his services in this post were appre- ciated may be gathered from the fact that when, in 1840, he wrote and asked the Council to " make arrangements for the appointment of a new Treasurer," as he " felt unequal to the fulfilment of the duties," he was both by that body and the General Assembly unanimously requested to reconsider his decision. With this request he complied, and consented to remain in office as long as his health would permit. This proved to be till 1850, when he wrote that he again found himself under the necessity of desiring to resign the office. His resignation was accepted with many expressions of regret, and of flattering reference to his zeal and ability, and the uniform accuracy and attention he had shown in the discharge of the duties of Treasurer for thirty years. Increasing infirmities and consequent inability to attend any meetings at the Academy and take any part in its affairs, induced him in 1859 to express the wish to resign his Academi- cianship and make way for a younger man ; a step which, as he tells the Council in his letter, he should have taken sooner, but that he had heard it was intended to bring forward a measure for establishing a class of Honorary Retired Academicians ; as 266 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST that, however, had not been done, he would delay no longer. His resignation was accepted and communicated to the Queen, who was pleased to express her approval and her " full appre- ciation of the liberality of the motives which had actuated Sir Robert Smirke " ; and a highly laudatory address was presented to him by his colleagues. His death took place eight years after, in 1867. It may be mentioned here that the class of Honorary Retired Academicians above referred to was established in 1862. HENRY BONE, R.A. The decoration of porcelain at the close of the eighteenth century was still distinctly a Fine Art, the ornamental groups of flowers and little pictures adorning the cups and plates at that period being generally executed with taste and care by the actual hands of the artists who designed them. Henry Bone, born in 1755, the son of a cabinetmaker at Truro, was, in his youth, one of those whose genius was devoted to this branch of Art. He was apprenticed early in life to a china manufacturer named Cockworthy, first at Plymouth and afterwards at Bristol. The knowledge of the operation of fire upon colours thus obtained no doubt led him to seek a further development for his art in enamel painting. In August 1778, he removed to London, and earned a subsistence by making devices for lockets and other things, and painting miniatures. His first attempt at an enamel picture was a reproduction of "The Sleeping Girl," after Sir Joshua Reynolds, and in 1780 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a portrait of his wife. From time to time he executed a number of copies of celebrated pictures by the Old Masters, and by Reynolds, on a scale hitherto unattained in enamel, among them being one of Titian's " Bacchus and Ariadne," which was sold for the large price of 2 200 guineas. Besides these works and many enamels from his own miniatures, Bone executed a series of portraits of the HENRY BONE 267 Russell family from the time of Henry VII. ; also a series of portraits of the principal Royalists distinguished during the Civil War, some of which were completed after his death by his son, H. P. Bone. Another great work on which he bestowed infinite pains with but little or no pecuniary reward, was a series of portraits of distinguished persons in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which he enamelled from the Royal and other collections, varying in size from 4 to 1 3 inches. These remained in his possession till his death, when, in accordance with a request left by him, they were offered to the Government for the sum of 5000, about half their estimated value ; the purchase, however, was declined, and the entire series was dispersed by auction. Bone was appointed enamel painter to the Prince of Wales in 1800, and in the following year a similar appointment to the king, George III., was conferred upon him; he also held the same post under the two succeeding sovereigns. His election as an Associate took place in 1801, and was followed ten years later by his promotion to the ranks of the Academicians. As has already been stated, his work was by no means remunera- tive, and in 1832 he was compelled to apply to the Council for a pension. At his death, which took place in 1834, a successful appeal was also made by his family to the Academy for a contribution towards the expenses of his funeral. PHILIP REINAGLE, R.A. Philip Reinagle, of whose parentage little is known, was one of the first students admitted to the schools of the Royal Academy after its foundation. He subsequently became a pupil of Allan Ramsay, the Court painter, under whom he studied portraiture, and exhibited his first picture at the Academy in 1773. Up to 1785 his contributions to the exhibition were exclusively portraits, but he then abandoned this branch of Art and took to depicting hunting scenes and sporting subjects in 268 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST general, in which he met with great success. The Sportsman s Cabinet is the name of a publication by him in which are found correct delineations of the various kinds of dogs used in the field, taken from life, and engraved by John Scott. Reinagle was an excellent copyist of the old Dutch Masters, and many small pictures after Paul Potter, Berghem, Vandervelde, Du Jardin, and others, now regarded as original, were made by him. His feeling for landscape was considerable, and he assisted Barker in painting many of his panoramas. Reinagle was elected an Associate in 1787, on the same day as Sir Francis Bourgeois and W. R. Bigg, and it is interesting to note that whereas Bourgeois was advanced to the Academi- cianship in six years' time, Reinagle had to wait twenty-five years, till 1812, and Bigg twenty-seven, till 1814. Like Bone, Reinagle's art does not seem to have been of a remunerative character. In 1798, we find him appealing to the Council for 150, which was granted, "to save him and his family from ruin," and in 1820 he was placed on the Pension List. He died in 1833. CHAPTER XVI ROYAL ACADEMICIANS ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST continued WILLIAM THEED, R.A. A SCULPTOR of considerable refinement who commenced his artistic career as an historical and portrait painter. Theed was born in 1764. In 1786 he entered the Academy schools, and some years afterwards, like so many other artists of that period, paid the orthodox visit to Rome, where he spent several years in study. It was here that he made the acquaintance of John Flaxman, through whose influence he turned his attention to sculpture. On his return to England he settled in London, and earned a very good living by designing for Messrs Rundell and Bridge, the jewellers, and also, as Flaxman had done before him, for Wedgwood. He was elected an Associate in i8ii,and an Academician in 1813. After his election to the full membership, he produced several works in sculpture, one of which, viz., " Thetis bearing the Arms of Achilles," a life-size group in bronze, is in the Royal collection. There are also several monuments by his hand in churches. The influence of Flaxman is very evident in most of his works. He died in 1817 at the comparatively early age of fifty-three, much respected by all who knew him. While in Italy he married a French lady named Rougeot, by whom he left three children ; one of these, William Theed, achieved considerable eminence in his father's profession. 270 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST GEORGE DAWE, R.A. George Dawe was born in Brewer Street, Golden Square, in 1781. His father, Philip Dawe, was an engraver, and appears to have brought him up to the same profession, as several engravings are known to have been executed by him at an early age. When he was twenty-one, however, Dawe seems to have altogether abandoned this branch of the arts, though his productions indicate that he would have taken no mean position among engravers, had he continued to pursue it. In 1794, when only thirteen years old, he entered the Academy schools, and nine years later, in 1803, obtained the gold medal for an historical painting, the subject being " Achilles and Thetis after the Death of Patroclus." Dawe's good fortune was really quite phenomenal, though probably well deserved, for if his genius was not of a very high order, his industry and capacity for taking pains certainly did much to supply the deficiency. In addition to his successful work as student at the Academy, we hear of his attending lectures on anatomy, and even practising dissection. He studied also moral philosophy and metaphysics, and later in life acquired a knowledge of French, German, and Russian. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1809, at the early age of twenty-eight, and five years later obtained full honours, present- ing as his diploma work a picture called " The Demoniac." To him was awarded the two hundred guinea premium by the British Institution for a scene from Cymbeline, and a second premium in 1811 from the same institution for a picture of "A Negro and a Buffalo." Another success was scored by him with his picture, " A Mother rescuing her Child from an Eagle's Nest." As well as these successes in original composition, Dawe had numerous commissions for portraits, and eventually, in this line of Art, his fame became quite cosmopolitan. Soon after the marriage of the Princess Charlotte with Prince GEORGE DAWE 271 Leopold, in 1816, Dawe was honoured by their patronage, and painted several portraits of the Royal couple in all varieties of costume. After the death of the Princess he obtained the patronage of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, and went in the suite of his Royal Highness to Brussels, and thence to the grand review of the allied troops at Cambray, where, and at Aix-la- Chapelle, he painted portraits of the Duke of Wellington, Lord Hill, and several of the most distinguished Russian officers. After this he was engaged by the Emperor Alexander to proceed to St Petersburg to paint a collection of portraits of all the eminent Russian officers who had taken part in the recent war with Napoleon. He set out on his undertaking in January 1819, stopping on his way to paint various foreign Princes and Princesses and other notabilities, among them Goethe. Dawe was nine years in completing a series of four hundred (!) portraits of the Russian officers, for which a grand gallery was especially erected at the Winter Palace. He remained in St Petersburg busily employed until the death of the Emperor Alexander, when, being ordered to quit Russia, he returned home in 1828, having amassed an enormous fortune, In the autumn of 1828 we find Dawe again on the Continent, at Berlin, painting portraits of the King of Prussia and the Duke of Cumberland ; he also appears to have been restored to favour at St Petersburg, for in the spring of 1829 he accompanied the Emperor Nicholas to Warsaw, there paint- ing the portrait of the Grand Duke Constantine. This, how- ever, proved to be his last work, for in August 1829, he returned, broken down in health, to England, and expired on the 1 5th October following, in his forty-ninth year. On the 27th October he was buried by the side of Fuseli in the crypt of St Paul's. Dawe's habits were very abstemious, and as he was in constant employment it is not surprising that he should have amassed a considerable fortune ; a great part of which, however, owing to injudicious speculations, was lost before his death. 272 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST How far the charges of selfishness and want of generosity brought against George Dawe by his contemporaries, and which earned for him the sobriquet of " Grub Dawe," were justly deserved, may be open to some doubt. It is quite possible that the extraordinary good fortune which attended his labours from first to last, by exciting the envy of his companions may have given considerable bias to their judgments ; especially as at that period the patronage of British Art was at rather a low ebb. The fact that Dawe, early in life, formed a close friendship with that reckless genius, George Morland, a friendship which continued undiminished through all the changes and trials of the latter's life, and which prompted Dawe to publish his Life of Morland in 1 807, certainly seems to imply some generosity on his part ; for we cannot suppose it possible that this friendship could have been maintained so long without Dawe's having to render from time to time considerable pecuniary assistance to his careless and unlucky friend. WILLIAM REDMORE BIGG, R.A. Of the personal life of this artist very little is known, except that he was greatly respected for his gentle and amiable character, and that he was an intimate friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He was born in 1755, entered the Academy schools in 1778 and began exhibiting in 1780. Although elected an Associate in 1787, he did not reach full membership till 1814. That innocence and virtue were the usual accompaniments of humble life in the country, just as surely as that vice, luxury, and extravagance prevailed amongst the rich and town-dwellers in general, was so universally accepted as the truth by poets, novelists, and dramatists during the latter half of the eighteenth century, that we cannot be surprised at finding many artists of that period employing their talents as exponents of the popular belief. William Redmore Bigg was one of these, his subjects being generally little harmless and blameless episodes from EDWARD BIRD 273 village life, in which the tender feelings of parental affection or rustic society are held up to our admiration. The backgrounds are conventional, consisting mostly of a few trees, a thatched cottage, the inevitable blackbird in a wicker cage hanging by the door, a spinning-wheel somewhere about, a peep of sky, and a few sheep in the distance. All the members of the family are generally introduced children, youths, maidens, and old people ; and as there is a considerable amount of beauty in the faces, one forgives the strong family likeness which prevails. " The Sailor-boy's return," " Boys relieving a Blind Man," " The Shipwrecked Sailor-boy " are the titles of some amongst many other works by Bigg which have been engraved and enjoyed a widespread popularity. They are often still to be found adorning the walls of old-fashioned country houses. These works by Bigg, when compared to those by Morland or Gainsborough, hold in art much the same position which Sandford and Merton, The Blossoms of Morality > or The Adven- tures of Primrose Prettyface, do in literature to the writings of Fielding or Goldsmith. In the present day, there is again a demand for the engravings from Bigg's pictures, harmonising, as they do, with the old-fashioned furniture and bric-a-brac which is so much in vogue amongst those who aspire to the possession of good taste. Bigg died in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, in 1828. EDWARD BIRD, R.A. Edward Bird was somewhat of a self-taught artist, and though Constable has remarked that " A self-taught artist is one taught by a very ignorant person," still there is always a certain amount of enhanced value given to the works of such men in the eyes of the public which proves greatly to their advantage. Thus it was that when Bird commenced to exhibit his works in Bath and London, the story of his early life greatly helped towards the sudden and abnormal success he met with. Born S 274 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST of comparatively humble parents at Wolverhampton in 1772, he displayed all the usual precocity of genius; drawing on walls and furniture when quite a child, receiving a box of colours from his sister at fourteen, and then being apprenticed to a tin and japan ware manufacturer at Wolverhampton, where he rapidly distinguished himself by the skill he displayed in the embellishment of tea-trays. Bird must have had con- siderable self-confidence, too, to help him on, for on the expira- tion of his indentures we find him setting up as a drawing master at Bristol. It was whilst thus employed that he com- pleted his own artistic education, and not long afterwards began to produce pictures of genre for which he found no difficulty in obtaining purchasers. When he began to exhibit at the Academy in 1809, he was hailed by the London connois- seurs as a sort of Bristol wonder, just as Opie had been spoken of as " The Cornish wonder " ; and when at length his picture of " Chevy Chase " was ready for exhibition, the tongue of praise was so loud in its favour that poor Wilkie, in a fit of timidity, withheld his own picture from the exhibition for that year. " The Death of Eli " succeeded this picture, and was equally successful. A proof of the rapid success Bird met with may be found in the fact that, elected an Associate on 2nd November 1812, he was promoted to full membership of the Academy on roth February 1815, having had but a little over two years to wait. But Bird's powers were not equal to his ambition, and he eventually found his true metier in such subjects as "The Country Auction," "Gipsy Boy," "The Raffle for the Watch," and others. In his later years he seems to have again adopted subjects of a loftier aim, but without much success, as he had not the imagination necessary for such works. Amongst these later productions were several scriptural subjects, " The Death of Sapphira," " The Crucifixion," etc. He was greatly mortified at the reception these pictures met with from the fickle public, SIR HENRY RAEBURN 275 and this, together with the loss of two of his children, no doubt hastened his death, which took place in 1819. His friends and admirers in Bristol gave him a grand funeral in the cathedral, where a simple tablet to his memory was afterwards placed by his daughter. SIR HENRY RAEBURN, R.A. This distinguished portrait painter presents a fine example of the perseverance and energy which are so characteristic of the Scottish people. There is nothing in the facts of his parentage or of his early life to indicate from whence he derived his artistic feeling. He was born in 1756", the son of a manu- facturer at Stockbridge, Edinburgh. Left an orphan when only six years old, he received his education at " Heriot's Hospital," the Christ's Hospital of Scotland, and was apprenticed to a goldsmith at fifteen. During his apprenticeship we find him attracting attention by certain miniatures which he painted. His master, struck by the youth's talents, kindly introduced him to a portrait painter of repute in Edinburgh, named David Martin. Young Raeburn soon made rapid progress under the influence of this artist ; and having purchased the remainder of his apprenticeship, commenced in earnest his artistic career. He had many diffi- culties to contend with, having received no preliminary instruc- tion, but by his indomitable perseverance and energy he gradually overcame all obstacles. Making good use of his intercourse with Martin, he soon began painting life-size portraits in oil, and at the same time lost no opportunity of seeing and studying collections of pictures, so that he soon obtained considerable popularity. When only twenty-two years old he married a widow possessed of some property, and soon afterwards came to London, and was introduced to Reynolds, by whose advice 276 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST he visited Italy, and remained there for about three years. In 1787 he returned to Edinburgh, where he was soon acknow- ledged the chief portrait painter. Honours now flowed in upon him ; in 1812 he was elected President of the Royal Society of Artists at Edinburgh ; and in the same year became Associate of the Royal Academy, full membership following in 1815. His promotion was as rapid as that of Bird, already alluded to ; indeed they were in each instance elected on the same day ; but in the case of the Associateship, Raeburn preceded Bird ; while for the Academicianship their positions were reversed. Raeburn's offer of his own portrait as his diploma work was declined by the Council on the ground that it was " not usual to receive as diplomas the portraits of members," and he was requested to send "some other specimen of his talents." This he did not do till 1821, when he presented "A Boy and Rabbit." He never appears to have attended any meetings at the Academy, either of the Council or the General Assembly, and in 1 8 1 7 he wrote asking to be allowed to sign the Roll of Academicians by proxy, and so be spared the necessity of coming from Edinburgh for that purpose. His request was complied with, and a copy of the " Obligation " was sent to him to sign, and on its return the General Assembly authorised the President to insert his name on the Roll. Raeburn had at one time proposed to come South, and set up his studio in London, but he was dissuaded from this by Lawrence. Whether alarm at the brilliancy of the Scotsman's success had anything to do with the tendering of this advice we cannot say, but at any rate the advice was sound, for in the North Raeburn had the whole field to himself, whereas in London, besides Lawrence, there were several other able portrait, painters already established. The great number of portraits, by his brush, of eminent Scotsmen, prove that he found no lack of patronage in his own country. In 1822, on the visit of George the Fourth to Scotland, he was knighted, and shortly after was appointed King's Limner for Scotland. WILLIAM MULREADY 277 He did not, however, long enjoy these latter honours, for he died on the 8th of July 1823, in Edinburgh. Raeburn's portraits are broad and effective in light and shade, and brilliant in execution ; his colouring is always rich and harmonious ; his backgrounds are of the conventional type so much in vogue amongst the successors of Reynolds. Like many others of his contemporaries, he painted mostly on a twilled canvas known as " ticking," which accounts for a certain easy mannerism of execution which is found in his less carefully painted works. Though always enjoying a high reputation in Scotland, Raeburn's portraits were not so well known south of the Tweed, and it is only within the last thirty years that they have gained for their author, in general estimation, the rank as a painter to which he was entitled. A collection of 325 portraits by him, exhibited in Edinburgh in 1876, first attracted attention, and in 1877 some of his best works were shown at the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition. Since then he has very much risen in public esteem, but whether he deserves to rank with Reynolds and Gainsborough, as some of his latest biographers assert, is open to question. i WILLIAM MULREADY, R.A. William Mulready was born at Ennis, County Clare, in 1786. He came with his parents to England when about six years old, and soon showed considerable aptitude for drawing. Some of his boyish sketches having met with the approval of Banks the sculptor, he determined to adopt the profession of an artist, and when only fourteen years old entered the schools of the Royal Academy, where he made very satisfactory progress, supporting himself by drawing illustrations for a series of children's books, and giving lessons in drawing, one of his pupils being Miss Isabella Milbanke, afterwards Lady Byron. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy, "The Crypt in Kirkstall Abbey," in 278 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST 1804, when only eighteen years old ; and eleven years later, on 6th November 1815, was elected an Associate, his promotion to the rank of R.A. following three months afterwards, on loth February 1816. Such a rapid rise had never, nor has it since, occurred in the Academy. His principal works at this time were "Boys Fishing," "The Fight Interrupted," and "The Village Buffoon/' his diploma work. Mulready was always a very faithful and devoted member, subordinating his own private and personal interests to his professional duties. Himself devoted to study, he may truly be said to have been always a student, for throughout his long life he served the office of visitor (or teacher) in the Life Class almost every year, taking his seat beside the students, and mak- ing very elaborate and careful drawings in black and red chalk. Although an Irishman by birth, Mulready possessed few of the well-known characteristics of his fellow-countrymen ; he was neither bold, dashing, witty, affable, reckless, social, or quarrel- some ; on the contrary, he was quiet, patient, and industrious, extremely cautious and guarded in his conversation and conduct, avoiding carefully every chance of giving offence. Neither was he distinguished for sociability. The friendly chaff and fun that went on amongst the members on the varnishing days had no charms for him, and it was on his motion that these festive gatherings were, for a time, done away with, bitterly to the regret of Turner, Chantrey, Stanfield, and others, of a more affable and jovial character. These so-called varnishing days were first established in 1809; three or more days, according to the discretion of the Council, being allowed to members for varnishing or painting on their pictures. Mulready's motion was that the Council " consider the propriety of doing away with the varnishing days, or making such alteration in the present arrangement as shall equalise the supposed advantages of the days to exhibitors generally." The Council adopted the first alternative, the varnishing days were abolished, and a new law passed merely allowing a member to apply to the Council for ALFRED EDWARD CHALON 279 leave to retouch a picture if it had met with an accident, and then for not more than one day. This self-denying ordinance, however, did not continue long in force, and in a few years " one day or more, at the discretion of the Council," was allowed to members, and one day to non-members. Of Mulready's private life very little is known, for he was a man who throughout his long life kept himself very much to himself. When only seventeen he married a sister of the well- known water-colour painter, John Varley, herself an artist of some merit ; but the marriage was an unhappy one, and after a few years they separated. Mulready was a hard worker, and as his pictures were always thorough and complete in finish and execution, he seldom failed to find admirers and purchasers for them. By far the best in tone and colour of his works were those he executed in the early years of his membership, when the influence of Wilkie and of the Dutch painters was strong upon him. The character and expression of the heads are finer and truer in these com- paratively early works than in those produced in his later years. A great number of his pictures are in the National Collections a fact which is chiefly due to the admiration that muni- ficent patron Mr Sheepshanks had for them, Among the more important ones, in addition to those already mentioned, are: "The Wolf and the Lamb," "Giving a Bite," "The Whistonian Controversy," and " Choosing the Wedding Gown." Mulready lived long enough to witness the Pre-Raphaelite revival, and to his credit was one of those amongst the senior members of the Academy who first gave encouragement to the young school by testifying their approbation of the sincerity of its efforts. His death took place suddenly in 1863. ALFRED EDWARD CHALON, R.A. This artist, descended from a French Protestant family that had settled in Switzerland, was born at Geneva in the 280 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST year 1781. His father came over to England when his family, consisting of two sons and a daughter, were quite young, and maintained himself by teaching the French language. The boys early evinced a strong predilection for Art, and Alfred, the eldest, became a student at the Royal Academy at the age of sixteen. He possessed a strong sense of beauty, and considerable taste and dexterity of execution, and it was not long before he was able to support himself by painting ladies' portraits. His success was rapid, and for many years he was very fashionable in this branch of Art. He was elected an Associate in 1812 and an Academician in 1816. He worked principally in water-colour, though from time to time he exhibited a few subject pictures in oil, amongst the best of which may be mentioned " Samson and Delilah," and "John Knox reproving the Ladies of Queen Mary's Court." These and other works of a similar character were generally the outcome of successful sketches made by Chalon at the meetings of The Sketching Club, of which he and his brother, J. J. Chalon, may be considered to have been the founders. The meetings of this club, which included among its members C. R. Leslie, Bone, Stanfield, Partridge, and others, took place once a month, at the house of one of the members, on a Friday evening during the winter half of the year. The sketches, the subject of which was chosen at the meeting by the host of the evening, were gener- ally finished in about two hours, and became his property. Chalon appears to have occasionally tried his hand at other forms of Art besides oil and water-colour painting, as an entry in the Council minutes of loth April 1856 states: "Mr A. E. Chalon having forwarded for exhibition a sculptured hand, ornamented with jewellery and lace, and called ' Memorials,' the Council resolved, that though receiving the work for exhibi- tion, they would not be responsible for any accident or loss, nor should the exhibition of the present work be made a pre- cedent for the receipt of similar works in other years." As, however, no such work is to be found in the catalogue of JOHN JACKSON 281 1856, either the Council withdrew their permission, or Chalon his work. Alfred Chalon will perhaps be best known in the future by his water-colour portrait of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, which was painted about the time of her coronation, and beautifully engraved by Samuel Cousins, R.A., in mezzotint, the plate being deservedly popular. In person Chalon was tall and picturesque; he was rather dandified in dress, to the last wearing the caped cloak with chain and tassels which were in fashion in the days of Lord Byron. His conversation was brilliant, and he excelled in witty repartee. He died in 1860 at his house at Campden Hill, Kensington, in his eightieth year, having survived his younger brother John by five years. JOHN JACKSON, R.A. This distinguished and brilliant portrait painter was the son of a tailor, and was born at the village of Lastingham, in Yorkshire, in 1778. He pursued for some time the occupation of his father, but a sight of the pictures at Castle Howard is said to have awakened a love for Art, and having received permission from Lord Carlisle to make studies from the famous works in the collection, he soon displayed such skill, especially in a copy that he made of " The Three Maries," by Carracci, that he attracted the notice of Lord Mulgrave and Sir George Beaumont, who determined to give him an opportunity of following Art as a profession. The latter, indeed, behaved with the greatest kindness to him, giving him the means of going to London, so that he might be able to enter the schools of the Royal Academy. He became a student there in 1805, having already in the previous year exhibited a portrait of a boy. Profiting greatly by this liberality, it was not long before Jackson took his place amongst the principal portrait painters of the day, and many people of fashion were 282 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST among the sitters at his studio, first in the Haymarket, and afterwards at 34 Great Marlborough Street. His fame rapidly increased, and on 6th November 1815, he was elected an Associate ; nor had he long to wait for his full membership, being advanced to the rank of Academician on loth February 1817. In 1819 he visited Rome in company with Sir Francis Chantrey, and while there painted for him a capital portrait of Canova. But his finest portrait is that of John Flaxman, which was a commission from Lord Dover, and of which Lawrence remarked that it was "a great achievement of the English School, and a picture of which Vandyke might have felt proud to call himself the author." He also painted a beautiful portrait of Lady Dover. Jackson's art was manly and vigorous. He excelled in the brilliancy of his colour and execution, qualities which he owed in great measure to the keen and true appreciation which he possessed for the fine works of the Old Masters. He employed almost all his spare time in making studies and copies from these works, painting with great rapidity and facility. His copies were always excellent, without being servile ; and those that he occasionally made from Sir Joshua Reynolds' works have been considered by competent judges to have fully equalled the original as to the brilliancy of their quality. He had much of the facility which distinguished Lawrence, but escaped the effeminate mannerism which so often marred the President's work ; and as an instance of his rapidity, he is said to have once, for a wager, finished five gentlemen's portraits in a single summer's day and received twenty- five guineas apiece for them. Between 1804 an d 1830 he exhibited no less than 166 pictures, 144 at the Academy, and 20 at the British Institution, besides painting many others. But although the income derived from such an extensive practice must have been correspondingly large, he seems to have been unnble to save anything, as he left his SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY 283 family entirely unprovided for. He was twice married, and had four children, one by his first wife, and three by his second, who was a daughter of James Ward, R.A. His death took place at his house in St John's Wood in 1831. SIR FRANCIS LEGATT CHANTREY, R.A. Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey was born at Norton, near Shef- field, on the 7th of April 1781. He owed little to his parents in the matter of Art education, for his father died when he was a child of eight years old, and his mother, when she married again, employed him, it is said, to sell milk in the neighbouring town. A little later he was placed with a grocer, but at the boy's own desire he was eventually apprenticed to a carver and gilder at Sheffield. While there he no doubt became an adept at carving in wood, for Rogers, the poet, had in his possession a carved sideboard about which he was fond of relating the following anecdote. On one occasion he had, in company with Chantrey, visited the workshop where this sideboard was in process of con- struction ; during the absence of the workman, Chantrey took up the tools and began working on the carving ; the horror of the man, Rogers said, when on his return he saw the stranger thus occupied, was not to be depicted ; but as soon as he noticed the skill with which Sir Francis handled the tools he lapsed into silent and reverent admiration. Chantrey was not satisfied, however, with so limited a branch of the art, and with some of his own money he purchased the remainder of his apprenticeship and came to London to study as a sculptor. Returning to Sheffield in 1802 he appears to have met with little or no patronage until 1809, when he received through a friend a commission from an architect named Alex- ander for four colossal busts of Howe, Nelson, St Vincent, and Duncan, for the Trinity House and the Greenwich Naval Asylum. In the same year he married his cousin, Miss Wale, and the money, 10,000, that he received with her enabled him 284 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST to clear himself of debt and establish himself as a sculptor. Hitherto he had earned a subsistence almost entirely by portraits in oil, crayon, and miniature, and by occasionally working as a wood-carver. He had, however, exhibited at the Academy in 1808 a bust of J. Raphael Smith, with which Nollekens was so struck that he is reported to have removed one of his own busts in order to make room for the young man's work. From 1809 until his death Chantrey enjoyed an exception- ally large amount of patronage for sculptured portraits. Busts were very fashionable during the commencement of the century, and a list of those executed by him would occupy much space ; amongst others, his portraits of James Watt, The Earl of Egremont, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Melbourne, and Lord Canning, may be mentioned as conspicuous examples of his power of giving the life and character of his sitters. The fancy subjects from his hand, though they possess great breadth and simplicity, are perhaps a trifle heavy and conventional. His best-known work of this kind is the monument erected in Lichfield Cathedral to the memory of two daughters of the Rev. W. Robinson, called "The Sleeping Children," which was executed, like one or two other works of the same kind, from the designs of Stothard. The same criticism, too, applies to his full-length statues, many examples of which are to be found not only in England but in India and America. Their conventional and ponder- ous draperies generally contrast rather ludicrously with the extremely real and life-like character of the features. In this respect Chantrey's figure of George IV. in Trafalgar Square compares to great disadvantage with Wyatt's easy and correctly costumed figure of George III. in Pall Mall, and especially with Le Sueur's fine statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross. Chantrey was elected an Associate on 4th November 1816, and an Academician on loth February 1818, another instance of rapid promotion. He presented as his diploma work a bust CHANTREY'S WILL 285 of Benjamin West, the President. In 1837 he was appointed a trustee. During his visit to Italy in 1819 he was made a member of the Academies of Rome and Florence. His death took place somewhat unexpectedly on 25th November 1841. Norton, his birthplace, was also the place of his burial, he being interred there in a vault constructed by himself. By the terms of his will the vicar of the parish receives from the trustees an annuity of 200 ; of which 50 is for five poor men, 50 for five poor women, 50 for the education of ten poor boys ; and ^50 for the vicar himself on condition that he keeps the tomb of the donor in good repair. A genial and kind-hearted man, a delightful host and a liberal entertainer, Chantrey was very popular amongst his fellow members, and was always ready to help those less pros- perous than himself by any means in his power. It is to this kindly disposition of his that we owe the benefaction of the celebrated "Chantrey Bequest." He repeatedly lamented seeing fine works of high aims and meritorious character passing through the exhibitions without having met with a purchaser, and declared that he intended by his will to do something to remedy this unfortunate state of things. This intention he carried out by leaving the whole of his property at the death or second marriage of his wife, and subject to certain annuities, for the "encouragement of British Fine Art in Painting and Sculpture only." This encouragement was to be afforded by the purchase, out of the interest of the residue of the estate, of " Works of Fine Art of the highest merit in Painting and Sculpture that can be obtained, either already executed or which may hereafter be executed by artists of any nation," provided that the work, whether "by a deceased or living artist, shall have been entirely executed within the shores of Great Britain." It has often been stated that Chantrey intended his money to be expended in the purchase of works of high-ideal aim, which by the nature of their subject or from their size were not likely to find purchasers. But whatever his intention may 286 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST have been there is nothing in the will that admits of any such interpretation. In another part it says, " preference shall on all occasions be given to works of the highest merit that can be obtained, and the prices to be paid for the same shall be liberal." And again, the President and Council of the Royal Academy, to whom is entrusted the purchase of the works, " in making their decision, shall have regard solely to the intrinsic merit of the work in question and not permit any feeling of sympathy for an artist or his family by reason of his or her circumstances or otherwise to influence them." The interest may be allowed to accumulate for not more than five years. No commissions or orders for the execution of works are to be given, and the works purchased are to be publicly exhibited for " one calendar month at least in the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy or in some important public exhibition of fine art." The President and Council of the Royal Academy have full control of the money to be laid out in purchases, the selection being by a majority of its members for the time being, the President having one vote as a member and a casting vote as President. The names of all members voting for or against a purchase have to be entered in a book to be open to the inspection of the members of the Academy and the trustees of the will, of whom there are five, including ex-officio the President and Treasurer of the Academy. These trustees receive the interest on the capital bequeathed and after paying the annuity to the Vicar of Norton, and two other annuities one of 300 to the President of the Royal Academy and 50 to the Secretary hand over the remainder to the President and Council of the Academy for this purpose of purchasing works of art. None of these payments, of course, came into effect till after the death of Lady Chantrey in 1874, but in 1845 the Academy determined to anticipate Chantrey 's intentions so far as the President was concerned, and voted the sum of ^"300 a year to Sir Martin Archer Shee as an acknowledgment of the great services he had rendered to the Academy during his presidency ; THE CHANTREY BEQUEST 287 and to supply to some extent the loss of professional income, caused by ill-health and his devotion to his academic duties. The amount was continued after the Chantrey Bequest fell in, and was subsequently raised during the presidency of Lord Leighton, to 700 a year, in addition to the Chantrey 300. To return to that part of the will dealing with the purchase of works of art. Chantrey proceeds in it to say that it is his " wish and intention that the works of art so purchased as afore- said shall be collected for the purpose of forming and establish- ing a public national collection of British Fine Art in painting and sculpture executed within the shores of Great Britain, in the con- fident expectation that whenever the collection shall become, or be considered, of sufficient importance, the Government or the Country will provide a suitable and proper building or accommo- dation for their preservation and exhibition as the property of the nation free of all charges whatever on my estate." This object the trustees of the will and the President and Council of the Royal Academy are to use their best endeavours to carry into proper effect. But it is expressly directed that no part of the estate or of the annual income is to be " appropriated in acquiring any depository or receptacle whatever for the aforesaid works of art, otherwise than in providing a place of temporary deposit and security whenever needful and in defraying those expenses which shall be absolutely required for their necessary preservation." The trustees and the Academy approached the Government in 1876 and 1877 with reference to the clause in the will regarding the housing of the collection, but were met with the reply that there was "spare room in the National Gallery for any works of either painting or sculpture which may be purchased during the next few years." Looking, however, to the terms of the Bequest, they were of opinion that they would not be justified in giving up possession of the works without a distinct assurance that a separate Gallery would be provided for them. And so for twenty years " a place of temporary deposit and 288 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST security " was found by lending the works to the South Kensing- ton Museum and to provincial art galleries, who were always most eager to secure the loan of them. In 1897, thanks to the munificence of the late Sir Henry Tate in building the National Gallery of British Art at Millbank, the Government were able to respond favourably to a renewed application from the trustees and the Academy, and the eighty-five works in painting and sculpture purchased up to that date were duly handed over to the Government, who, on behalf of the nation, accepted them, and all others to be purchased in the future. A list of the works purchased up to 1904 109 in all will be found in Appendix No. VIII. WILLIAM HILTON, R.A. William Hilton had none of the obstacles and difficulties to overcome which so frequently beset the path of youthful genius, and it is possible that a certain insipidity in his otherwise fault- less compositions may be in some measure due to this lack of opposition at the commencement of his career. He was born at Lincoln in 1786, and his father, who was a portrait painter in that town, seems to have arranged that his son should become an artist from the first, preparing and teaching him as carefully as he possibly could. Thus it was that young Hilton made an early start. At the age of fourteen he became a pupil of Raphael Smith, the mezzotint engraver, and in 1 806 entered the Academy schools. Hilton's ambition from first to last seems to have been to excel in what was termed " the high historic style of painting." His subjects were always of the kind that are usually selected for the highest competitions in Schools of Art, such, for instance, as ".Cephalus and Procris," " Ulysses and Calypso," " The Good Samaritan," " Raising of Lazarus," with occasionally selections from Spenser and Shakespeare. Unhappily, he had not sufficient vigour or originality in his style of painting to WILLIAM HILTON 289 overcome the lack of interest which the patrons of art of his day felt for works of this high historic school, so that very many of his pictures remained in his possession until his death. His pictures were, however, very acceptable in the yearly exhibi- tions, and he was elected an Associate in 1813, and a Royal Academician in 1819, his diploma work being "The Rape of Ganymede." When Thomson, who succeeded Fuseli as Keeper of the Royal Academy, resigned that office at the end of 1827, Hilton was unanimously chosen to succeed him, and no one could have been found better qualified to fill the post. He was greatly liked and respected by the students, and received from them a valuable piece of plate as a token of their regard. They also purchased after his death and presented to the National Gallery his picture of " Sir Calepine rescuing Serena." His health broke down in 1836, and he died at the house of his brother-in-law, P. Dewint, the water-colour painter, on the 3Oth December 1839. It has been said that it was the lack of patronage which Hilton met with that first suggested to Sir Francis Chantrey the idea of making his celebrated " Bequest " ; if so, it is remark- able that the first picture purchased under that Bequest should have been one of Hilton's large works, " Christ crowned with Thorns." ABRAHAM COOPER, R.A. Abraham Cooper, born in 1787, was the son of a tobacconist in Red Lion Street, Holborn. The tobacco shop proving unsuccessful, the father, who appears to have been a bad manager, tried keeping an inn at Holloway, but with no better fortune, and as a consequence young Cooper had to be taken away from school when only thirteen, and some money-earning occupation found for him. A congenial one presented itself at Astley's Theatre, then under the manage- ment of his uncle, Mr Davis, and he spent some years there as an assistant in the equestrian battles and pageants. His T 290 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST leisure hours were occupied in making sketches of horses, and in 1809, without any instruction, he succeeded in painting a portrait of a horse named " Frolic," belonging to Sir Henry Meux, who bought the picture, and afterwards became a liberal patron of the artist. From this time, Cooper took to painting as a profession, especially the painting of horses ; and numerous pictures of this class, including portraits of the principal racehorses of the day, came from his brush. He was elected an Associate in 1817, and Academician in 1820. His portraits of horses would never of themselves have gained him admission to the membership of the Academy; it was the great success which attended the exhibition of several battle pieces by his hand, such as the " Battle of Waterloo," for which he was awarded a premium of one hundred guineas from the British Institution, and " Marston Moor," with others, that gained him the honour. Cavalry charges, in which a black and a white horse generally figured in contrast, were the subjects which he may be justly said to have made his own ; these pictures, though on a small scale, were highly finished, spirited in action and correctly drawn, but poor in colour. Some of the illustrations to the author's edition of the Waverley Novels are the work of his hand. Abraham Cooper's picturesque and venerable head was well- known to the students of the Academy as visitor during the last years in which the Royal Academy occupied the premises in Trafalgar Square. He exhibited a great deal of shrewd common sense in conversation, and he was generally called by his brother members " Horse Cooper," in order to distinguish him from the well-known painter of cattle, Thomas Sidney Cooper, R.A. For some years before his death, which occurred at Greenwich on 24th December 1868, Cooper was in distressed circumstances, and numerous grants were made to him by the Academy from 1857 until 1866, when he applied to be placed on the list of Honorary Retired Academicians. WILLIAM COLLINS 291 WILLIAM COLLINS, R.A. Besides being a painter and picture dealer, Collins's father, who was a native of Wicklow, was something of an author, having published a novel called The Memoirs of a Picture, a poem on the Slave Trade, and a Life of George Morland. Young Collins was born in Great Titchfield Street, London, in 1788. As a child he showed a great aptitude for and love of drawing, and he had the good fortune, through his father's intimacy with George Morland, to obtain that gifted, but eccentric, painter's advice in his studies. Though in after life he did not himself think he had gained much practical advantage from this instruction, his admiration for Morland's style, together with the success that attended his friend Wilkie's early pictures, no doubt very much influenced him in his determination to select for the subjects of his pictures, scenes and episodes of rustic life, in the portrayal of which he afterwards so much distinguished himself. Collins was admitted a student of the Royal Academy in January 1807, and in the same year sent two small views of Millbank to the exhibition. In 1809 he was awarded a silver medal for a drawing from the life. He then became a regular exhibitor both at the British Institution and at the Royal Academy, among his first early subject-pictures being " Boys at Breakfast" and "Boys with a Bird's Nest." His father's death in 1812 left young Collins the responsibility of having to support his mother and brother, and he seems to have exerted himself bravely under the trial ; for in the same year he made a great success with his picture, " The Sale of the Pet Lamb," a subject very likely suggested by his having had to dispose of the furniture and other household effects in order to pay off his father's debts. In 1814 his picture, "Bird Catchers," gained him his election as an Associate, and it was soon after this that he added to the range of his subjects those taken from fisher- 292 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER WEST men's haunts and habits on the coast, subjects which he treated with much sweetness and ability, especially with regard to the atmospheric effects ; it is more than likely that on the pictures of this class, too numerous to mention, his future fame will chiefly rest. But though both industrious and successful, his pecuniary affairs at this time were in a very unsatisfactory state. An entry in his diary in 1816 states that he is making it on "a dreary, black-looking April day, with one sixpence in my pocket, seven hundred pounds in debt, shabby clothes, a fine house, and large book of my own handiwork." From this position, however, he was extricated by the liberality of Sir Thomas Heathcote, who advanced the means of going to Hastings, where he first began those sea subjects which after- wards proved so successful. In 1820 he was chosen an Acade- mician, having missed his election the year before by one vote against Hilton, and from that period enjoyed an uninterrupted career of success in the branch of art which he had chosen. Urged thereto by Sir David Wilkie, and no doubt desirous of varying his subjects, he went, in 1837, to Italy, and remained there for two years. The result was seen in the many pictures of Italian life and scenery which came from his brush after his return to England. But neither these, nor those of religious subjects which are found among his later works, can be said to have added to his reputation. Before his death, however, he returned to the seashore subjects, for which he had most sympathy, and to the end there was no falling off in his powers, his last picture, " Early Morning," being one of his most beautiful. It was in Italy that, by imprudently sketching in the noon- day sun, he laid the foundation of the disease of the heart which eventually caused his death. The last years of his life were passed in much suffering, and his death took place in London on the I /th of February 1847, at the comparatively early age of fifty-eight. The total number of works exhibited by Collins WILLIAM COLLINS 293 at the Royal Academy and the British Institution was one hundred and sixty-nine. Several of his pictures are in the National Collection : " The Shrimpers," " Happy as a King," " The Stray Kitten," " Rustic Civility," and some Italian scenes as well. In 1822 he married the daughter of Andrew Geddes, A., by whom he had two sons, the elder, William Wilkie Collins, the well-known novelist, who wrote an interesting life of his father, and the younger, Charles Allston Collins, one of the earliest followers of the pre-Raphaelite school. Collins was elected Librarian of the Royal Academy in 1840, in succession to George Jones, but resigned in 1842 in consequence of the increased hours of attendance in the Library required by the Council. CHAPTER XVII ASSOCIATES ELECTED DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF BENJAMIN WEST WHO DID NOT BECOME ACADEMICIANS WITH Collins, the list of Academicians elected during the Presidency of West ends, and it now remains to notice those artists who, during the same period, joined the ranks of the Academy as Associates, but never reached the higher honour. They were fifteen in number nine painters, one architect, and five engravers. In saying that they never reached the higher honour, it is not intended to imply that their failure to do so arose from want of sufficient merit in their works. The five engravers were never eligible for the full honours of the institu- tion ; the law which limited engravers to the Associateship not having been altered until after the last of these five were dead. Of the other ten, one at least, Washington Allston, an American, would without doubt have been elected an Academician, if he had not quitted England for his native country in 1818, the year in which he was elected an Associate, and as he never returned, and ceased contributing to the annual exhibitions, he may fairly be considered to have voluntarily forfeited his claims to the more coveted distinction. JOHN DOWNMAN, A. This artist, who was born in Devonshire in the middle of the eighteenth century, came to London at an early age, and after studying under Benjamin West for a short time entered in 1769 the Academy schools. He chiefly maintained himself by paint- JOHN DOWNMAN 295 ing portraits and miniatures, in which branch of the profession he displayed considerable skill. But his contributions to the exhibitions also included fancy subjects of various character, such as " The Death of Lucretia," " Fair Rosamund," and others ; these, however, found few purchasers in his lifetime, the main bulk of them remaining unsold at his death. In 1795 he was elected an Associate and subsequently practised his profession as a portrait painter in various parts of England. A great many portraits by him are to be found in country houses ; they are chiefly chalk and pencil drawings. He died at Wrexham in 1824. ANKER SMITH, A.E. Anker Smith was one of the clever line engravers to whom we owe the beautiful little illustrations which adorn the books published during the closing years of the eighteenth and the commencing ones of the nineteenth centuries. He was born in Cheapside in 1759, and educated at Merchant Taylor's School. On the recommendation of James Heath, Smith, when quite young, quitted an attorney's office and took lessons in line engraving ; after which, for several years, he worked for Heath, many of the plates which bear Heath's name being in reality the work of his assistant. Anker Smith is at his best in his plates for Bell's British Poets, the British TJieatre, Smirke's Don Quixote, and for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. These works were executed between 1787 and 1797, and obtained for him his election in the last-named year as an Associate-Engraver. His larger works after Titian, Carracci, and Leonardo da Vinci, though carefully executed, have scarcely the delicacy that characterises his book-illustrations. His death took place in 1819. GEORGE GARRARD, A. Though, apparently, a man of versatile talents, contributing both paintings and sculptures to the annual exhibitions for many 296 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER WEST years, not much is known of this artist. Born in 1760, he became at eighteen the pupil of Sawrey Gilpin, and entered the Academy schools in 1778. Dogs, horses, and other animals formed the subjects of his pictures ; and his sculptures were bas-reliefs, busts, and monuments. He exhibited specimens of all these works at the Academy and was elected an Associate in 1800. He died at Brompton in 1826. JAMES FITTLER, A.E. Fittler, who was born in London in 1758 was, like Heath and Smith, employed greatly on book-illustration ; he, however, distinguished himself in works on a larger scale, and is perhaps best known for his fine plates from Loutherbourg's pictures of " The Battle of the Nile " and " Lord Howe's Victory." Fittler's work in these plates suffers only when compared with Woollett's matchless " Battle of La Hogue." Fittler entered the Academy schools in 1778, and was elected an Associate- Engraver in 1800. He also held the appointment of engraver to the king. He executed little or no work after 1822, and died in 1835. JOSEPH GANDY, A. Joseph Gandy, the only architect added to the list of the Associates during West's Presidency, was born in 1771. He was a pupil of James Wyatt, and in 1789 entered the Academy schools, where in the following year he gained the gold medal with a design for a " Triumphal Arch." He subsequently studied in Rome, and on his return to England was much employed by Sir John Soane. Elected an Associate in 1803, he seemed to have a successful career before him, but though his designs and drawings display great beauty and fertility of invention, and his taste was appreciated by his fellow-artists, unfortunately Gandy, who was odd and impracticable in dis- position, had not the social qualities which are an important JOHN LANDSEER 297 requisite to architectural success. As a consequence of this defect very few of his designs were carried into execution, and he fell into straitened circumstances, being compelled to ask for pecuniary assistance from the Academy. Rendered morose by poverty and disappointment, Joseph Gandy led a quiet and retired life in Greek Street, Soho, and died in 1843. THEOPHILUS CLARKE, A. A portrait painter, born about 1776 a pupil of Opie and student in 1793 at the Academy who exhibited at times a few fancy subjects, such as " The Pensive Girl," and " The Lovers," from Thomson's Seasons. He was elected an Associate in 1803, and last exhibited in 1810. The date of his death is unknown, but as he had long ceased exhibiting, and as it could not be ascertained whether he was alive or dead, in 1832 his name was erased from the list of Associates. JOHN LANDSEER, A.E. The father of the Landseer family was born at Lincoln in 1769. He was the son of a jeweller, and received his first instruction in the art of engraving from a clever landscape painter, named John Byrne. The vignettes in Bowyer's History of England, and Moore's Views in Scotland, published in 1793, are by John Landseer ; he also executed a series of clever engravings of animals from pictures by Rubens and Snyders. One of the first to fight the battle for the admission of engravers to the full membership of the Academy, he employed much of his time in controversial literature on the subject ; nor did his election as an Associate-Engraver, in 1806, prevent him from continuing to urge their claims. He wrote letters to the Council on the subject, and was allowed to attend at one of their meetings and argue the point before them ; but all the 298 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER WEST answer he got was that the President and Council "conceive themselves not empowered to act upon propositions involving so essential an alteration in the structure of the Establishment as originally instituted by His Majesty." Nor was the cause, for which he contended, successful till 1855, three years after his death. At one time he started a periodical, The Probe, which, however, failed, as had another similar attempt by him before. He lived long enough to witness the fame of his youngest son Edwin, from whose " Dogs of Mount St Bernard" he made one of his best engravings. John Land- seer, in his old age, had a venerable and picturesque appear- ance. He died in 1852, in his ninetieth year, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery. ARCHER JAMES OLIVER, A. Born in 1774, he was admitted a student at the Royal Academy in 1790 and elected an Associate in 1807. Though at one time a fashionable portrait painter of considerable merit, and for many years a constant exhibitor, Oliver's works were scarcely up to the high standard of excellence which prevailed at the time in portraiture. He became in his old age embar- rassed in circumstances, and for a short time was glad to avail himself of the remuneration he obtained as Curator in the School of Painting at the Academy to which post he was appointed in 1835. But his health soon failing, he was compelled to rely, during the last years of his life, on donations from the funds of the Academy. He died in Bond Street in 1842, a number of his unfinished portraits and his collection of engravings becom- ing the property of his landlord in lieu of unpaid rent. SAMUEL DRUMMOND, A. Born in London in 1770, Drummond at the age of fourteen ran off to sea, and remained away for six years. Having WILLIAM WESTALL 299 developed a love for Art, he entered in 1791 soon after his return the schools of the Royal Academy, and in the same year made his first appearance at the exhibition. In 1808 he was elected an Associate. Though Drummond's principal occupation was portrait painting, he occasionally exhibited subject-pictures, some of them representing events in naval history, such as " Admiral Duncan receiving the Sword of Admiral de Winter," in Greenwich Hospital. In the National Portrait Gallery are two of his portraits : one of Sir Isambard Brunei, and the other a miniature of Mrs Fry. Drummond, like Oliver, seems to have experienced difficulties of a pecuniary nature in his later years. He succeeded Oliver as Curator of the Painting School, and frequently received assistance from the funds of the Academy. His death occurred in 1844. GEORGE ARNALD, A. A landscape and marine painter born in Berkshire in 1763. He began life as a domestic servant, but his mistress noticing he had a talent for Art obtained instruction for him. He became a pupil of William Pether, and from 1788 contributed regularly to the exhibition, being elected an Associate in 1810. In 1825 he obtained a British Institution premium of $oo for a "Battle of the Nile," now in Greenwich Hospital. He died in 1841. WILLIAM WESTALL, A. This artist was a younger brother of Richard Westall, R.A., and was born at Hertford in 1781. After studying under his brother he went in 1801, when only nineteen, as draughtsman with Captain Flinders' Australian expedition. He was eventu- ally wrecked on a coral-reef on the coast of Australia, and was picked up by a ship bound for China, where he remained for some time, afterwards visiting India. Returning to England for a short time, he subsequently visited Madeira and the West 300 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER WEST India Islands, finally settling down at home in 1808. The pictures and drawings which he made during his travels attracted considerable attention, from their novelty, and gained him his election as an Associate in 1812. He had been previously elected a member of the Water-Colour Society. After his election his paintings showed considerable deterioration in quality, and he took to drawing for engravers and to engraving in aquatint views of English scenery. He died in 1850, from the effects of an accident. GEORGE FRANCIS JOSEPH, A. This artist was a successful and fashionable portrait painter. Born in 1764, he entered the schools of the Academy in 1784, and began exhibiting in 1788. Four years later he obtained the gold medal for his picture " A Scene from Coriolanus," a success which encouraged him to select subjects of high art for his pictures. In 1812 he was awarded a premium of one hundred guineas by the British Institution, for his picture of " The Procession to Mount Calvary," and in the following year was elected an Associate. After his election he abandoned the ambitious line of art which had brought him into notice, for the more lucrative one of portrait painting. There is a portrait of Mr Spencer Percival by him in the National Portrait Gallery. He died in 1 846. WILLIAM WARD, A.E. William Ward, the eminent mezzotint engraver was the elder brother of James Ward, R.A., the animal painter, and was born in 1766. He was apprenticed to J. R. Smith, and after- wards became his assistant. Some of his best-known works are the plates from Morland, who married his sister. He also engraved several portraits by Reynolds, Jackson, and others. He was elected an Associate-Engraver in 1814, and also held WASHINGTON ALLSTON 301 the appointment of mezzotint engraver to the Prince Regent and the Duke of York. His death took place suddenly, of a fit of apoplexy, at his residence in 1826. Ward's plates are still greatly admired by collectors, and generally realise high prices. WASHINGTON ALLSTON, A. This distinguished artist was born in South Carolina, U.S.A., in 1 779. Both his parents were of good families, and from them he inherited a considerable patrimony. After completing his university career at Harvard College, where he graduated with honours, he came, in 1801, to England, and at once entered the Royal Academy schools. He went to Paris in 1804, and after- wards to Rome, returning to America in 1809. Whilst there he married, and again came to England in 1811, remaining here for seven years, with the exception of a short visit to Paris with his friends, Newton and C. R. Leslie, in 1817. During his stay in England he produced several remarkable works. One of them " The Dead Man raised by touching Elisha's Bones " gained the two hundred guineas premium awarded by the British Institution, and is now in the Academy of Pennsylvania. This picture is characterised by great imaginative qualities and a refined sense of colour, as is also his "Jacob's Dream," which he sent from Boston to the Academy Exhibition in 1819; the angels being composed and delineated with the utmost grace and refinement. Allston also painted an admirable portrait of Coleridge now in the National Portrait Gallery with whom he was very intimate ; Coleridge being much attracted by Allston's high culture, and by the poetic imagination which imbued his works and conversation. Unfortunately, on the very eve of his election to the Associateship of the Academy, in 1818, and in despite of the earnest protestations of his numerous friends in England, Allston, under a fit of home-sickness, suddenly decided to return to America, where he remained until his death in 1843. He 302 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER WEST produced one or two pictures after his return, but, though they were of large size and ambitious aim, they scarcely sustained the reputation of his earlier works : they lingered too long in the studio, and suffered greatly from repeated alterations and experiments. He left at his death a large unfinished work, " Belshazzar's Feast," which is in the Boston Museum, where there is also a portrait by him of Benjamin West. Allston was a man of extreme amiability of character, and greatly beloved by his numerous friends. He wrote at different times a volume of poems, a romance, and sundry essays and short pieces. His Life and Letters, by J. B. Flagg, was published in a large volume, with portraits and illustrations, in 1893. WILLIAM BROMLEY, A.E. William Bromley was born at Carisbrooke, in the Isle of Wight, in 1769, and was early apprenticed to an engraver named Wooding. His skill soon attracted the notice of many eminent artists, several of whose works he engraved e.g. % Lawrence's portraits of the Duke of Wellington and of the young Napoleon ; and Stothard's designs for the History of England. He also executed a plate after Rubens' picture, " The Woman taken in Adultery." He was elected an Associate-Engraver in 1819, and later in life he did some useful work for the Trustees of the British Museum, engraving " The Elgin Marbles " from drawings made by Henry Corbould. He died in 1842. CHAPTER XVIII SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, AND HIS PRESIDENCY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE THOUGH the son of an innkeeper at Bristol, extraordinary natural endowments, extreme precocity, and untiring assiduity marked Sir Thomas Lawrence from his very childhood as one destined to rise to great eminence in his profession ; while at the same time the versatility of his accomplishments, his self- possession, his personal appearance, and even many circumstances of his early environment, all seemed to have helped to fit him for the important position which he was to hold as President of the Royal Academy. On his mother's side, at least, Lawrence came of a good family ; she was a Miss Lucy Read, daughter of the Rev. W. Read, vicar of Tenbury, and through her mother connected with the Powis family. Thomas Lawrence, senior, had been an excise officer, but was, at the time of Sir Thomas' birth in 1769, landlord of " The White Lion " in Broad Street, Bristol. In 1772 he removed to "The Black Bear," a very important and much-frequented hotel, at Devizes, on the old Bath road. From all accounts he was rather a pompous and officious personage, dressed in velvet and laced ruffles, and was at all times ready to give the distinguished travellers who stayed at his hotel the benefit of his company and conversation. In fact, very much the style of host that Mr Marlow and Mr Hastings mistook Mr 304 SIR THOS. LAWRENCE AND HIS PRESIDENCY Hardcastle for. He never tired of showing off the wonderful accomplishments of his precocious son ; and it was thus that Master Tommy became, even before he was seven years old, perfectly familiar with the appearance, manners, and conversation of that aristocracy amongst which, in the future, he was destined to move and take his place. He was a handsome child, with thoughtful eyes and rich dark chestnut curls which hung forward and enveloped his pretty face when engaged in making his drawings. Of his extreme precocity we have many evidences ; perhaps the most reliable, and certainly the most quaint and matter of fact is contained in the following extract from a letter of the Hon. Davies Barrington. Writing to his friend Gilbert White, he thus descants on the boy's attainments, very much as though describing some object or curiosity of natural history : " As I have mentioned so many other proofs of early genius in children, I here cannot pass unnoticed a Master Lawrence, son of an innkeeper at Devizes, in Wilt- shire. This boy is now nearly ten years and a half old ; but at the age of nine, without the most distant instruction from anyone, he was capable of copying historical pictures in a masterly style, and also succeeded amazingly in compositions of his own, particularly that of 'Peter denying Christ.' In about seven minutes he scarcely ever failed of drawing a strong likeness of any person present, which had generally much freedom and grace, if the subject permitted. He is also an excellent reader of blank verse, and will immediately convince any one that he both understands and feels the strik- ing passages of Milton and Shakespeare." Master Lawrence, of " The Black Bear," was as much famed for his pretty recitals from Milton and Shakespeare as for his little crayon portraits. We are told that Garrick, whilst staying at the hotel on his way to Bath, delighted much in the juvenile performer. The proud father informs Mr Garrick that " Tommy has learnt one or two speeches since you were here last," and Mr and Mrs Garrick retire, after their dinner, to the summer- si/" J/itwifiA Jaw retire, : / M!._/7 .A/ //>// Jr//. /\: !**: ':*." " I *" . / LAWRENCE'S EARLY SUCCESS 305 house in order to hear Master Tommy recite something out of what his father called Milton's " Pandemonium." Of ordinary education young Lawrence had little or nothing, for he was taken from the only school he ever went to when he was but eight years old. He was by no means, however, a mere home-bred milk-sop, for besides being a good billiard player, a good shot, and a clever actor, he was very athletic and particularly fond of boxing. In 1779 the family left Devizes and removed first to Oxford and subsequently to Bath, where the future president, besides receiving lessons in his art from William Hoare, R.A., had frequent opportunities of studying fine examples of the Old Masters in the collections of different noblemen in the neigh- bourhood. It was not long before he was earning a consider- able competency by making crayon portraits of the fashionable frequenters of that famous city. His method was to paint for half an hour from his sitter, and then to work up the portrait without nature for another half-hour. It probably was from this rather dangerous method of procedure in early life that he contracted a habit of flattering ; which, though leading no doubt to an enormous amount of patronage, yet in the eyes of an expert connoisseur detracted somewhat from the merits of his portraits. Lawrence would execute three or four such crayon portraits in a week, receiving as much as three guineas a piece for them. At Bath, Lawrence had for sitters many distinguished people. There, too, he first saw Mrs Siddons ; she appeared at the Bath Theatre, and young Lawrence from recollection made a pencil drawing of her as " Aspasia," in The Grecian Daughter, in the act of stabbing the tyrant, which was engraved and sold for five shillings a copy. Lawrence must have felt pretty well assured of his power even at this period of his life, for in a letter to his mother, in September 1786, he writes : " Excepting Sir Joshua, for the painting of a head, I would risk my reputa- tion with any painter in London." In 1787 Lawrence went to London and became a student U 306 SIR THOS. LAWRENCE AND HIS PRESIDENCY at the Royal Academy. On his introduction, amongst several other young artists with their productions, to Sir Joshua Reynolds, he was singled out for notice : " Stop, young man ; I must have some talk with you. Well, I suppose now, you think this is very fine, and this colouring very natural, hey ! hey ! " And then, after a bit : " It is clear you have been looking at the Old Masters ; but my advice to you is to study nature ; apply your talents to nature." It is easy to see from this that the wise old President felt in the young man's work that tendency to man- nerism which was ever his besetting sin, and advised the severe study of nature as a wholesome corrective. Lawrence's success as a portrait painter, after he came to London, proved quite a record for rapidity. To his fellow- students he seemed, with his handsome features and curling locks of brown hair, as a young Raphael suddenly dropped amongst them. The fashionable people in town vied with one another in giving him commissions. The king and queen themselves took the greatest interest in his works, and even urged the members of the Academy to elect the young man an Associate when he was only twenty-one years old. Such a proceeding, however, though favoured by Reynolds and West, would have been contrary to the then laws of the Institution, which did not allow of any one being elected under twenty-four years of age, and was successfully resisted. But when the attempt was renewed in the following year, the opposition gave way, and on loth November 1791, Lawrence was elected an Associate, the first of five chosen at the same time, of whom the only other of note was Stothard. His election to full member- ship followed on loth February 1794, his two companions on this occasion being Stothard and Hoppner. Thus, before he was twenty-five he became an Academician, an instance of the early attainment of the honour which has had no parallel. On the death of Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1792, Lawrence had been elected painter to the Dilettanti Society, and at the same time the king appointed him to succeed the late President as THE WATERLOO GALLERY PORTRAITS 307 Principal Painter in Ordinary. During the presidency of West, Lawrence executed most of his finest works, and in the exhibi- tions at Somerset House, his portraits were looked for from year to year with the greatest interest. In the early years of the nineteenth century a great change came over the fashions in costume and head-dress ; silk brocades, full skirts, elaborate muslin caps and fichus, frizzed, powdered, and puffed-out hair, gave way to short waists, dainty, close- fitting, pseudo-classic gowns, and hair worn in plain Grecian bands, its natural gloss increased by pomatum, whilst satin and velvet superseded silk and muslin. These changes were eminently congenial to the art of Lawrence. No painter equalled him in the skilful dexterity with which he rendered the glossy lights on dark hair, the shimmer of satin, or the richness of velvet. His knowledge of drawing stood him in good stead in rendering the increased evidence of the figure which the closely-fitting garments favoured. The prevailing taste for that class of personal beauty, of which Mrs Siddons was so con- spicuous a type, exactly coincided with Lawrence's own feelings ; in short, never was a painter more fortunate as regards the tastes and fashions of the period in which he lived. Untrammelled by the cares of wife or family, the young artist worked with surprising and indefatigable industry. The times were stirring ones ; portraits of military and naval heroes fell to his lot by scores. In 1814, he received a commission from the Prince Regent to paint the portraits of the sovereigns and the famous warriors and statesmen who had been the means of restoring the peace of Europe. The honour of knight- hood was conferred upon him in the following year, at the instigation, it is believed, of the Emperor of Russia, one of his illustrious sitters. In 1818 he proceeded to the Congress of Aix- la-Chapelle, and thence to Vienna, painting in both places the portraits of the allied sovereigns and their most distinguished ministers and generals, and in May 1819, to Rome, where he painted his well-known portraits of Pius VII. and of Cardinal 308 SIR THOS. LAWRENCE AND HIS PRESIDENCY Gonsalvo. Of these historic portraits the greater part are now in the Waterloo Gallery at Windsor Castle. From his journeyings Lawrence returned laden with honours and gifts, having been elected a member of the Academy of St Luke, and of the Academies of Florence, Venice, America, Denmark, and Austria, as well as receiving the Austrian Legion of Honour. There could possibly be no other candidate for the Presi- dential chair, rendered vacant by the death of West in 1820, who would have had the least chance of opposing Lawrence in the election for that high office ; and that he was unanimously elected on the 2Oth of March, the day after the funeral of the venerable West, filled no one with surprise, unless it may have been himself, for he was on his journey home at the time of West's death, and only arrived in London the very day of his election. Towards the end of 1829 Lawrence's health became impaired, he seemed wearied and pale, as though from overwork ; there were no symptoms, however, of any actual disease, and his doctors, being in doubt as to his case, decided to play what in those days was the fashionable " trump card " of blood-letting. Under this treatment he rapidly became worse, and finally sank exhausted on the ?th of January 1830. A post-mortem resulted in the discovery that, though there was some slight ossification of the heart, the real cause of his death was due to loss of blood by leeches and lancet. Lawrence seems to have had some premonition of his coming end, for at the Artists' Fund Dinner in 1829, in replying to the toast of his health, he said : " I am now advanced in life, and the time of decay is coming ; but come when it will, I hope to have the good sense not to prolong the contest for fame with younger, and perhaps abler men. No self-love shall prevent me from retiring, and that cheerfully, to privacy ; and I consider I shall do but an act of justice to others as well as mercy to myself." He was buried in St Paul's Cathedral on the 2Oth of LAWRENCE'S METHOD OF WORK 309 January, the pall-bearers at his funeral being the Earls of Aberdeen, Gower, and Clanwilliam, Lord Dover, Sir Robert Peel, Sir George Murray, Mr John Wilson Croker, and Mr Hart Davis. The exhibition of the British Institution in the same year consisted chiefly of Lawrence's works, ninety-one of his best pictures being collected. A complete list of Lawrence's portraits would be a very long one. He exhibited 311 at the Academy, 64 more than Sir Joshua. Amongst the best of his productions may be men- tioned the very fine full-length portrait of his predecessor, Benjamin West, in the National Gallery; for lifelike truthful- ness, dignity of expression, and exquisite painting, than this nothing could be finer. Another very beautiful work is the portrait group of the Countess Gower (afterwards Duchess of Sutherland) and her daughter Elizabeth. With children Lawrence was generally very successful, his best picture of this kind being probably "The Children of Charles B. Calmady," no longer, unfortunately, in this country, of which he himself said that it was " one of the few I should wish hereafter to be known by." The one, however, by which he is perhaps best known is the portrait of " Master Lambton," belonging to the Earl of Durham ; though rather artificial in sentiment, it is undoubtedly a wonderfully fine work. Many other portraits might be mentioned, some of which were seen at the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1904, which are excellent specimens of Lawrence's skill in the portrayal of feminine charm and beauty and youthful grace. His fancy subject pictures, which were neither numerous nor important, are well represented by his diploma work "The Gipsy Girl." The Royal Academy has a very fine portrait of him by himself. It also possesses his "Sitter's Chair," bequeathed to it by the Rev. J. R. Bloxam, D.D., whose father married Lawrence's sister Anne. In painting a face Lawrence delighted in what are termed " high lights " ; these sparkling accentuations of the eyes, lips, or 310 SIR THOS. LAWRENCE AND HIS PRESIDENCY nose, he rendered with surprising dexterity and accuracy. He revelled in the deep, rich brown shadows which Reynolds first introduced to the art of portraiture in England, though at times he was apt to exaggerate their warmth by too free an introduc- tion of red, He is seen at his worst when he had to portray any extremely celebrated or exalted personages, on which occasions he seems to have felt bound to give his work the full benefit of his somewhat theatrical ideas of poetry and sentiment. For examples of this sort we may mention his portrait of "The Duke of Wellington," wrapt in his marshal's cloak, hugging his telescope, bareheaded, alone, in a thunderstorm ; or that of "John Kemble as Hamlet" ; or the still worse likeness of " His Satanic Majesty," with outstretched arms and legs, calling up his infernal hosts, which Pasquin severely satirised, while Fuseli complained that " Lawrence had stolen his devil from him." It was to Lawrence that an increase in the width of frames, at the annual exhibitions, was due ; a rather broad, richly decor- ated style of frame still bears his name. Hitherto frames had been narrow and unpretentious, though pretty and decorative in design ; the example of the President, it is needless to say, soon spread, a matter deeply to be deplored. As has been already stated, Lawrence was unanimously elected President in succession to West. It was a choice that everybody approved of; even the grumbling fault-finder Fuseli saying, "If they must have a face painter to reign over them let them take Lawrence." His whole career had marked him out for the post. Shee, who subsequently attained the same dignity, says in a letter that he voted for Lawrence, and that he 11 never gave a vote with a more sincere conviction of its justice and propriety, both as to the Academy and the Art." The choice was at once approved by George IV., who had succeeded to the throne on the death of his father in the early part of the same year, and who continued to take the same interest in the FOUNDATION OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY 311 Academy he had already shown when Prince Regent. In proof of this, and of 'the favour with which he regarded the election of Lawrence, he presented the Academy with a very massive gold medal and chain to be worn by its Presidents. The medal bears the inscription, " From His Majesty George the Fourth to the President of the Royal Academy." The good fortune of Lawrence seems to have continued during his Presidency, for the ten years of his office were years of peace and quiet in academic matters, a result which may, no doubt, in some degree, be set down to his skilful tact and polished manners. There were no storms within and no assaults from without. But as regards the general interests of Art in this country the period was an important one, for it was marked by what may be called the first Government recognition of the necessity of encouraging the fine arts. West had often urged the desirability of forming a national collection of pictures, and had applied in turn, without avail, to Pitt, Fox, and Percival for support. Lawrence followed with even more insistence in the same strain, and with more success, for in 1824 the Earl of Liverpool, who was then Prime Minister, obtained the assent of Parliament to the purchase, for 57,000, of the Angerstein collection of thirty-eight pictures ; and so was founded the National Gallery. Other artistic matters of importance in which Lawrence took great interest, were the founding, in 1823, of the Royal Hiber- nian Academy, to the first exhibition of which, in 1826, he sent some of his pictures, and the effort to establish in the same year the Royal Scottish Academy, an effort, however, which was not crowned with success until 1838. He was also a great patron and supporter of the two great charitable societies for the relief of distressed artists and their families, the Artists' Benevolent Fund, founded in 1810, and to which a Royal charter was granted in 1827, and the Artists' General Benevolent Institution, first started in 1814, but which was not incorporated till 1842. Lawrence himself was ever ready to give pecuniary assistance 312 SIR THOS. LAWRENCE AND HIS PRESIDENCY to struggling artists ; indeed, his benevolence was large and unstinted, and was one of the causes which led to the embar- rassment in money matters from which he constantly suffered. Another cause was his taste for collecting drawings and works by Old Masters, on which he is estimated to have spent ,60,000. The refusal of this collection by the Government after his death was followed by an attempt to get up a subscription to purchase it for the nation, towards which the Academy voted ^1000, and Sir John Soane a like sum ; but it failed, and the works were sold by auction. A collection of architectural casts made by Lawrence was purchased by the Academy for 250, and pre- sented to the British Museum for the use of architectural students, but after keeping them for some years the Trustees returned them to the Academy, where they now are on the walls of the architectural school. No changes of any importance occurred in the Academy during Lawrence's Presidency. The . exhibitions remained at much the same level, both as regards the number of works exhibited and the receipts. The schools attracted the average number of students. The practice of sending travelling students abroad, discontinued since 1795, owing to the war, had been resumed in 1818, when Lewis Vulliamy, an architect, was awarded this prize, and in 1821 a similar distinction was conferred on Joseph Severn, who had gained the Painting Gold Medal in 1819. An interesting incident in the Presidency of Lawrence was the appointment of Sir Walter Scott as Honorary Antiquary. On his first appearance in that capacity at the Annual Dinner in 1828, Lawrence proposed his health, quoting as he did so the lines : " It he had been forgotten It had been as a gap in our great feast And all things unbecoming." The mention of the Annual Dinner and one of the THE ANNUAL DINNER 313 Academy's Honorary Officers furnishes the occasion for giving some account of both the one and the other. It was a happy thought on the part of Reynolds and the early founders of the Academy to associate with themselves some of the great literary men of the day. All the first four appointments were made direct by George III.: Joseph Barretti, Secretary for Foreign Correspondence in 1769; and in the following year, Samuel Johnson, Professor of Ancient Literature ; Oliver Goldsmith, Professor of Ancient History ; and Richard Dalton, Antiquary. The chaplaincy was not instituted till 1784, when the Rev. William Peters, R.A., who had acted as Chaplain at the Annual Dinner, was appointed to the office. Many distinguished men, as will be seen from a reference to the lists in Appendix No. IV., have since honoured the Academy by filling these posts. At one time, after the first appointments, they appear to have been elective, though there seems to have been no fixed rule, but for many years they have been made on the nomination of the President, subject to the approval of the Council and the General Assembly, and the sanction of the sovereign. The opening of the first exhibition on 26th April 1769, was commemorated by a dinner given at the St Alban's Tavern, at which Reynolds presided, and several lovers and patrons of Art were present. This, however, appears to have been a private affair. The first official Dinner was held at the new rooms at Somerset House on St George's Day, 23rd April 1771, the day preceding the opening of the exhibition. The invitations were limited to 25, but this number soon increased; and in 1809, ' m consequence of representations that were made that the original intention, which was " to bring together at the opening of the exhibition the highest orders of Society and the most distin- guished characters of the age," had been departed from, and that " by degrees the purity of selection had given way to the influence of private friendships and the importunity of acquaint- ances," the rooms in consequence being " most inconveniently 314 SIR THOS. LAWRENCE AND HIS PRESIDENCY crowded, and the dignity of the Feast impaired," the number of invitations was limited to 120, exclusive of the members of the Academy. It was also further enacted that they should only be extended to "persons in elevated situations, of high rank, distinguished talent, or known patrons of the arts," and that each person proposed should be balloted for by the members of the Council present, two black balls to exclude. These regulations still exist, except that the number of guests now reaches 200. The roll of invited guests has been kept from the beginning, and constitutes a very interesting record. Of the speeches there is no regular mention till 1852, as up to that time the gathering had been considered a private one, but the presence of the Prince Consort in 1851, and the speeches then made, especially that of the prince, attracted much atten- tion, and the custom was begun, which has been continued to the present day, of inviting the Times newspaper as representa- tive of the press. CHAPTER XIX ROYAL ACADEMICIANS, AND ASSOCIATES WHO DID NOT BECOME ACADEMICIANS, ELECTED DURING THE PRESI- DENCY OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE DURING the ten years' Presidency of Sir Thomas Lawrence eleven Academicians were elected, and five Associates who never reached the higher rank. Of the Academicians eight were painters, one a sculptor, and two architects. Three of the eight painters are still names to conjure with Leslie, Etty, and Constable, the last-named especially so, though, perhaps, his fame now is as much above his deserts as in his lifetime it was below them. The sculptor and the architects met all the requirements of an age which was not too exacting in art matters. Of these eleven Academicians and five Associates we will now proceed to give some account. EDWARD HODGES BAILY, R.A. Edward Hodges Baily was born at Bristol in 1788. His father was a carver of figureheads for ships, and quite at the top of his profession in that now almost obsolete branch of Art. The son was at first placed in a merchant's counting-house, but his natural taste for Art soon induced him to abandon this uncongenial occupation, and he soon achieved considerable local fame as a modeller of portraits in wax. An introduction to Flaxman having been obtained for him, he went 815 316 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE to London, where, as assistant to that sculptor and as a student at the Royal Academy, he made very rapid progress in his art. Entering the school in 1809, he gained a silver medal in the same year, and the gold medal for sculpture in 1811. In 1817, at the early age of twenty-five, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, and in the following year produced his celebrated " Eve at the Fountain," a figure which obtained great popularity, combining as it did the simplicity of Flaxman with the smooth prettiness of Canova. Baily, like his master, Flaxman, did a quantity of work for the silversmiths, but his fame chiefly rests on his monumental and imaginative works, of which there are a very large number. Among the chief of these may be mentioned the colossal statue of Nelson on the monument in Trafalgar Square, the statues of Charles James Fox and Lord Mansfield at Westminster, and of Earl St Vincent, Sir Astley Cooper, and others in St Paul's, " Eve listening to the Voice," and " The Graces Seated." He also executed the bas-reliefs on the Marble Arch which then stood in front of Buckingham Palace. Baily's talents soon gained him a wide reputation, and in 1821 he was elected an Academician at the early age of thirty- three ; but though for many years he was in the front rank of his profession he never succeeded in attaining affluence ; indeed, so extravagant and careless was he that already, in 1837, he was obliged to apply to the Royal Academy for assistance. As work failed him his necessities became more urgent, and in 1858, he was placed on the pension list, besides being granted on two occasions a charitable donation. He was the first to avail himself of the law passed in 1862, establishing a class of Honorary Retired Academicians. Baily seems occasionally to have been a somewhat troublesome member of the Academy, especially with regard to the placing of his works in the exhibitions. On one or two occasions he requested to be present at the arrangement of the sculpture, though not a member of the arrangement committee ; and once he went so RICHARD COOK 317 far as to alter the position of his works and then to complain to the Council that they had been put back in their original place, a cool proceeding which drew down upon him a well-merited rebuke from that body. His death took place in 1867. RICHARD COOK, R.A. The obstacles which riches present to those desirous of entering the Kingdom of Heaven are often likewise found in the paths which lead to the Kingdom of Art. Whether it was his opulence or his apathy that choked the talents of Richard Cook we are unable to determine, but that he possessed a correct eye and considerable taste, some beautiful drawings which he made from Michael Angelo's frescos in the Sistine Chapel bear witness. Born in London in 1784, he entered the Academy schools in 1800, and began exhibiting, in 1808, land- scapes of a poetic class, the subjects of many of which were taken from Scott's poems. He was elected an Associate in 1816, and in 1817 exhibited a picture entitled "Ceres Disconsolate for the Loss of Proserpine." Classical subjects were much in vogue at the time, and it was for pictures of this class that Cook obtained the full honours of the Academy in 1822; having attained these he seems to have had no further ambition, for from thence to the time of his death he ceased to exhibit. Very little is known of his private life, save that he was rich and hospitable. He died in 1857. WILLIAM DANIELL, R.A. William Daniell, the nephew of Thomas Daniell, the Academi- cian, was born in 1769. At the age of fourteen he went with his uncle to India, assisting him materially in his work, Oriental Scenery > which was published in 1808 in five volumes. In this work the plates engraved by young Daniell are greatly superior to those in the sixth volume which are the work of James Wales. 318 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE On his return he began exhibiting Indian views at the Academy, and entered the schools in 1799. Between 1801 and 1814, William Daniell published A Picturesque Voyage to India, and many other works, and in the last named year he com- menced a work on his own country, called A Voyage Round Great Britain, two or three months each summer for many years being spent in making drawings and notes. The book was completed in 1825. Meantime he had been elected an Associate in 1807 and an Academician in 1822. Though the subjects of the pictures by the Daniells were novel and interesting at the time they were executed, they possessed little artistic excellence, and the election of the uncle and nephew to the rank of full membership will always remain one of the enigmas of the early years of the Institution. William Daniell died in 1837. RAMSAY RICHARD REINAGLE, R.A., the son of Philip Reinagle, R.A., was a painter of landscapes and animals of considerable ability. Born in 1775, he exhibited his first picture at the Academy at the early age of thirteen, but it was not till 1814 that he was elected an Associate, the full honours following in 1823. Though all his life he had been regarded as a man of integrity and honour, in his old age, probably through stress of poverty, he was tempted to commit an act for which he had to forfeit his membership. He purchased of a dealer a picture by an artist named Yarnold, which after a little touching up he exhibited in 1848 as his own. The attention of the Academy was called to the fraud, and a committee of seven members was appointed to investigate the matter. Reinagle refused to attend their meet- ings, and for a long time persisted in denying the truth of the accusation. The evidence in proof of it was, however, too strong, and the committee at the end of a long report recom- mended that Mr Reinagle, to save the committee the necessity SIR JEFFRY WYATVILLE 319 of further proceedings, should be requested to voluntarily resign his diploma, which he did. He was not, however, deprived of his pension, and continued to receive pecuniary assistance from the Academy till his death, which took place in 1862. The present of plate which, in accordance with custom he had pre- sented on his election, was in 1850 ordered to be sealed up and no more used. SIR JEFFRY WYATVILLE, R.A. This architect, the son of Joseph Wyatt and nephew of Samuel Wyatt and James Wyatt, R.A., was born at Burton-on- Trent in 1766. As a boy he was anxious to go to sea, and had a providential escape from being drowned in the ill-fated Royal George^ which ship he was to have joined, but arrived at Ports- mouth too late. He eventually entered his uncle Samuel's office as architectural pupil, and later on served with his uncle James; but not finding much employment as an architect, he formed a sort of partnership with a builder named Armstrong, who was engaged in large Government and other contracts. This led to his being employed in the enlargement and altera- tion of many country mansions, so that he gradually acquired a considerable reputation, and was elected an Associate in 1822, and an Academician two years later. The chief work of his life, however, began in 1824, when he was appointed architect of the additions and improvements intended to be made at Windsor Castle. The first stone of the new buildings was laid on I2th August 1824, and Wyatt, in honour of the occasion, assumed the name of Wyatville to distinguish him from the other architects of the name of Wyatt. This piece of vanity and affectation provoked the following squib : " Let George, whose restlessness leaves nothing quiet, Change if he will the good old name of Wyatt ; But let us hope that their united skill Will not make Windsor Castle Wyatville." 320 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE In 1828 he was knighted and given apartments in the Winchester Tower in the Castle. The completion of the works, which cost 700,000, occupied him till his death ; but he also, during the last twenty years of his life, made extensive additions to Chatsworth, and added a new front to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He died in 1840, and is buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor. GEORGE JONES, R.A., born in 1786, was the son of a mezzotint engraver. He obtained admission to the schools of the Academy in 1801 at the age of fifteen, and two years later exhibited his first picture ; but his artistic studies were considerably interrupted by his military ardour, for when the Peninsula War broke out young Jones joined the militia, and having, with his company volun- teered for active service, formed, in 1815, part of the army of occupation in Paris. On resuming his artistic profession, Jones's pictures were chiefly, as was to be expected, of a military character. Of their kind they were by no means without merit, and they procured for him his election as an Associate in 1822, and an Academician in 1824. Among his best known works are " The Battle of Waterloo," at Chelsea Hospital, and " Nelson boarding the San Josef at the battle of Cape St Vincent," at Greenwich Hospital. Jones was elected Librarian in 1834, and held the office till his appointment as Keeper in 1840. During that period the removal of the Academy frcm Somerset House to Trafalgar Square took place, and the rearrangement of the books and prints was carried out by Jones in a systematic manner not hitherto attempted. In the course of his tenure of the Keeper- ship, from 1840 to 1850, he visited many foreign schools of art, with a view to seeing what improvements could be introduced into the system of teaching in the Academy schools, and it was at his recommendation that the draped living model was set in the WILLIAM WILKINS 321 Painting School, where previously only copying and still life painting had been practised. His efforts were much appreciated by the students, who, in 1845, presented him with a handsome piece of plate. For the last five years of his life (1845-50) Sir Martin Archer Shee was prevented by illness from discharging the duties of President, and Jones acted as his deputy, and received the thanks of the General Assembly for the urbanity and zeal with which he had performed his duties. He lived many years afterwards, his death not taking place till 1869, but took very little part in the business of the Academy. To the end of his life Jones always affected a rather military appearance in his dress, and prided himself on a certain resemblance he bore to the Duke of Wellington, for whom he was said to have been once mistaken. This story when repeated to the great duke drew from him the remark that he had never been mistaken for Mr Jones. WILLIAM WILKINS, R.A. William Wilkins, a staunch supporter of the classic as opposed to the revived Gothic style of architecture, was the son of a successful builder. Born at Norwich in 1778, he was educated at the Free Grammar School there, and afterwards went in 1796 to Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated Sixth Wrangler in 1800. A travelling Fellowship obtained in the following year enabled him to visit Italy and Greece, the result of which was a work by him entitled Antiquities of Magna Gratia, published in 1807. He appeared as an exhibitor at the Academy before he left Cambridge, but does not appear to have done any professional work till after his return from abroad, when he was appointed architect of Downing College. In this building, and in another, Haileybury College, designed by him some years later, the attempt to adapt the severity of Greek archi- tecture to the requirements and usages of modern life cannot be said to have been very successful. He was employed on x 322 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE several other buildings .in Cambridge, and in 1817 erected the Nelson monument at Yarmouth. In this year, too, he published his second edition of The Civil Architecture of Vitruvius. His reputation as a rising architect procured his election as an Associate in 1823, and three years afterwards he was pro- moted to the rank of Academician. He had just finished, in connection with J. P. Gandy, afterwards Deering, the United University Club House in Suffolk Street, and two years later saw him engaged on one of his most important works, the building in Gower Street for the newly founded University College. This was, perhaps, his most successful work, though he only completed the central portion of his design, of which the dome and portico with the fine flight of steps ascending to it were greatly admired. In his next important building, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, begun in 1832, Wilkins was greatly hampered by alterations in the allotted space after he had made his designs, and by various conditions imposed by the Government, besides being obliged to use for his portico the columns from Carlton House, but the result hardly deserves the severe criticisms which have been passed upon it. Another well-known building of Wilkins is St George's Hospital. In 1836 he was an unsuccessful competitor for the New Houses of Parliament, and was foolish enough to publish a pamphlet explaining the merits of his own design, and the defects of those of the other competitors, and condemning the decision of the Commissioners. He was elected Professor of Architecture at the Academy in 1837 in succession to Sir John Soane, but died in 1839 at Cambridge without delivering any lectures. CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE, R.A. This artist, as his name suggests, was of Scotch descent, his grandfather having emigrated in 1750 from Scotland to Cecil County, in the State of Maryland. Both his father CHARLES ROBERT LESLIE 323 and his mother, Robert Leslie and Lydia Baker, were natives of Maryland. Robert Leslie was a man of great ingenuity in mechanics, who pursued the business of clock and watchmaker in Phila- delphia. He was a member of the Philosophical Society, and was known and respected by some of the most eminent scientific men in America, including Benjamin Franklin and La Trobe, the architect of the Capitol at Washington. In 1793 he came over on business to England, and it was during, his stay in London that his eldest son Charles was born, on the ipth of October 1794, at Islington. On the death of his partner, in Philadelphia, Robert Leslie with his young children returned to America, sailing from Gravesend on the i8th September 1799, and after a voyage of seven months and twenty-six days reached Philadelphia on the nth May 1800. The protraction of this voyage was due to the ship The Washington having been engaged in action with a French privateer on the 24th of October, and though the privateer was beaten off, with the loss of 37 men killed and 58 wounded, The Washington was so disabled in her rigging that the captain had to put into Lisbon to refit. They did not leave Lisbon until the 3ist of March, and even after that were much delayed by gales. The painter's father died shortly after his return to Phila- delphia. His widow was left by no means well off, but she contrived, by keeping a boarding-house, to bring up her young family in a respectable manner. Charles Robert and his brother Thomas were educated at the school of the University of Pennsylvania, and spent their summers and autumns in visits to the farms of their maternal uncles, in Chester County. C. R. Leslie had from his boyhood been fond of drawing, and when old enough to think of a profession desired to be a painter. There were, however, no means available for carrying out this desire, and he was in the year 1808 bound apprentice to Messrs Bradford & Inskeep, Booksellers and Publishers in Philadelphia. Through the kindness of an assistant scene-painter, Tom 324 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE Reinagle by name, Leslie obtained a place on the stage of the theatre at Philadelphia upon several occasions when the cele- brated George Frederick Cooke was performing. The impres- sion made on the young artist's mind was so strong that he drew from recollection a striking portrait of the great actor, which attracted the attention of several gentlemen of Philadelphia. A subscription was raised by their help and Mr Bradford's to enable Leslie to study painting two years in Europe, and after some few lessons from Sully, he sailed from New York in 1811 armed with letters of introduction to West, Beechey, Allston, and other artists of distinction. Though a little homesick during the first few months in England, the widening circle of his new acquaintances and the artistic influence of his new surroundings soon took effect in the rapid development of his powers. After some preliminary instructions he was admitted a student at the Academy in 1813, and exhibited in the same year his first picture, " Murder," with a quotation from Macbeth; followed up next year by the " Witch of Endor." From the venerable President, West, the young artist received much kind help and encouragement, and through his friend, Allston, he made the acquaintance of Coleridge and Charles Lamb ; whilst at the theatres, of which he was always fond, he saw Mrs Siddons, the Kembles, Bannister, and Edmund Kean. In order to support himself he painted at this time numerous small portraits. These were highly finished, and generally exceedingly good likenesses. Among them may be specially mentioned those of himself, of Washington Irving, and of Sir Walter Scott. In his picture of " Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church," exhibited in 1819, Leslie may be said to have found the line of art which he afterwards made so peculiarly his own, and on which his reputation rests viz., humorous genre. The subjects taken from his favourite authors, Addison, Shakespeare, Cer- vantes, Sterne, Smollett, and Fielding, were always happily selected, and rendered with an appreciative intelligence in THE SUBJECTS OF LESLIE'S PICTURES 325 which he has never been equalled. Some of the best known are in the National Collections. Two important events in the reign of Queen Victoria were commemorated by him, " Queen Victoria receiving the Sacrament on her Coronation in West- minster Abbey," and " The Christening of the Princess Royal," and he also designed a scene from Comus as a fresco for the Pavilion at Buckingham Palace. His success soon met with recognition from the Academy, and in 1821 he was elected an Associate by a majority of one over George Clint, his promotion to Academicianship following in 1826. He had married in the previous year, and it is probable that the cares of an increasing family, and the prospect of a certain income with much leisure induced him, in 1833, to accept the appointment of drawing master at the West Point Military Academy, which had been procured for him by his brother ; but the work proved to be far more arduous than he had been led to expect, the climate damp and unhealthy, and the cost of living very high, while, added to these drawbacks, he pined daily for the society of the comrades and the art world that he had parted from, and it is not surprising that in the following April he resigned his appoint- ment and returned to England, in which country he made his home for the rest of his life. In the early years of his membership Leslie does not appear to have taken any active part in the business of the Academy, but he subsequently displayed great interest in its affairs, and was the author of many proposals, beginning in 1844 with one that the number of works allowed to be sent by each exhibitor should be limited to six. A resolution to this effect was passed by the Council and sanctioned by the General Assembly, but was subsequently, on the motion of J. M. W. Turner seconded by H. W. Pickersgill, rescinded by eleven votes to seven, and no change made. Many efforts in the same direction have been made since, but none were success- ful until 1904, when the number allowed to be sent by members 326 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE was reduced to six, and by non-members to three. Other efforts of Leslie's met with a better fate, especially the proposal to admit engravers to the Academicianship, which, brought forward by him first in the Council in May 1852, was finally carried to a successful issue before the end of 1853, and saw its first accomplishment in the election of Samuel Cousins in 1855. Some of the proposals made by him, though negatived at the time, have since been carried into effect, such as the opening of the exhibition in the evening, and the abolition of the laws requiring that candidates for the Associateship should be "at least twenty-four years of age," and that they should " not be members of any other society of artists established in London." On the election of Sir Charles Eastlake to the Presidency in 1850, it was on his proposal that the annual allowance of ^"300 which had been voted to the late President, Shee, in 1845, was continued to the President until the bequest of Sir Francis Chantrey should come into operation. In 1847 Leslie was unanimously elected Professor of Paint- ing, an office which he retained till 1852, when his state of health obliged him to resign. The substance of his lectures was published in 1855 as a Handbook to Young Painters. His literary skill was considerable, and is pleasantly displayed in the memoirs of his friend, John Constable. He also wrote a Life of Reynolds > and some Autobiographical Recollections, both of which were published after his death under the editorship of Tom Taylor. In the Recollections we obtain a charming picture of the coterie of distinguished people, among whom the artist's modesty and amiability rendered him ever a welcome favourite. Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Lord and Lady Holland, Sidney Smith, Lord Egremont, and in later years Dickens, Thackeray, and the Doyles were, amongst others, his intimate friends ; of these his pen affords us many delightful and graphic reminiscences. The death of this amiable and accomplished artist took place on 5th May 1859, the day following the opening of the HENRY WILLIAM PICKERSGILL 327 Academy Exhibition which contained his last two works, " Jeannie Deans appealing to the Queen," and " Hotspur and Lady Percy." Thackeray in the last of his Roundabout Papers paid him the following touching tribute : " Not many days since I went to visit a house where, in former years, I had received many a friendly welcome. We went into the owner's an artist's studio. Prints, pictures, and sketches hung on the walls as I had last seen and remembered them. The implements of the painter's art were there. The light which had shone upon so many, many hours of patient and cheerful toil, poured through the northern window upon print and bust, lay figure and sketch, and upon the easel before which the good, the gentle, the beloved Leslie laboured. In this room the busy brain had devised, and the skilful hand executed, I know not how many of the noble works which have delighted the world with their beauty and charming humour. Here the poet called up into pictorial presence, and informed with life, grace, beauty, infinite friendly mirth, and wondrous naturalness of expression, the people of whom his dear books told him the stories his Shakespeare, his Cervantes, his Moliere, his Le Sage." Leslie left three sons all of whom became distinguished in their respective professions, and one of them, the youngest, followed directly in his father's footsteps, and was elected a Royal Academician in 1876. HENRY WILLIAM PICKERSGILL, R.A. Born in London in 1782, the subject of this memoir was adopted, as a child, by a Spitalfields silk weaver named Hall. On the failure of the business when he was about nineteen years old he determined to cultivate his talent as a draughts- man, and became a pupil of George Arnald, A., subsequently entering the Academy schools, and exhibiting his first picture in 1806. Like most young artists of the period he began with 328 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE classical and mythological subjects, but it was not long before he devoted the whole of his time to that more lucrative branch of art, portraiture. In this he was very successful, and most of the eminent people of the day sat to him ; among others, Wordsworth, Jeremy Bentham, Hannah More, and George Stephenson, whose portraits by him are in the National Portrait Gallery. He was also employed by Sir Robert Peel to paint some of the best known men of that period. But his reputation can hardly be said to have stood the test of time, and his portraits, though good as likenesses, are not now thought of much account as pictures. Pickersgill was elected an Associate in 1822, and an Academician in 1826. In 1856 he was appointed Librarian in succession to Uwins, and received, in 1863, the thanks of the Council for preparing a revised Catalogue of the Books. He resigned the office in 1864. He does not appear to have taken much share in the general business of the Academy, but he was a great stickler for members discharging the duties of membership as well as enjoying its privileges, and one or two resolutions to that effect are recorded in the Minutes as proposed by him. He died in 1875. A son who pre-deceased him acquired some reputation as an artist, but the name was continued on the Academy register by his better-known nephew, F. R. Pickersgill. WILLIAM ETTY, R.A. Sometimes called " The English Titian," was born at York on loth March 1787. In his autobiography he says, "Like Rembrandt and Constable, my father also was a miller." At eleven years old he was apprenticed to a letterpress printer named Robert Peck, " in which business," he writes, " I served seven full years faithfully and truly, and worked at it three weeks as journeyman ; but I had such a busy desire to be a painter that the last years of my servitude dragged on most heavily. I counted the years, days, weeks, and hours, till WILLIAM ETTY 329 liberty should break my chains and set my struggling spirit free." The first step towards realising these aspirations was an invitation to London in 1806 from an uncle, William Etty, whom he speaks of as " a beautiful draughtsman in pen and ink." This uncle saw merit in the boy's sketches, and provided him with the means of carrying on his studies. He first drew in a plaster cast shop in Cock Lane, Smithfield, kept by an Italian, named Gianelli, and in 1807, through the good offices of Opie and Fuseli, obtained admission to the Academy schools. A year later, in consideration of a premium of one hundred guineas paid by his uncle, he was taken for a year by Sir Thomas Lawrence, as a pupil into his studio in Greek Street. It was a long time, however, before he met with any success ; not till 1811 was his first picture, " Telemachus rescuing Antiope," hung at the Royal Academy. Nor were his efforts to obtain medals in the Academy schools, where he was a most constant and diligent attendant, better rewarded. His last attempt was made in 1818, when he was technically not qualified to compete, but the following extract from the Minutes of the Council of 1 7th November 1818, shows in what esteem he was held : " The Council taking into consideration the distinguished merit displayed by Mr Etty in the copy from Titian he has recently made in the Painting School of the Academy, and considering also Mr Etty's general good conduct and assiduity as a Student, request the President will take occasion on the distribution of the Premiums to express to that gentleman their high approbation of his work, which the laws of the Academy have excluded from competition on the present occasion." A copy of this Resolution was sent to Etty with the request that he would " leave his picture in the Academy for the inspection of the General Assembly " ; and at the distribution on the loth of December, the President publicly expressed to Mr Etty the high sense which the Academy entertained both of his talents and of his good conduct 330 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE Etty's devotion to the schools was remarkable, and it may truly be said of him, that from the time he entered them until a year or two before his death he never left them, as, even after his election to the full honours of the Institution, he was con- stant to his student's easel in the life class. When it was represented to him by some of his brother members, that it was derogatory for him as an Academician to continue working amongst the students, he resented any interference with his practice, and even threatened to resign, rather than discontinue his studies in the school. There is no doubt but that this habit of working night after night in the heated and ill- ventilated life school very materially shortened his life, bringing on, after a time, the disease of the heart of which he died. As a visitor, Etty was very popular with the students of the Academy, and his vigorous colour and dexterity of execution influenced a great number of the rising generation of artists of his day, amongst others who undoubtedly came under this influence may be mentioned Mr J. C. Hook and Sir John Millais. Indirectly, also through a pupil of his, Mr Leigh, who after- wards kept a famous school for young artists in Newman Street, the influence of Etty's brilliant style was widely disseminated. The first picture of Etty's that attracted attention was " The Coral Finders," exhibited in 1820. This was followed the next year by " Cleopatra's arrival at Cilicia." The success these met with enabled him to revisit Italy, where he had spent three months in 1816, and the year and a half he now stayed were devoted entirely to the copying of the works of the Old Masters, especially those of the Venetian School. He had a fine eye for colour, and the studies by his hand from pictures by Titian, Paul Veronese, and Tintoretto are amongst the most beautiful and artistic that have ever been made from those painters. Returning to England early in 1824, he exhibited in the same year " Pandora crowned by the Seasons," which was purchased by the President, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and secured his elec- SUBJECTS OF ETTY'S PICTURES 331 tion as an Associate in 1825. The Academicianship followed in 1828. The subjects painted by Etty, generally of a classical or allegorical nature, were chosen, possibly not so much from a love of the classics per se, or to convey any moral lesson or deep meaning, as to afford the artist an opportunity of displaying his brilliancy of colour and dexterity in rendering the nude form. As perhaps the most beautiful of his many works of this sort may be mentioned that in the National Collection, " Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm." The following passage in the autobiography already mentioned shows which works he him- self considered to be his greatest : " My aim in all my great pictures has been to paint some great moral of the heart : ' The Combat/ the beauty of mercy ; the three * Judith ' pictures, patriotism and self-devotion to her country, her people, and her God ; * Benaiah, David's chief captain,' valour ; * Ulysses and the Sirens,' the importance of resisting sensual delights, or an Homeric paraphrase of the * Wages of Sin is Death.' " Of these the first five are in the National Gallery, Edinburgh, and the sixth at the Royal Institution, Manchester. A man of great simplicity and purity of mind and conduct, he was much pained at the opinion freely expressed by some that his works were of a voluptuous and immoral character ; but though the numerous renderings of the female nude which abound in his pictures are sometimes marred by a too realistic likeness of the models he painted from, they are never prominent in suggestiveness or artificial in sentiment. Etty was never married, though, as he tells us, " one of his prevailing weaknesses was to fall in love." Probably his extreme bashfulness prevented him from ever making a declaration of his passion. His niece kept house for him at No. 14 Buckingham Street, Strand, where he lived from 1826 to 1848. In the latter year, owing to failing health, he moved to his native place, York, and died there on I3th November 1849. 332 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE JOHN CONSTABLE, R.A. This distinguished landscape painter, the second son of a wealthy Suffolk miller, was born on the nth of June 1776, at East Bergholt, in which neighbourhood his father, Golding Constable, owned the two water-mills of Flatford and Dedham, besides two wind-mills. His father intended educating John for the Church, and sent him to a boarding-school about fifteen miles from Bergholt, when only seven years old, and afterwards to another school at Lavenham. At this place Constable received considerable ill-treatment from the usher, and apparently learnt very little ; he was happier at the Grammer School at Dedham to which he subsequently went, and was a favourite with the master, a Dr Grimwood. He was then about sixteen years old and had already developed a fondness for painting, a fondness which was fostered by a close alliance he formed with a certain John Dunthorne, a plumber and glazier in the village, who devoted his spare time to painting from nature, and of whom in his studies Constable became the constant companion. Constable's father was much opposed to his son's choice of a profession, and, disappointed at finding him disinclined to the necessary studies to fit him for the Church, he determined to make a miller of him. Accordingly for about a year Constable worked obediently and well in his father's mills, and having a fresh complexion and fine eyes became known in the neighbour- hood as "the handsome miller." The time thus spent was probably by no means wasted, as the intimate knowledge of his business he then acquired served him in good stead in after life, the intelligence and accuracy of rendering which distinguishes Constable's mills from those of other painters being always remarkable. An introduction to Sir George Beaumont, whose mother, the Dowager Lady Beaumont, resided at Dedham, took place in 1795. Sir George, much pleased with the young artist's JOHN CONSTABLE 333 endeavours, persuaded his father to send him to London for the purpose of ascertaining what might be his chance of success as a painter. Here he made the acquaintance of Joseph Farington, R.A., who was much struck with the young artist's studies, and predicted a brilliant future for him in land- scape painting. During the next two or three years Constable was allowed to spend much of his time in London, where he made many artistic acquaintances, and became daily more firm in his resolution to adopt the profession of an artist. It was not, however, until the beginning of the year 1800 that he entirely abandoned his father's counting-house, and was admitted, on 4th February, a student of the Royal Academy. During his studentship he received much encouragement from the President, Benjamin West, who was at all times ready and willing to assist young artists. He first exhibited at the Academy in 1802, the picture being merely described in the Catalogue as " Landscape." He also about this time painted a few portraits as well as making copies and studies from Ruysdaei, Claude, and others of the Old Masters. Two " Landscapes " and two " Studies from Nature " were exhibited in 1803, and though occasionally some of his pictures were rejected, he was from that time a constant contributor to the annual exhibitions. But so little were his early pictures appreciated, that it was not until 1814 that he found a purchaser for any of them, two being sold in that year, a small one exhibited at the British Institution, and a more important one at the Academy, entitled " A Lock." These early pictures are in respect of tone, colour, and finish, equal, if not superior, to any of his later and more celebrated productions. They were mostly painted direct from the scenes they represent, and their simple, natural truthfulness is beyond all praise, though it is very probable that it was this latter quality which made them unacceptable at a time when the fashionable taste for landscape was conventional 334 ACADEMICIANS ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE and artificial in the extreme. Almost all these unsold early works remained in the artist's studio until his death, and since then, on the death of his last surviving daughter, they passed into the National Collections, a good example of the early manner being found in " Boat-Building," which was exhibited in 1815 at the Royal Academy. On the 2nd of October 1816, after a long engagement and considerable opposition on the part of the lady's relatives, Constable married a Miss Bicknell, who brought him valuable help as regards his monetary affairs, so that, in spite of the want of patronage for his art, he was at no time of his life badly off for the means of livelihood. In 1819 he sent to the Academy the largest and most important work he had yet produced, " Scene on the River Stour" better known now as "The White Horse." This picture is in Constable's very finest manner, and helped to secure his election as an Associate the same year. It was purchased from the artist by Archdeacon Fisher for 100, and after passing through other hands was sold at Christie's, in 1894, for 6510. Archdeacon Fisher, in 1820, purchased another of Constable's finest works for ;ioo. It was a view of Stratford Mill on the Stour, with a group of children fishing in the foreground, and was sold at Christie's, in 1895, for 8925. In 1821 Constable exhibited another large picture, called in the Catalogue, " Landscape Noon," but subsequently entitled "The Hay Wain," which met with no purchaser at the time, and was eventually bought, together with two other works, for .250, by an enterprising Frenchman, who sent them to the Paris Salon, where they were much admired, and were destined to exercise a very considerable influence on French landscape art. "The Hay Wain" is now in the National Gallery. Among the most important of Constable's other works which now appeared in quick succession year after year, the following may be mentioned : " Salisbury Cathedral from the CONSTABLE'S PICTURES 335 Bishop's Garden"; "The Jumping Horse"; "The Cornfield," which, after the artist's death, was purchased by subscription from his family, and presented to the National Collection ; " The Marine Parade and Chain Pier, Brighton," a sample of many very masterly views of the sea-shore which he occasionally exhibited ; " Dedham Vale," upright in shape ; " Hampstead Heath"; and "Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows," the engraved picture with the rainbow. Besides his works in oil-colour, Constable exhibited many beautiful water-colour paintings and drawings from time to time. The somewhat tardy promotion of this great artist to the full honours of the Royal Academy occurred on the loth of February 1829, when he was chosen by one vote over Francis Danby. That he had not been elected sooner was chiefly owing to the low estimation in which landscape painting at that time was held by very many of the members of the Institution, Lawrence himself bluntly intimating to Constable, after his election, that he considered him fortunate in being chosen an Academician at a time when there were historical painters of great merit on the list of Associates. As an Academician, Constable, though a landscape painter, fulfilled his duties as visitor in the Life School of the Academy. Artists who remembered him in this capacity spoke highly of his powers as a teacher, and we are told that he sometimes arranged behind his models a beautiful background of laurels and evergreens which he had brought from Hampstead. Constable had lost his wife the year before his election as an R.A., and there is no doubt but that this loss, coupled with the mortification he suffered from the continual want of patronage for his productions, greatly impaired his health. Judging from his correspondence, he seems to have been thoroughly aware of his great powers in landscape, and was likewise extremely sensitive to criticism. His pictures were seldom favourably noticed in the newspapers during his lifetime, and it must have been a very painful experience to him to have 336 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE these large canvasses year after year returned unsold after the exhibitions closed. In 1833 he delivered a course of lectures on Landscape Painting at the Assembly Rooms at Hampstead, and again in 1836 at the Royal Institution, Albemarle Street. These lectures were never written or published, the only account we have of them being given us from notes and recollections, by C. R. Leslie, R.A., in his memoirs of the artist. His death, which occurred on the night of the 3ist March 1837, was unexpected and sudden, although he had been far from well for some years. He was buried beside his wife in the south-east corner of Hampstead Churchyard. We now come to the Associates elected during the Presi- dency of Sir Thomas Lawrence who did not subsequently become Academicians. There were only five of them who failed to reach the higher honour, and of these two were at that period ineligible for it, being engravers ; the other three were painters. HENRY EDRIDGE, A. Was a miniature and landscape painter of considerable repute in his day. Born at Paddington in 1768, the son of a tradesman, he was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to William Pether, an engraver and landscape painter. As soon as his apprenticeship was over, in 1784, he entered the Academy schools, where two years after he gained a silver medal, and, what was of more importance, attracted the notice of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who allowed him to make miniature copies of his works. Thus encouraged he took to miniature portrait painting as a profession, and with great success. He also did excellent likenesses in pencil or Indian ink and water-colour, the figure being drawn and the face finished elaborately in water-colour. Nor were his efforts in landscape painting with- out considerable merit. Several of his water-colours are in the GEORGE CLINT 33T Victoria and Albert Museum, and some of his portraits in the National Portrait Gallery. Elected an Associate in November 1820, he did not live long to enjoy the honour, dying in April of the following year. He bequeathed to the Academy a portrait by Sir Joshua of the latter's Italian servant, Marchi. GEORGE CLINT, A. Born in 1770, the son of a hairdresser in a street off Holborn, he was first apprenticed to a fishmonger, but disgusted with that employment left it for an attorney's office. He next tried house-painting, and from that went to the other extreme, becoming a very successful miniature painter. Engraving also engaged his attention, and he executed several prints for Sir Thomas Lawrence, with whom, however, he quarrelled ; and his existence, hampered as he was with a wife and a large family, became for some time a very precarious one. It was through engraving, however, that he eventually found the road to success. He had been commissioned to do a mezzotint of the picture by Harlow of " The Kemble Family," which had caused a great sensation when exhibited at the Royal Academy, and the consequent acquaintance which he formed with the principal actors and actresses and patrons of the drama led to his painting a number of dramatic pictures and portraits of people connected with the stage. These proved very popular, and he was much in vogue for a time as a portrait painter. In 1821 he was elected an Associate, but resigned his diploma in 1836, aggrieved at younger men having been elected Academicians over his head. His letter of resignation has not been preserved, but from the nature of the answer which was ordered to be sent to him, and which appears in the Council Minutes of 24th February 1836, it may be presumed not to have been a pleasant one. The letter is as follows : " Sir, I am directed by the President and Council to acknowledge the Y 338 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE receipt of your letter, together with the diploma which you have returned to the Academy, and to inform you that your wish to have your name taken off the list of Associates will, of course, be immediately complied with. They forbear to comment on the terms in which you have thought proper to convey your resignation. I am, Sir, etc., Henry Howard, Secretary." Nor did Clint's animosity end here, for his injured vanity led him to take up an attitude of angry opposition to the Academy, and to join in the agitation which at the period of his resignation was being got up against it. For many years before his death, which occurred at Kensington in 1854, he had retired from the practice of his profession. FRANCIS DANBY, A. One of the select band of Irishmen who have made themselves a name in Art. He was born in 1793 near Wexford, the son of a small landed proprietor. Determined to become an artist he studied in the school of the Royal Dublin Society, and under James O'Connor, the landscape painter. Having had a success with the first picture a sunset effect which he exhibited at the Dublin Exhibition in 1812, he determined to come to London, stopping for some time on the way at Bristol. His first picture at the Royal Academy was in 1817 ; others quickly followed; and in 1825, his "Passage of the Israelites through the Dead Sea," gained him his election as an Associate. The works which for the next few years succeeded these were of a highly imaginative nature, and showed to the full his talent for poetical composition and rich and glowing colour : the best known of them is perhaps "The Opening of the Sixth Seal." Circumstances, which need not be entered into here, led to Danby's going abroad in 1829, and remaining away till 1841. During that time he appears to have been in difficulties, as the Minutes of the Council for nth November 1831 show, that in FRANCIS DANBY 339 response to a letter from him, from Switzerland, stating that he was greatly embarrassed in his circumstances, and requesting assistance, a donation of 50 was granted to him, in considera- tion of the distressed state of himself and his family. During this time he only contributed two pictures to the exhibition, but from the date of his return, in 1841, he resumed painting and exhibiting with all his old ardour and enthusiasm, most of his works being executed at Exmouth, where he died in 1861. The nature of Danby's art may be judged by the fact, that out of the forty-six pictures he exhibited at the Academy, all more or less landscape in their general character, there are only three whose titles show that they represented actual scenery, and the proportion among the large number shown at the British Institution is even less. Danby made no attempt to copy Nature, but sought to place on canvas his ideal conceptions of her in her grandest and noblest aspects. RICHARD JAMES LANE, A.E., an engraver of very considerable merit, no doubt inherited his artistic qualities from his mother, who was a niece of Thomas Gainsborough ; his father was a prebendary of Hereford, and, it may be added as not without interest, his elder brother was the well-known Oriental traveller, author of The Modern Egyptians, and other works. Born in 1800, he was articled at the age of sixteen to Charles Heath, the line engraver ; but finding little encouragement to pursue the highest branch of engraving, took to what was then the new art of lithography, and after some years, devoted himself, though with much regret, to that method of reproduction. Among his first works were a series of " Sketches by Gainsborough " ; then came " Imitations of British Artists," and " Sketches by Sir Thomas Lawrence." He was elected an Associate in 1827, and subsequently appointed lithographer to the Queen, for whom he executed several prints of members of the Royal Family from portraits 340 ASSOCIATES ELECTED UNDER LAWRENCE by Winterhalter. He also, in his later years, held an official post in the art department at South Kensington. His death took place in 1872. CHARLES TURNER, A.E. Was born at Woodstock in 1773. He entered the Royal Academy schools in 1795, and was employed by Boydell. His first works were in the style of Bartolozzi, but he afterwards took to mezzotint and aquatint, and the use of the needle. It was in this manner that he engraved several of the early numbers of his namesake, J. M. W. Turner's "Liber Studiorum." Many well-known works by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrence, and other eminent artists were translated by him, all in a most admirable manner ; no matter what style he used, the result was always excellent. He was elected an Associate in 1828, and held the post of Engraver-in-Ordinary to the King. He died in 1857. With this chapter ends the record of the Royal Academy and its members up to the year 1830 of its members, that is, with one exception, Sir Martin Archer Shee, who, elected an Associate in 1798, and an Academician in 1800, will properly take his place in its history as the successor of Lawrence in the Presidency. It may not be inappropriate at the close of this volume to quote a few passages from the speech of the Prince Consort, to which allusion has been made in the last chapter. After some pregnant remarks on the duties of critics, criticism being "absolutely necessary to the development of art," the prince goes on to say : " We have now, on the one hand, the eager competition of a vast array of artists of every degree of talent and skill, and, on the other, as judge, a great public, for the greater part wholly uneducated CONTINUED FAVOUR OF THE CROWN 341 in art, and this led by professional writers, who often strive to impress the public with a great idea of their own artistic knowledge by the merciless manner in which they treat works which cost those who produced them the highest effort of mind and feeling." To these evils, it is added, an institution like the Academy acts as a counterpoise ; it educates artists, and those who distinguish themselves "receive a badge of acknowledgment from their professional brethren by being elected Associates," and subsequently by being "received into a select aristocracy of a limited number." " If," he proceeds, "this body is often assailed from without, it shares only the fate of every aristocracy ; if more than another, this only proves that it is even more difficult to sustain an aristocracy of merit than one of birth or of wealth, and may serve as a useful check upon yourselves, when tempted, at your elections, to let personal predilections compete with real merit. Of one thing, however, you may rest assured, and that is, the continued favour of the Crown. The same feeling which actuated George III. in found- ing this institution still actuates the Crown in continuing to it its patronage and support, recognising in you a constitutional link, as it were, between the Crown itself and the artistic body ; and when I look at the assemblage of guests at this table, I may infer that the Crown does not stand alone in this respect, but that those feelings are shared also by the great and noble in the land. May the Academy long flourish, and continue its career of usefulness." These gracious sentiments of the Crown towards the Royal Academy were it may be stated here without indiscretion fully endorsed by His Majesty King Edward VII. in the reply, signed by his own hand, which he was graciously pleased to give to the address presented to him by the Royal Academy on his accession to the throne. APPENDICES LIST OF APPENDICES I The "Instrument" . . . 345 II. List of the Royal Academicians from 1768 to 1904, with the dates of their birth, admission as students, election as Associates, election as Academicians, and death . 352 III. List of the Associates who have not become Royal Academi- cians from 1770 to 1904, with similar dates . . 360 IV. List of Officers, Professors, and Honorary Members of the Royal Academy from 1768 to 1904 . . . 364 V. List of Diploma Works from 1770 to 1904 . . . 370 VI. List of Pictures and Statuary other than Diploma Works, and of various objects of interest belonging to the Royal Academy ....... 377 VII. List of Students who have obtained Gold Medals and Travel- ling Studentships, 1769 to 1904 .... 383 VIII. List of works purchased under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest, 1877-1904 . . . -393 APPENDIX I THE INSTRUMENT THE document known as "The Instrument" contains the scheme for the foundation and government of the Royal Academy, which was approved by H.M. King George III., who ordered it to be put in execution, signing it with his own hand. Although many of its provisions are obsolete, and great changes (as provided for in Clause XXII.) have been made in the laws and regulations, the Instrument is still, as it were, the Charter of the Academy, and its funda- mental principles have lost none of their authority. INSTRUMENT. WHEREAS sundry persons, resident in this Metropolis, eminent Professors of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, have most humbly represented by Memorial unto the King, that they are desirous of establishing a Society for promoting the Arts of Design, and earnestly soliciting His Majesty's patronage and assistance in carrying this their plan into execution ; and, Whereas, its great utility hath been fully and clearly demonstrated, His Majesty, therefore, desirous of encour- aging every useful undertaking, doth hereby institute and establish the said Society, under the name and title of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, graciously declaring himself the patron, protector, and supporter thereof ; and commanding that it be established under the forms and regulations hereinafter mentioned, which have been most humbly laid before His Majesty, and received his royal appro- bation and assent. I. The said Society shall consist of forty Members only, who shall be called Academicians of the Royal Academy ; they shall all of them be artists by profession at the time of their admission, that is to say, Painters, Sculptors, or Architects, men of fair moral characters, of high reputation in their several professions ; at least five-and-twenty years of age ; resident in Great Britain ; and not members of any other society of artists established in London. 845 346 APPENDICES II. It is His Majesty's pleasure that the following forty persons be the original Members of the said Society, viz. : JOSHUA REYNOLDS. BENJAMIN WEST. THOMAS SANDBY. FRANCIS COTES. JOHN BAKER. MOSES CHAMBERLAIN (sic). JOHN GWYNN. THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH. J. BAPTIST CIPRIANI (sic). JEREMIAH MEYER. FRANCIS MILNER NEWTON. PAUL SANDBY. FRANCESCO BARTOLOZZI. CHARLES CATTON. NATHANIEL HONE. WILLIAM TYLER. NATHANIEL DANCE. RICHARD WILSON. G. MICHAEL MOSER. SAMUEL WALE. PETER TOMS. ANGELICA KAUFFMAN. RICHARD YEO. MARY MOSER. WILLIAM CHAMBERS. JOSEPH WILTON. GEORGE BARRET. EDWARD PENNY. AUGUSTINO CARLINI (sic). FRANCIS HAYMAN. DOMENIC SERRES. JOHN RICHARDS. FRANCESCO ZUCCARELLI. GEORGE DANCE. WILLIAM HOARE. JOHAN ZOFFANY. III. After the first institution, all vacancies of Academicians shall be filled by election from amongst the exhibitors in the Royal Academy ; the names of the candidates for admission shall be put up in the Academy three months before the day of election, of which day timely notice shall be given in writing to all the Academicians ; each candidate shall, on the day of election, have at least thirty suffrages in his favour, to be duly elected ; and he shall not receive his Letter of Admission till he hath deposited in the Royal Academy, to remain there, a Picture, Bas-relief, or other specimen of his abilities, approved of by the then sitting Council of the Academy. IV. For the Government of the Society, there shall be annually elected a President and eight other persons, who shall form a Council, which shall have the entire direction and management of all the business of the Society ; and all the officers and servants thereof shall be subservient to the said Council, which shall have power to reform all abuses, to censure such as are deficient in their duty, and (with the consent of the general body, and the King's permission first obtained for that purpose), to suspend or entirely remove from their employments such as shall be found guilty of any great offences. The Council shall meet as often as the business of the Society shall require it ; every Member shall be punctual to the hour of appointment under the penalty of a fine, at the option of the Council ; and at each meeting, the attending Members shall receive forty-five shillings to be equally divided amongst them, in which division, however, the Secretary shall not be comprehended. V. The seats in the Council shall go by succession to all the Members of the Society, excepting the Secretary, who shall always belong thereto. Four of the Council shall be voted out every year, APPENDIX I 347 and these shall not re-occupy their seats in the Council, till all the rest have served ; neither the President or Secretary shall have any vote, either in the Council or General Assembly, excepting the suffrages be equal, in which case the President shall have the casting vote. VI. There shall be a Secretary of the Royal Academy, elected by ballot, from amongst the Academicians, and approved of by the King ; his business shall be to keep the Minutes of the Council, to write letters, and send summonses, &c. ; he shall attend at the Exhibition, assist in disposing the performances, make out the Catalogues, &c. ; he shall also, when the Keeper of the Academy is indisposed, take upon himself the care of the Academy, and the inspection of the Schools of Design, for which he shall be properly qualified ; his salary shall be sixty pounds a year, and he shall continue in office during His Majesty's pleasure. VII. There shall be a Keeper of the Royal Academy, elected by ballot, from amongst the Academicians ; he shall be an able painter of History, Sculptor, or other Artist, properly qualified. His business shall be to keep the Royal Academy, with the Models, Casts, Books, and other moveables belonging thereto ; to attend regularly the Schools of Design, during the sittings of the Students, to preserve order among them, and to give them such advice and instruction as they shall require ; he shall have the immediate direction of all the servants of the Academy, shall regulate all things relating to the Schools, and with the assistance of the Visitors, provide the living Models, &c. He shall attend at the Exhibition, assist in disposing the performances, and be constantly at hand to preserve order and decorum. His salary shall be one hundred pounds a year ; he shall have a convenient apartment allotted him in the Royal Academy, where he shall con- stantly reside ; and he shall continue in office during the King's pleasure. VIII. There shall be a Treasurer of the Royal Academy, who, as the King is graciously pleased to pay all deficiencies, shall be ap- pointed by His Majesty from amongst the Academicians, that he may have a person in whom he places full confidence, in an office where his interest is concerned ; and His Majesty doth hereby nominate and appoint William Chambers, Esquire, Architect of his Works, to be Treasurer of the Royal Academy of Arts ; which office he shall hold, together with the emoluments thereof, from the date of these presents, and during His Majesty's pleasure. His business shall be to receive the rents and profits of the Academy, to pay its expenses, to super- 348 APPENDICES intend repairs of the buildings and alterations, to examine all bills, and to conclude all bargains ; he shall once in every quarter lay a fair state of his Accounts before the Council, and when they have passed examination and been approved there, he shall lay them before the Keeper of His Majesty's Privy Purse, to be by him finally audited, and the deficiencies paid ; his salary shall be sixty pounds a year. IX. That the Schools of Design may be under the direction of the ablest Artists, there shall be elected annually from amongst the Academicians nine persons, who shall be called Visitors ; they shall be Painters of History, able Sculptors, or other persons properly qualified ; their business shall be, to attend the Schools by rotation, each a month, to set the figures, to examine the performances of the Students, to advise and instruct them, to endeavour to form their taste, and turn their attention towards that branch of the Arts for which they shall seem to have the aptest disposition. These officers shall be approved of by the King ; they shall be paid out of the Treasury ten shillings and sixpence for each time of attending, which shall be at least two hours, and shall be subject to a fine of ten shillings and sixpence whenever they neglect to attend, unless they appoint a proxy from amongst the Visitors for the time being, in which case he shall be entitled to the reward. At every election of Visitors, four of the old Visitors shall be declared non-eligible. X. There shall be a Professor of Anatomy, who shall read annually six public Lectures in the Schools, adapted to the Arts of Design ; his salary shall be thirty pounds a year ; and he shall continue in office during the King's pleasure. XI. There shall be a Professor of Architecture, who shall read annually six public Lectures, calculated to form the taste of the Students, to instruct them in the laws and principles of composition, to point out to them the beauties or faults of celebrated productions, to fit them for an unprejudiced study of books, and for a critical examination of structures ; his salary shall be thirty pounds a year ; and he shall continue in office during the King's pleasure. XII. There shall be a Professor of Painting, who shall read annually six Lectures, calculated to instruct the Students in the principles of composition, to form their taste of design and colouring, to strengthen their judgment, to point out to them the beauties and imperfections of celebrated works of Art, and the particular excel- lencies or defects of great masters, and, finally, to lead them into the readiest and most efficacious paths of study ; his salary shall be thirty APPENDIX I 349 pounds a year ; and he shall continue in office during the King's pleasure. XIII. There shall be a Professor of Perspective and Geometry, who shall read six public Lectures annually in the Schools, in which all the useful propositions of Geometry, together with the principle of Lineal and Aerial Perspective, and also the projection of shadows, reflections, and refractions shall be clearly and fully illustrated; he shall particularly confine himself to the quickest, easiest, and most exact methods of operation. He shall continue in office during the King's pleasure ; and his salary shall be thirty pounds a year. XIV. The Lectures of all the Professors shall be laid before the Council for its approbation, which shall be obtained in writing, before they can be read in the public Schools. All these Professors shall be elected by ballot, the three last from amongst the Academicians. XV. There shall be a Porter of the Royal Academy, whose salary shall be twenty-five pounds a year ; he shall have a room in the Royal Academy, and receive his orders from the Keeper or Secretary. XVI. There shall be a Sweeper of the Royal Academy, whose salary shall be ten pounds a year. XVII. There shall be an Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculp- ture, and Designs, which shall be open to all Artists of distinguished merit ; it shall continue for the public one month, and be under the regulations expressed in the bye-laws of the Society, hereafter to be made. Of the profits arising therefrom, two hundred pounds shall be given to indigent artists, or their families, and the remainder shall be employed in the support of the Institution. All Academicians, till they have attained the age of sixty, shall be obliged to exhibit at least one performance, under a penalty of five pounds, to be paid into the treasury of the Academy, unless they can show sufficient cause for their omission ; but, after that age, they shall be exempt from all duty. XVIII. There shall be a Winter Academy of Living Models, men and women of different characters, under the regulations expressed in the bye-laws of the Society, hereafter to be made, free to all Stu- dents who shall be qualified to receive advantage from such studies. XIX. There shall be a Summer Academy of Living Models, to paint after, also of Laymen with draperies, both Ancient and Modern, Plaster Figures, Bas-reliefs, models and designs of Fruits, Flowers, Ornaments, &c., free to all artists qualified to receive advantage from 350 APPENDICES such studies, and under the regulations expressed in the bye-laws of the Society hereafter to be made. XX. There shall be a Library of Books of Architecture, Sculp- ture, Painting, and all the Sciences relating thereto ; also prints of bas-reliefs, vases, trophies, ornaments, dresses, ancient and modern customs and ceremonies, instruments of war and arts, utensils of sacrifice, and all other things useful to Students in the Arts ; which Library shall be open one day in every week to all Students properly qualified. One of the Members of the Council shall attend in the room during the whole time it is open, to keep order, and to see that no damage is done to the books ; and he shall be paid los. 6d. for his attendance. No books shall, under any pretence, be suffered to be taken out of the Library ; but every Academician shall have free in- gress at all seasonable times of the day to consult the books, and to make designs or sketches from them. XXI. There shall be annually one General Meeting of the whole body, or more if requisite, to elect a Council and Visitors ; to confirm new laws and regulations ; to hear complaints and redress grievances, if there be any ; and to do any other business relative to the Society. XXII. The Council shall frame new laws and regulations ; but they shall have no force, till ratified by the consent of the General Assembly, and the approbation of the King. XXIII. Though it may not be for the benefit of the Institution absolutely to prohibit pluralities, yet they are as much as possible to be avoided, that His Majesty's gracious intention may be complied with, by dividing as nearly as possible the emoluments of the Insti- tution amongst all its Members. XXIV. If any Member of the Society shall, by any means, become obnoxious, it may be put to the ballot, in the General Assembly, whether he shall be expelled, and if there be found a majority for expulsion, he shall be expelled, provided His Majesty's permission be first obtained for that purpose. XXV. No Student shall be admitted into the Schools, till he hath satisfied the Keeper of the Academy, the Visitor, and Council for the time being, of his abilities ; which being done, he shall receive his Letter of Admission, signed by the Secretary of the Academy, certi- fying that he is admitted a Student in the Royal Schools. XXVI. If any Student be guilty of improper behaviour in the Schools, or doth not quietly submit to the rules and Orders established APPENDIX I 351 for their regulation, it shall be in the power of the Council, upon com- plaint being first made by the Keeper of the Academy, to expel, repri- mand, or rusticate him for a certain time ; but if he be once expelled, he shall never be re-admitted in the Royal Schools. XXVII. All modes of election shall be regulated by the bye-iaws of the Society, hereafter to be made for that purpose. I approve of this Plan ; let it be put in execution. GEORGE R. ST JAMES'S, December 10, 1768. APPENDIX II THE ROYAL ACADEMICIANS, 1768-1904, WITH the dates respectively of their Birth, Admission as Students of the Academy, Election as Associate (A.), election as Academician (R.A.), and Death ; also the office, if any, held by them. The letter after each name indicates the branch of art in which each was chiefly distinguished, viz. : P, Painter, S, Sculptor, A, Architect, E, Engraver. The first thirty-six Academicians were nominated by George III. at the foundation of the Academy, and are given in the order in which they are named in the " Instrument." NAME. Born. Student A. R.A. Died. Office held. JOSHUA REYNOLDS (Sir) P 1723 ... ... I 7 68 1792 President. BENJAMIN WEST . P 1738 ... 1768 1820 President. THOMAS SANDBY . A 1721 ... 1768 1798 Prof, of Architect. FRANCIS COTES . . P 1725 ... ... 1768 1770 ... JOHN BAKER . . P 1736 ... ... 1768 1771 MASON CHAMBERLIN P (?) ... ... 1768 1787 JOHN GWYNN . . A (?) ... 1768 1786 ... THOS. GAINSBOROUGH P 1727 ... 1768 1788 ... GIOVANNI BATTISTA CIPRIANI . . P }i727 ... 1768 1785 JEREMIAH MEYER . P 1735 ... ... 1768 1789 ... FRANCIS MILNER NEW- TON . P JI720 ... ... 1768 1794 Secretary. PAUL SANDBY . . P 1725 ... 1768 1809 Dep. Librarian. FRANCESCO BARTOLOZZI P&E }i727 ... ... 1768 1815 ... CHARLES CATTON . P 1728 ... 1768 1798 ... 352 APPENDIX II 353 NAME. Born. Student A. R.A. Died. Office held. NATHANIEL HONE . P 1718 ... ... 1768 1784 WILLIAM TYLER . A (?) ... ... 1768 1801 ... NATHANIEL DANCE (after- } wards Sir N. Dance- N734 ... 1768* 1811 Holland, Bart.) . P J RICHARD WILSON . P 1714 ... ... 1768 1782 Librarian. GEO. MICHAEL MOSER S 1704 ... ... 1768 1783 /Keeper ; Deputy \ Librarian. SAMUEL WALE . . P (?) ... ... 1768 1786 I Prof. Perspective; V Librarian. PETER TOMS . . P (?) ... ... 1768 1776 ... ANGELICA KAUFFMAN P 1741 ... ... 1768 1807 ... RICHARD YEO . . S (?) ... ... 1768 1779 ... MARY MOSER . . P (?) ... 1768 1819 ... WM. CHAMBERS (Sir) A 1726 ... ... 1768 1796 Treasurer. JOSEPH WILTON . S 1722 ... ... 1768 1803 Keeper; Librarian. {1732 'V GEORGE BARRET . P (or 1 ... 1768 1784 ... EDWARD PENNY . P 1714 ... ... 1768 1791 Prof, of Painting. AGOSTINO CARLINI . S (?) ... ... 1768 1790 Keeper. FRANCIS HAYMAN . P 1708 .. . ... 1768 1776 Librarian. DOMINIC SERRES . P 1722 ... ... 1768 1793 Librarian. JOHN INIGO RICHARDS P (?) ... ... 1768 1810 Secretary. FRANCESCO ZUCCARELLI P c.1 702 ... ... 1768 1789 ... GEORGE DANCE . . A 1740 ... ... 1768 1825 Prof, of Architect. WILLIAM HOARE . P 1706 ... ... 1769 1792 ... JOHAN ZOFFANY . P 1733 ... ... 1769 1810 ... EDWARD BURCH . S ( ?) 1769 1770 1771 1814 Librarian. RICHARD COSWAY . P 1740 1769 1770 1771 1821 ... JOSEPH NOLLEKENS . S 1737 ... 1771 1772 1823 ... JAMES BARRY . . P 1741 ... 1772 I773t 1806 Prof, of Painting. WILLIAM PETERS (Rev.) P (?) ... 1771 I777J 1814 Hon. Chaplain. JOHN BACON . . S 1740 1769 1770 1778 1799 ... JOHN SINGLETON COP- LEY . P }i737 ... 1776 1779 1815 ... PHILIP JAMES DE Lou- \ 1780 1781 1812 THERBOURG . . P / EDMUND GARVEY . P (?) ... 1770 1783 1813 ... JOHN FRANCIS RIGAUD P 1742 ... 1772 1784 1810 Dep. Librarian. THOMAS BANKS . S 1735 1769 1784 1785 1805 ... JAMES WYATT . . A 1748 1770 1785 1813 President Elect. Resigned 17UO. t Expelled 1779. J Resigned 1790. Z 354 APPENDICES NAME. Born. Student A. R.A. Died. Office held. JOSEPH FARINGTON . P 1747 1769 1783 1785 1821 JOHN OPIE . . P 1761 1786 1787 1807 Prof, of Painting. JAMES NORTHCOTE . P 1746 1771 1786 1787 1831 ... WILLIAM HODGES . P 1744 ... 1786 1787 1797 ... JOHN RUSSELL . . P 1744 1770 1772 1788 1806 ... WILLIAM HAMILTON P I75i 1769 1784 1789 1801 ... HENRY FUSELI . . P 1741 ... 1788 1790 1825 /Prof, of Painting ; \ Keeper. JOHN VENN . . A (?) 1769 1774 1791 1821 Treasurer. JOHN WEBBER . . P 1752 1775 1785 1791 1793 ... FRANCIS WHEATLEY . P 1747 1769 1790 1791 1801 ... OZIAS HUMPHREY . P 1742 1779 1791 1810 ... ROBERT SMIRKE . P 1752 1772 1791 1793 1845 ... PETER FRANCIS BOUR- GEOIS (Sir) P }i756 ... 1787 1793 1811 ... THOMAS STOTHARD . P 1755 1777 1791 1794 1834 Librarian. THOMAS LAWRENCE(Sir)P 1769 1787 1791 1794 1830 President. RICHARD WESTALL . P 1765 1785 1792 1794 1836 ... JOHN HOPPNER . P 1758 1775 1793 1795 1810 ... SAWREY GILPIN . P 1733 1795 1797 1807 ... WILLIAM BEECHEY (Sir) P 1753 1772 1793 1798 1839 ... HENRY TRESHAM . P fi749 \ (or Ii756) }... 1791 1799 1814 Prof, of Painting. THOMAS DANIELL . P 1749 1773 1796 1799 1840 ... MARTIN ARCHER SHEE (Sir) . . , P }i769 1790 1798 1800 1850 President. JOHN FLAXMAN . S 1755 1769 1797 1800 1826 Prof, of Sculpture. JOSEPH MALLORD WM. TURNER. . . P }'775 1789 1799 1802 1851 /"Prof, of Perspec- \ live. JOHN SOANE (Sir) . A 1753 1771 1795 1802 1837 Prof, of Architect. JN. CHAS. FELIX Rossi S 1762 I78l 1798 1802 1839 ... HENRY THOMSON . P 1773 1790 1801 1804 1843 Keeper. WILLIAM OWEN . P 1769 1791 1804 1806 1825 .., SAMUEL WOODFORDE P 1763 1782 1800 1807 1817 HENRY HOWARD . P 1769 1788 1800 1808 1847 /Secretary; Prof. of \ Painting. THOMAS PHILLIPS , P 1770 1791 1804 1808 1845 Prof, of Painting. NATHANIEL MARCHANT S 1739 ... 1791 1809 1816 .. AUGUSTUS WALL CALL- COTT (Sir) . . P JI779 1797 1806 1810 1844 ... DAVID WILKIE (Sir) . P 1785 1805 1809 1811 1841 ... JAMES WARD . . P 1769 ... 1807 1811 1859 ... APPENDIX II 355 NAME. Born. Student A. R.A. Died, i Office held. j RICHARD WESTMACOTT (Sir) . . . S }i775 ... -1805 1811 1856 Prof, of Sculpture. ROBERT SMIRKE (Sir) A 1780 1796 1808 1811* 1867 Treasurer. HENRY BONE . . P 1755 1801 1811 1834 .. . PHILIP REINAGLE . P 1749 1769 1787 1812 1833 ... WILLIAM THEED . S 1764 1786 1811 1813 1817 GEORGE DAWE . . P 1781 1794 1809 j 1814 1829 WM. REDMORE BIGG P 1755 1778 1787 1814 1828 i EDWARD BIRD . . P 1772 1812 1815 1819 ... HENRY RAEBURN (Sir) P 1756 1812 1815 1823 ... WILLIAM MULREADY P 1786 i8co 1815 1816 1863 ... ALFRED EDW. CHALON P 1781 1797 1812 1816 1860 ... JOHN JACKSON . . P 1778 1805 1815 1817 1831 ... FRANCIS LEGATT CHAN- TREY (Sir) . . S } I7 8i 1816 1818 1841 ... WILLIAM HILTON . P 1786 1806 1813 1819 1839 Keeper. ABRAHAM COOPER . P 1787 1817 1820 1868 ... WILLIAM COLLINS . P 1788 1807 1814 1820 1847 Librarian. EDWARD HOFGES BAJLY S 1788 1809 1817 1821 1867 WILLIAM DANIELL . P 1769 1799 1807 1822 1837 ... RICHARD COOK . P 1784 1800 1816 1822 1857 ... RAMSAY RICH.REINAGLE P 1775 ... | 1814 i823t 1862 ... J EFFRY WTAT VILLE (Sir) A 1766 ... 1822 1824 1840 GEORGE JONES . . P 1786 1801 1822 1824 1869 Librarian ; Keeper. WILLIAM WILKINS . A 1778 ... 1823 1826 1839 Prof, of Architect. CHAS. ROBERT LESLIE P 1794 1813 1821 1826 1859 Prof, of Painting. HY. WM. PICKERSGILL P 1782 1805 1822 1826 1875 Librarian. WILLIAM ETTY . . P 1787 1807 1824 1828 1849 ... JOHN CONSTABLE . P 1776 1800 1819 1829 1837 CHARLES LOCK EAST- LAKE (Sir) . . P }i793 1809 1827 1830 1865 r Librarian ; Presi- \ dent. EDWIN HENRY LAND- SEER (Sir) . . P JI802 1816 1826 1831 1873 ... GILBERT STUART NEW- TON . P }i794 1820 1828 1832 1835 ... HY. PERRONET BRIGGS P 1791 1811 1825 1832 1844 ... WM. CLARKSON STAN- FIELD . P }i793 ... 1832 1835 i 1867 ... WILLIAM ALLAN (Sir) P 1782 ... 1825 1835 1850 ... JOHN GIBSON . . S 1790 ... 1833 1836 1866 CHAS.ROBT.COCKERELL A 1788 ... 1829 1836 1863 Prof, of Architect. Resigned 1859. t Resigned 1848. 356 APPENDICES NAMK. Bora. Student A. B.A. Did. Office held. JOHN PETER DEEKING [Gandy] ... A }i787 1805 1826 1838 1850 THOMAS UWINS . P 1782 1798 1833 1838 1857 Librarian. FREDK. RICHARD LEE P 1798 1818 1834 1838 1879 ... WILLIAM WYON . S 1795 1817 1831 1838 1851 ... DANIEL MACLISE . P 1811 1828 1835 1840 1870 ... WM. FREDK. WITHER- INGTON . . . P }i785 1805 1830 1840 1865 ... SOLOMON ALEXANDER HART . P }i8o6 1823 1835 1840 1881 fProf. of Painting ; \ Librarian. PHILIP HARDWICK . A 1792 1808 1839 1841 1870 Treasurer. DAVID ROBERTS P 1796 ... 1838 1841 1864 ... JOHN JAMES CHALON P 1778 1796 1827 1841 1854 ... CHARLES BARRY (Sir) A 1795 ... 1840 1842 1860 ... WM. CHARLES Ross (Sir) . . P }i794 1808 1838 1843 1860 ... JOHN PRESCOTT KNIGHT P 1803 1823 1836 1844 1881 /Secretary ; Prof, of \ Perspective. CHARLES LANDSEER . P 1799 1816 1837 1845 1879 Keeper. THOMAS WEBSTER . P 1800 1821 1840 I8 4 6 1886 ... PATRICK MACDOWELL S 1799 1830 1841 I8 4 6 1870 .. . JOHN ROGERS HERBERT P 1810 1826 I8 4 I 1846 1890 CHARLES WEST COPE P 1811 1828 1843 1848 1890 Prof, of Painting. WILLIAM DYCE . . P 1806 I8 44 I8 4 8 1864 ... RICHARD WESTMACOTT S 1799 1818 1838 1849 1872 Prof, of Sculpture. JOHN WATSON GORDON (Sir) . . . P }i79 ... 1841 1851 1864. ... THOMAS CRESWICK . P 1811 ... I8 4 2 l8;i 1869 .. RICHARD REDGRAVE P 1804 1826 1840 1851 !888 ... FRANCIS GRANT (Sir) P 1803 I8 4 2 1851 1878 President. WM. CALDER MARSHALL S 1813 1834 1844 1852 1894 ... WM. POWELL FRITH . P 1819 1837 1845 1853 ... SAMUEL COUSINS . E 1801 ... 1835 1855 1887 ... EDWARD MATT. WARD P 1816 1835 1846 1855 1879 ... ALFRED ELMORE . P 1815 1832 1845 1857 1881 ... FREDERICK RICHARD PlCKERSGILL . . P |l820 1840 1847 1857 1900 Keeper. GEORGE THOMAS Doo E 1800 ... 1856 1857 1886 ... JOHN HENRY FOLEY . S 1818 1835 1849 1858 1874 ... JOHN PHILLIP . . P 1817 1837 1857 1859 1867 ... SYDNEY SMIKKE . A 1798 1817 1847 I8$9 1877 fProf. of Architec- \ ture ; Treasurer. JAMES CLARKE HOOK P 1819 1836 1850 1860 ... ... APPENDIX II 357 NAME. Born. Student A. E.A. Died. Office held. AUGUSTUS LEOPOLD EGG P \i8l6 1836 1848 1860 1863 ... GEORGE GILBERT SCOTT (Sir) ... A \i8ii ... 1855 1860 1878 /Prof, of Architec- \ ture. PAUL FALCONER POOLE P 1810 ... 1846 1861 1879 ... HENRY WEEKES . S 1807 1823 1851 1863 1877 Prof, of Sculpture. WILLIAM BOXALL (Sir) P 1800 1819 1851 1863 1879 ... FREDERICK GOODALL P 1822 ... 1852 1863 1904 ... JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS (Sir, Bart.) . . P }l82 9 1840 1853 1863 1896 President. EDWARD WM. COOKE P 1811 1851 1863 1880 ... JOHN CALLCOTT HORS- LEY . P }i8i 7 1831 1855 1864 1903 Treasurer. THOMAS FAED . . P 1826 ... 1861 1864 1900 ... JOHN FREDERICK LEWIS P 1805 ... 1859 1865 1876 ... GEORGE RICHMOND . P 1809 1824 1857 1866 1896 ... CARLO MAROCHETTI (Baron) . S }i8o 9 ... 1861 1866 1867 ... THOS. SIDNEY COOPER P 1803 1824 1845 1867 1902 ... PHILIP HERMOGENES CALDERON . . P }i833 ... 1864 1867 1898 Keeper. JOHN HENRY ROBINSON E 1796 ... 1856 1867 1871 ... GEO. FREDK. WATTS . P 1817 1835 1867 1867 1904 FREDERIC LEIGHTON (Sir, Bart., and Baron) P }i830 1864 1868 1896 President. EDWARD MIDDLETON BARRY ... A |i830 1848 1861 1869 1880 Treasurer. JAMES SANT . . P 1820 1840 1861 1869 ... ... HENRY TAN WORTH WELLS . P \i828 ... 1866 1870 1903 ... RICHARD ANSDELL . P 1815 1861 1870 1885 WM. EDWARD FROST P 1810 1829 1846 1870 1877 GEO. EDMUND STREET A 1824 ... 1866 1871 1881 /Treasurer; Prof. of \ Architecture. WM. CHAS. THOS. DOBSON . P }i8i7 1836 1860 1871 1898 LUMB STOCKS . . E 1812 ... 1853 1871 1892 ... EDWARD ARMITAGE . P 1817 ... 1867 1872 1896 Prof, of Painting. JOHN PETTIE . . P 1839 ... 1866 1873 1893 ... THOMAS WOOLNER . S 1825 1842 1871 1874 1892 Prof, of Sculpture. EDWARD JOHN POYNTER (Sir) . . . P }i836 1855 1869 1876 ... President. JOHN GILBERT (Sir) . P 1817 ... 1872 1876 1897 ... GEORGE DUNLOP LESLIE P 1835 1854 1868 1876 ... ... 358 APPENDICES NAMB. Born. Student A. R.A. Died. Office held. HENRY WM. BANKS DAVIS . P I-I833 1851 1873 1877 ... WM. QUILLER ORCHARD- SON . P ^835 ... 1868 1877 ... RICHARD NORMAN SHAW A |-i83i 1849 1872 1877 ... WM. FREDK. YEAMES P I83S ... 1866 1878 ... Librarian. HENRY STACY MARKS P 1829 1851 1871 1878 I8 9 8 ... LAWRENCE ALMA TA- DEMA(Sir) . . P [1836 ... 1876 1879 ... JOHN EVAN HODGSON P 1831 1855 1873 1879 1895 /Librarian ; Prof, ol \ Painting. HY. HUGH ARMSTEAD S 1828 1847 I87S 1879 .., VICAT COLE . . P 1833 1870 1880 1893 JOHN LOUGHBOROUGH PEARSON . . A }(0 ... 1874 1880 1897 WALTER WM. OULESS P 1848 1865 1877 1881 ... BRITON RIVIERE . P 1840 ... 1878 1881 ... ... THOS. OLDHAM BARLOW E }i82 4 1873 1881 1889 ... EDWIN LONG . . P 1829 1849 1876 1881 1891 PETER GRAHAM . P 1836 1877 1881 ... ... JOSEPH EDGAR BOEHM (Sir, Bart.) . . S }i834 ... 1878 1882 1890 FRANK HOLL . . P 1845 1861 1878 1883 1888 ... ALFRED WATERHOUSE A 1830 ... 1878 1885 ... Treasurer. MARCUS STONE . . P 1840 ... 1877 1887 ... ... S. LUKE FILDES . P 1844 1866 1879 1887 ... ... WM. HAMO THORNY- CROFT S jiSso 1869 1881 1888 ... ... JOHN BAGNOLD BUR- GESS . p }i830 1849 1877 1888 1897 ... HUBERT v. HERKOMER P 1849 1879 1890 ... Prof, of Painting. THOMAS BROCK . S 1847 1867 1883 1891 ... ... ANDREW CARRICK Gow P 1848 ... 1881 1891 ... FRANK DICKSEE . P 1853 1871 I$8l 1891 ... ALFRED GILBERT . S 1854 1874 1887 1892 ... Prof, of Sculpture. JOHN MACWHIRTER . P 1839 ... 1879 1893 ... ... HENRY WOODS . . P 1846 ... 1882 1893 ... ... HENRY MOORE . . P 1831 1853 1885 1893 1895 ... VALENTINE CAMERON PRINSEP. . . P }i838 ... 1879 1894 1904 Prof, of Painting. JOHN WM. WATERHOUSE P |i849 1871 1885 1895 APPENDIX II 359 NAME. Born. Student A. R.A. Died. Office held. EDWARD ONSLOW FORD S }l8 5 2 ... 1888 1895 1901 ... WM. BLAKE RICHMOND (Sir) . . . P }l8 4 2 1858 1888 1-895 ... Prof, of Painting. GEO. HENRY BOUGHTON P 1833 ... 1879 1896 ... ... ERNEST CROFTS . P 1847 ... 1878 I8 9 6 ... Keeper. THOS. GRAHAM JACKSON A }i8 3 $ ... 1892 1896 ... Treasurer. JOHN SINGER SARGENT P 1856 ... I8 94 1897 ... ... EDWARD JOHN GREGORY P }i8 5 o 1870 1883 1898 ... ... GEORGE AITCHISON . A 1825 ... iSSi 1898 ... Prof, of Architect. BENJAMIN WILLIAMS LEADER P }i83i 1853 1883 1898 ... ... JOHN SEYMOUR LUCAS P 1849 1871 1886 1898 ... ... EDWARD AUSTIN ABBEY P 1852 ... 1896 1898 ... ... GEO. FREDK. BODLEY A 1827 ... 1882 1902 ... ... GEO. JAMES FRAMPTON S 1860 1882 1894 1902 ... ... ERNEST ALBERT WATER- LOW (Sir) . . P }i8 5 o 1872 1890 1903 ... ... ROBT. WM. MACBETH P 1848 1871 1883 1903 ... ... ASTON WEBB . . A 1849 ... 1899 1903 ... ... LIST OF HONORARY FOREIGN ACADEMICIANS, 1868-1904 IN 1868 a Class of Honorary Foreign Academicians was instituted. The following have been elected : Louis GALLAIS . . . P 1869 CLAUDE J. B. E. GUILLAUME . S 1869 EUGENE E. VIOLLET LE Due . A 1869 Louis P. HENRIQUEL DUPONT E 1869 JEAN Louis MEISSONIER . . P 1869 JEAN LEON GEROMB . . P 1869 LUDWIG KNAUS PAUL DUBOIS . ADOLF MINZEL JULES BREBON. LEON BONN AT. EMMANUEL FRE"MIET . P 1882 . P and S 1896 . P 1896 . . P 1899 . P 1904 . S 1904 APPENDIX III LIST OF ASSOCIATES WHO HAVE NOT BECOME ROYAL ACADEMICIANS, 1770-1904, WITH the dates respectively of their Birth, Admission as Students of the Academy, Election as Associate Engraver (A.E.), or Associate (A.), and Death. The letter after each name indicates the branch of art in which each was chiefly distinguished viz., P, Painter ; S, Sculptor ; A, Architect ; E, Engraver. The full number of twenty Associates was not completed till 1773, nor the full number of Associate Engravers till 1775. In 1866 the number of Associates was made unlimited, with a minimum of twenty, and in 1879 the minimum was raised to thirty, exclusive of Engravers. NAME. Born. Student. A. Died. THOMAS MAJOR . E 1720 ... 1770 1799 SIMON FRANCOIS RAVENET . . E 1706 ... 1770 1774 PETER CHARLES CANOT E c. 1710 ... 1770 1777 JOHN BROWNE E 1741 I77O 1801 THOMAS CHAMBERS E / *t c. 1724 .. . * / / 1770 1789 EDWARD STEVENS .... A (?) ... 1770 1775 GEORGE JAMES P (?) ... 1770 1795 ELIAS MARTIN P I74.O 1760 I77O (?)* ANTONIO ZUCCHI . . . . P * / T^ w 1726 * / ,7 1770 V. s 1795 MICHAEL ANGELO ROOKER . . P 1743 1769 1770 1801 WILLIAM PARS P 1742 1769 1770 1782 NICHOLAS THOMAS DALL . . P (?) 1771 1777 BIAGIO REBECCA P 1735 1769 1771 1808 WILLIAM TOMKINS P c. 1730 ... 1771 1792 STEPHEN ELMER . P (?) ... 1772 1796 * His name was included in the annual list of members till 1832, but he is supposed to have died sometime between 1804 and 1818. 360 APPENDIX III 361 NAME. Born. Student. A. Died. EDWARD EDWARDS* . P 1738 1769 1773 1806 VALENTINE GREEN . E 1739 ... 1775 1813 WILLIAM PARRY . P 1742 1769 1776 1791 JOHN HAMILTON MORTIMER . . P 1741 1778 1779 JAMES NIXON P c. 1 741 I76Q 1778 1812 HORACE HONE P *'* A / T 1 * r.i755 J. / v^ 1770 j. / / 1 , I-. ^rH H 8P , t . . . t 1 , . % ffi* S bo bo > 'c .t! 2 00 00 00 00 394 APPENDICES H u o o 8 S 5* o o o o o o vn o o o o o O O 8 | o o o o go vn o 8 O O 8 O O O 1 O O o o vn vn to w o o vn o OO M o 1 i M ^ ^__ h O 1 I c/r * > OMAS BROCK*f CALDER MARSHALL n. JOHN COLLIER . MO THORNYCROFT, t D^ f*r ii . o LLIAM L. WYLLIE* EPH FARQUHARSON' -}- * Crt < u p _) at 1 IN PETTIE, R.A. VID MURRAY* . :. HOOK, R.A. . BERT HERKOMER, A NRY MOORE*f . iLTER HUNT . EPH CLARK A. STRUDWICK DREW C. Gow, A.f ffi ffi S S en ^a ~ P W ^ ffl . > 2 < i S \ & 5 O en ^ en Q g - u c PQ S O CQ o 6 6 6 O O O O O O 5 i fa g 1 1 bo jj tfl b \ c *m Britannia's Realm . Returning to the Fold c III ll! o f^ t-J 5^ bo ^ J2 s 1 ' 4> 3 H fa i 1 1? JH Mother's Darling A Golden Thread . Cromwell at Dunbar ci | 00 M 00 oo M OO oo 1-4 *> 00 00 OO f 00 APPENDIX VIII 395 * o S, o o S> 2 8 O O I! o o 8 2 O O O \& O o o II M o 0* M 000 o o o xo O O O O N M r^ <* o o o o a a o ^o O O O o o o O O Tj- vr> O J 1 s S i J. W. WATERHOUSE, A. E. ONSLOW FORD*| JOHN S. SARGENT*! E. A. WATERLOW*t VAL C. PRINSEP, A.f ALFRED PARSONS* WILLIAM SMALL . VICAT COLE, R.A. WILLIAM LOGSDAIL ADRIAN STOKES . FRANK BRAMLEY* J. AUMONIER HUBERT HERKOMER, A LIONEL SMYTHE* . '3 1 ' OH * W < ,- D >> S H 04 ^ . 2 $ V) w o Sir F. LEIGHTON, Bart., R. W. MACBETH, A.f R. B. NISBET ANNA LEA MERRITT GEO. CLAUSEN* . J 1 B S 5 t/3 w o 8 ' c o 2 rt O CQ O 6 6 O O 6 6 6 6 O O WOO O O ^OO fei & 9 J | s tf 1 1 JB 1 1 ' If 3 >> 3 1 O Galway Gossips Ayesha . It 3 rt l> hj The Pool of Londor St Martin's-in-the-F Upland and Sky A Hopeless Dawn Sheepwashing . The Chapel of the C Germinal :*! 3 & 2 5 '-3 -S 2| ^CO HH J?S 3 !i M tg O H H S "3 S J S w -^ t3 bo O _C M 4, p > *5 W J < 1 VD 8 oo oo 00 oo oo f 8^ 00 396 APPENDICES o O o o o o o o o o H O ir> o o o o o i vn R R < Jo ^ VO 0* w o o w> rO w> o* R 8 d CO CO 00 M VO n r^i HH rt & ^ M i < 2 J Jj w J ^ ^J ,-w ^^ $ o rt BE* D^ *f* * fti . L^ H o " * ^ s w * W 2 H f. H. CALDERON ARRY DlXON ARRY BATES* W. NORTH* S s Q MACWHIRTER, RTHUR HACKE* EoroLD RIVERS EORGE COCKRA ' ALTER OSBORN OBERT STARK . S, TUKE* RITON RIVIERE, . C. FEHR . ^ > < 1 2 Q . RIDLEY CORH . S. HOPWOOD r FRANCIS CHA r J. E. MILLAIS i u c- E E J5 fa ^ < J O ^ OS E CQ E S E en 33 H CBIPTION. o w i, u J O VV e Statuette (X i O --Colour . I G O 1 S S B 5 a a i ^ 1 CQ O O n 5 Bl B 6 B a o 3 S 1 1 "o fc g 3 rj ^ w b i 1 p g . IB cc C- r H v I "H . 8 s i S 6 H E 8 -M -a E ,. * * c *2 c c ^* 3 c CO V 1 -12 g < p is c . St Elizabeth of 11 3 cu 3 en o c g V jG Between two Fi June in the Aus The Annunciati .C 2 . 4) || en en S 1 .S ^ c .2 5 c c < 03 V 1 -* fcjQ < Beyond Man's 1 Perseus rescuing Sunset at Sea : jO tfl >% 1 i 1 1 J O V) 5 c 2 b u en rt S. t en Alleluia ! . 1 fr-4 M K) Tf M P-H 1 i APPENDIX VIII 397 1 O 9 o a * O O O O O O a *- i s o o o o o o o o O 8 u-> oo O O o o O M O o M vr> O o *^> S, CO N O O 8O vD r>* tr t-i O o o o o M ti NAME OF An- H. H. LA THANGUE* MILDRED A. BUTLER W. GOSCOMBE JOHN * ALFRED DRUKY * . C. NAPIER HEMY * LUCY KEMP-WELCH DAVID FARQUHARSON F. W. POMEROY . S. MELTON FISHER H. J. DRAPER RALPH PEACOCK . YEEND KING A. GLENDENING, Jun. . H. W. B. DAVIS, R.A. T. SOMERSCALES . W. L. WYLLIE, A. J. YOUNG HUNTER CHAS. MAUNDRELL W. R. COLTON* . F. DICKSEE, R.A. . HARRY W. ADAMS s ft* L 3 3 3 S 3 3 1 Q 3 1 1 ,J -? i rt _ - 1 1 >> & PQ eq o 6 S ^ O O O O 6 M J * 1 f | < z 11 OJ V ee < O Pilchards . Colt Hunting in the 8 *o . . %> * fa 55 ia to S Is s 'H is ! t 1 fO M 1 INDEX [Only the Names of those Members of the Academy of whom an account is given in this volume are included in the Index. The others will be found in the different Appendices.] Academic Annals, Prince Hoare's, 180 A cademic Correspondence, Prince Hoare's, 1 80 Academicians, the form of diploma given to, 31; the "obligation" signed by, 44 ; establishment of honorary retired Academicians, 265, 316 ; the filling of vacancies amongst, 1 10 ; list of, from 1768 to 1904, 352-359 Academicianship, tlu admission of en- gravers to, 297, 327 Academy, Royal, the proposals for the establishment of, 8 ; the germ of, 9 ; students of, II ; original members of, 12, 84, 346; formal foundation of, 12 ; first public assembly of, 13 ; becomes self- supporting, 29 ; relation of the sovereign to, 12, 13 ; first executive officers of, 44 ; the Coun ;il of, 45 ; the Keeper- ship of, to., 365; the Librarianship of, to., 366 ; the Secretaryship of, ib., 364 ; the Treasurership of, to., 179, 365 ; the Visitors in the Schools of, ib., 52 ; the system of education in, to. ; the first Pro- fessors of, 56 ; duties of the Professors, 59 ; diplomas given to the Professors, 60 ; penalties for non-exhibiting in, 88 ; candidates for election to, 1 10 ; the finances of, to., 177 ; dispute between the Council and General Assembly of, 172 ; the charity fund of, 177 ; pen- sions given by, to., 178; founding of the Professorship of Sculpture in, 179; period of studentship in, ib. ; estab- lishment of varnishing days in, ib. ; annual reports of, 181 ; asked to prepare drawings and models for coinage, 184; resolution on lectures of Professors, 233; honorary officers of, 313; the first official dinner of, 313 ; removal of to Trafalgar Square, 320 ; number of works allowed to be sent in by each exhibitor, 325 ; the Instrument creating the Academy, 345-351 ; list of Presidents of, 364 ; list of Secretaries of, ib. ; list of Keepers of, 365 ; list of Treasurers of, ib. list of Librarians of, 366 ; lists of Pro- fessors in, 366-368 ; Honorary Members of, 368-369 ; list of diploma works de- posited in, 370-376 ; of pictures and statuary in, other than diploma works, 377-382 ; of works in the Gibson gallery, 381 ; silver plate possessed by, ib. ; the library of, 382 ; list of students who have obtained gold medals and travelling studentships, 383-392 Academy Dinner, the first official, 313 ; roll of guests invited to, 314 ; speech of H.R.H. the Prince Consort at, 340 "Achilles Statue," Sir R. Westmacott's, 261 Adam, the brothers, persuade Antonio Zucchi to come to England, 156 "Ajax defending the dead body of Patroclus," Stothard's, 197 Alderson, Amelia, marriage of to John Opie, 142 Algarotti, 92 "Allegory of the Battle of Waterloo," James Ward's, 258 Allston, Washington, A., parentage of, 301 ; pictures by, ib. ; Life and Letters of, 302 Anatomy, list of Professors of, 367 Anecdotes of Painters, Edwards's, 1 60 Anecdotes of Painters in Spain, Richard Cumberland's, 23 Anecdotes of Painting, Walpole's, 153 400 INDEX Angerstein Collection, the, purchase of, 311 Antiquaries of the Academy, list of, 369 "Apollo," Turner's, 214 Architecture, list of Professors of, 367 Arnald, George, A., parentage of, 299 ; his " Battle of the Nile," ib. Art, in the eighteenth century, I, 6; origin of, in England, 3, 5 ; school of, in St Martin's Lane, 7 ; new phase of, in England at the beginning of the nine- teenth century, 169 Art of Painting, Du Fresnoy's, 124, 189 Artists' Benevolent Fund, the, founding of, 311 Artists' General Benevolent Institution, the, founding of, 311 Artists, the Free Society of, 10 Artists, the Incorporated Society of, 10 ; seceders from, u Arts, the Fine, government recognition of, 3li Associate-Engravers, resolution to institute a class of, 112 ; first election of, 113 Associates, the Institution of, HO ; diploma of, in; minimum number of, 112 ; first election of, 113 ; the number elected under the Presidency of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 114, 151 ; list of Associates who have not become Academicians, 360-363 Audinet, Philip, 106 Autobiographical Recollections, Leslie's, 255, 326 BACON, John, R.A., 42 ; monuments by, 132 Bacon, Sir Nathaniel, 3 Baily, Edward Hodges, R.A., birth and parentage of, 315 ; art education of, 316 ; statues and bas-reliefs by, ib. ; necessities of, ib. ; death, 317 Baker, John, R.A., 101 Bank of England, Sir John Soane's design of the N.W. corner of, 232 Banks, Thomas, R.A., 39 ; appointed to the committee to consider the charge against Barry, 128; birth of, 136; studies in Rome, 137; goes to Russia, ib. ; pictures by, 137, 138; monuments by, in St Paul's, 138 ; his character, ib. Barret, George, R.A., 101 ; his work on Gilpin's picture, 200 Barretti, Joseph, 313 Barry, James, R.A., ambition of, 122 ; birth of, ib. ; character of, 122, 126 ; befriended by Burke, 123 ; Allan Cunningham's opinion of, ib. ; qualities possessed by, 127 ; high opinion entertained of his talents by Reynolds, 123, 127 ; his decoration of St Paul's Cathedral and the hall of the Society of Arts, 127; his picture of the "Death of Wolfe," ib. ; is elected Professor of Painting, ib. ; insults the President and members, 128 ; the charges against him, ib. ; his expulsion and death, 129, 171 Bartolozzi, Francesco, R.A., birth and parentage of, 84 ; his reputation as an engraver, 85 ; his death, ib. ; his friend- ship with Cipriani, ib. " Battle of La Hogue," West's, 190 "Battle of Waterloo," A. Cooper's, 290; G. James's, 320 " Battle of the Nile," Arnald's, 299 " Bay of Baise," J. M. W. Turner's, 214 Beaumont, Sir George, extends his patron- age to Wilkie, 252 ; to John Jackson, 281 ; to John Constable, 332 Beechey, Sir William, R.A., 200 ; Owen's indictment of, 240 " Benaiah," Etty's, 332 Bentham, Jeremy, Pickersgill's portrait of, 328 Bicknell, Miss, 334 Bigg, William Redmore, R.A., 268 ; works by, 273 ; death, ib. " Bird-Catchers," William Collins's, 291 Bird, Edward, R.A., parentage and art education of, 273 ; works by, ib. ; death, 275 " Blind Fiddler, The," Wilkie's, 252 Bloxam, D.D., Rev. j. R., 309 " Boa-Constrictor seizing a Horse," James Ward's, 258 Bone, Henry, R.A., parentage and art education of, 266 ; his "Sleeping Girl," 266 ; enamels by, 266, 267 ; appointed enamel painter to the Prince of Wales and George III., 267 ; death, ib. Bonomi, Joseph, A., election of, as an Associate, 37, 166 ; his talents, 166 Book of Emblems, Jacob Gatz's, 15 Bookof Kells, the, 116 Booth, Sophia Caroline, 224 Bourgeois, Sir F., R.A., appointed on the committee to consider the charges against Barry, 128 ; suspended from the Council, 172 ; founds the Dulwich picture gallery, 182, 195 ; parentage of, 194 ; his work, 195 "Boy and Rabbit," Sir H. Raeburn's, 276 Boydell, Alderman, his " Shakespeare Gallery," 136, 143 ; purchase of his Gallery in Pall Mall for the "British Institution," 181 "Boys at Breakfast," William Collins's, 291 "Boys Fishing," Mulready's, 278 " Boys relieving a Blind Man," Bigg's, 273 INDEX 401 "Boys with a Bird's Nest," William Collins's, 291 Brandt, Angelica Kauffman's secret marriage with, 93 Bray's, Mrs, Life of Stothard, 196 British Institution, the, foundation of, 181 British Museum, the, 263 Bromley, William, A.E., 302 Browne, John, A.E., his chief works, 152 Buchan, Earl of, sets on foot a subscription for Barry, 129 " Building of Carthage, The," J. M. W. Turner's, 214 Burch, Edward, R.A., appointed Librarian, 1 14 ; death, ib. Burke, Edmund, effect on, of Sir Joshua Reynolds' death, 20 ; friendship with James Barry, 123 ; letters to Barry, 125 Burr, Margaret, 72 Byrne, John, 297 CALLCOTT, Sir Augustus Wall, R.A., parentage of, 247 ; his landscapes, 248 ; marriage of, 249 ; is knighted, ib. ; death of, ib. Callcott, John Wall, 247 Canot, Pierre Charles, A.E., birth of, 152 ; engravings by, ib. Canova, J. Jackson's portrait of, 282 " Caractacus," Howard's, 242 Carlini, Agostino, R.A., elected Keeper, 86 ; statues by, 86 Carlisle, Lord, writes to Sir Joshua Rey- nolds on his resignation of the Presi- dency, 42 ; acts as one of Sir Joshua Reynolds' pall-bearers, 168 Catalogues of the Exhibitions, 180 Catton, Charles, R.A., on the committee to request Sir Joshua Reynolds to withdraw his resignation, 42 ; birth of, 102 ; ap- pointed coach-painter to George III., ib. " Ceres Disconsolate for the Loss of Proser- pine," R. Cook's, 317 Chalon, Alfred Edward, R.A., parentage of, 279 ; founds the Sketching Club with his brother, J. J. Chalon, 280; his " Memorials," ib. ; his portrait of Queen Victoria, 281 ; his death, ib. Chalon, J. J., R.A., 280 Chamberlin, Mason, R.A., becomes a pupil of Francis Hayman, 102 ; his portrait of Dr Wm. Hunter, ib. ; his art, 169 Chambers, Sir William, R.A., his part in the inception of the Royal Academy, 28, 46 ; his attitude on the question of filling the Chair of Perspective's ; his opposition to the grant of money towards a monu- ment to Johnson in St Paul's, 43 ; early life of, 47 ; publishes works on Chinese Architecture, ib. ; his Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, ib. ; his connection with the court, ib. ; appointments held by, 48 ; his Treatise on Civil Architecture^ ib. ; death and burial of, 49 Chambers, Thomas, A.E., birth of, 152 ; drowns himself, 153 Chantrey, Sir Francis Legatt, R.A., parent- age of, 283 ; his first commission, ib. ; marries Miss Wale, ib. ; bust exhibited by him, 284 ; patronage enjoyed by, ib. his "Sleeping Children," ib. ; statues by, ib. ; appointed Trustee, 285 ; his death and will, ib. Chantrey Bequest, the, 285-288 ; list of works purchased under the terms of, 393-398 Chaplains to the Academy, list of, 368 Charity Fund, 177 Charles I., Le Sueur's statue of, 284 Chemistry, Professorship of, 59 ;' list of Professors, 367 " Chevy Chase," Bird's, 274 "Children of Charles B. Calmady," Lawrence's, 309 " Christ healing the Sick," West's, 190 "Christ crowned with Thorns," Hilton's, 289 Chodowiecky, 196 "Choosing the Wedding Gown," Mul- ready's, 279 Cipriani, Giovanni Battista, R.A., manages the Duke of Richmond's gallery of anti- quities, 9 ; his design for the head- piece of the diploma, 31 ; his friend- ship with Bartolozzi, 85 ; birth and death of, 86 ; his designs for gold and silver medals presented to prize winners in the Academy schools, ib. Clarke, Theophilus, A., 297 Classic Revivalism, wave of, 263 " Cleopatra's Arrival at Cilicia," Etty's, 330 Clint, George, A., birth and parentage, 337 ; resignation I of Associateship, ib.\ his op- position to the Academy, 338 ; his death, ib. Coleridge, Allston's portrait of, 301 Collins, Samuel, 150 Collins, William, R.A., parentage, 291 ; receives the advice of George Morland, ib. ; awarded a silver medal, ib. ; pictures by, ib. ; his pecuniary affairs, 292 ; liberality of Sir Thomas Heathcote to, ib. ; goes to Italy, ib. ; death, ib. ; number of works exhibited by, 293 ; marriage, ib. ; elected Librarian, ib. ; sons of, ib. Collyer, Joseph, A.E., success as a book illustrator, 154; becomes portrait en- graver to Queen Charlotte, ib, 2 C 402 INDEX Colvin, Sidney, his opinion of Flaxman's Art, 204 "Combat, The," Etty's, 331 Constable, John, R.A., parentage and educa- tion of, 332 ; introduced to Sir George Beaumont, ib. ; makes the acquaintance of Joseph Farington, 333 ; becomes a student at the Royal Academy, ib. ; encouraged by West, ib. ; early pictures by, ib. ; marries Miss Bicknell, 334 ; pictures by, ib., 335 ; lack of patronage, ib. ; death of his wife, ib. ; his lectures on landscape painting, 336 ; his death, ib. Cook, Richard, R.A., subjects of his pic- tures, 317 Cooper, Abraham, R.A., parentage of, 289 ; pictures by, 290 ; distressed circumstances and death, ib. Cooper, Samuel, 3, 117 Copley, John Singleton, R.A., on the com- mittee to request Sir Joshua Reynolds to withdraw his resignation of the Presi- dency, 42 ; birth of, 132 ; his " Death of Lord Chatham," 132; his art, 133; his "Death of Major Pierson," 134; is suspended from the Council, 172 " Coral Finders," Etty's, 330 Cosway, Richard, R.A., on the committee to request Sir Joshua Reynolds to withdraw his resignation of the Presi- dency, 42 ; early years of, 1 14 ; his extra- vagance, 1 1 5, 1 1 8 ; oil portraits by, ib. ; his art, 117 ; marriage of, 118 ; last years, 119 Cotes, Francis, R.A., 117 ; birth and success of, 86 ; works by, 87 ; death of, ib. ; his art, 169 "Cottage Girl," William Owen's, 240 Cotterell, the Misses, 19 " Country Auction," Bird's, 274 Cousins, Samuel, R.A., 113 ; elected Acade- mician, 327 Craunch, Mr, 15, 16 ; supplies Joshua Reynolds with funds for prosecuting his studies abroad, 18 Croker, John Wilson, 255 " Crossing the Brook," J. M. W. Turner's, 214 " Crucifixion, The," E. Bird's, 274 " Crypt in Kirkstall Abbey," Mulready's, 277 Cunningham, Allan, his opinion of Barry, 126 ; his criticism of Fuseli, 148 ; his opinion of West, 192 Cutliffe, Mr, 16 " Cymbeline," George Dawe's scene from, 270 " Cymon and Iphigenia," Francis Haward's, 154 DALL, Nicholas T., A., employed as scene painter at Covent Garden, 158 I Dalton, Richard, Librarian to George III., 85 ; appointed Antiquary, 313 i Danby, Francis, A., birth and parentage of, 338 ; pictures by, ib. ; nature of his art, 339 Danby, Mrs Ellen, 220, 222 Dauby, Georgina, 224 Danby, Hannah, 223, 224 Dance, George, R.A., birth of, 88 ; official position, ib. ; profile portraits of Academicians by, ib. ; appointed to examine into the finances of the Academy, 89 ; elected Professor of Architecture, ib. ; death, ib. ; appointed to the committee to inquire into the charges against Barry, 128 ; his art, 169 Dance, Nathaniel, R.A., birth and art studies of, 89 ; portraits by, 90 ; marriage, ib. ; resigns Academicianship, 90 ; assumes the name of Holland, and is created n Baronet, ib. ; death, ib. Daniell, Thomas, R.A., birth and travels of, 20 1 ; his Oriental Scenery ', 203 Daniell, William, R.A., engraver of George Dance's portraits, 88 ; assists his uncle in producing Oriental Scenery, 317 ; works published by, 318 Dawe, George, R.A., parentage and educa- tion of, 270 ; wins the gold medal, ib. ; pictures by, ib., 271 ; his patrons, ib. ; fortune amassed by, ib. ; death, tf. ; his character and friendship with George Morland, 272 ; his Life of M or land, ib. " Dead Man, The," Allston's, 301 "Death of General Wolfe," Barry's, 127; Penny's, 61 ; West's, 96, 187, 190 ;< Death of Eli," Bird's, 274 "Death of Lord Chatham," Copley's, 132 "Death of Major Pierson," Copley's, 134 " Death of Nelson," Heath's engraving of, 155 "Death of Sapphira," Bird's, 274 "Deer-Stalking," James Ward's, 258 De Loutherbourg, Philip James, R.A., birth of, 134; his "Lord Howe's Victory," 135 ; his influence on Turner, ib. ; close of his life, 136 "Demoniac," George Dawe's, 270 Denman, Ann, 207 " Descent from the Cross, The," V. Green's plate of, 153 Desenfans, Noel and Mrs, 182, 195 "Dido Building Carthage," J. M. W. Turner's, 223 Dickens, Charles, 326 Dilettanti Society, the, project of, for creating a public Academy, 7 Dinner, the Annual, 313 Diploma Works, List of, 370376 INDEX 403 Diplomas to Academicians, the form of, 31; those given to Professors, 60; to Associates, III Discourses of the Presidents, 4, 13; Reynolds' analysed, 21-24 5 quoted, 80 Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, Sir William Chambers', 47 Dobson, William, 4 Dover, Lady, J. Jackson's portrait of, 282 Downing College, the design of, 322 Downman, John, A., birth and art education of, 294 ; death, 295 Drummond, Samuel, A., birth of, 298 ; elected Curator of the Painting School, 299 ; pictures by, ib. ; his difficulties and death, ib. Drummonds, Messrs, appointed Bankers to the Academy, 179 Dulwich Picture Gallery, The, the foun- dation of, 182, 183 ; connection of with the Royal Academy, 183 ; the art treasures of, 195 Dunthorne, John, 332 Dutch painters, the works of, 2 ; influence of on Gainsborough, 71 "EARLY MORNING," William Collins's, 292 Eastlake, Sir Charles, P.R.A., 326 Edridge, Henry, A., 117; birth and parentage of, 336 ; encouraged by Sir Joshua Reynolds, ib. ; death of, 337 ; his bequest to the Academy, ib. Edward VII., H.M. King, sentiments of towards the Academy, 341 Edwards, Edward, A., his candidature for the Professorship of Perspective, 37 ; elected Teacher of Perspective, 159; literary ventures by, 160 Elections, mode of voting at, 113 Elmer, Stephen, A., a member of the Free Society of Artists, 159; subjects of his pictures, ib. ; occupation and death of, ib. "Elmer's Sporting Exhibition," 159 Engleheart, Thomas, defeats Flaxman in the competition for the gold medal, 207 Engravers, admission of to Academician- ship, 297, 327 Essay on Painting, Richardson's, 189 Essays towards the History of Painting, Mrs Graham's, 249 Etty, William, R.A., birth and parentage of, 328 ; art studies of, 329 ; his first picture, ib. ; his studies in the Academy School, 330; pictures by, 331 ; death, ib. " Experiment with an Air Pump, An," J. Wright's, 163 FALCONET, his Reynolds, 17 medallion portrait of ''Falling Titan, A," Thomas Banks's, 137 Farington, Joseph, R.A., appointed to the committee to request Sir Joshua Reynolds to withdraw his resignation, 42 ; on the committee to consider the charges against Barry, 128 ; activity in the government of the Academy, 139; his acquaintance with Constable, 333 Faulkner, R.N., Captain Robert, monu- ment to, in St Paul's, 237 Fawkes of Farnley, Mr, 221 " Fight Interrupted, The," Mulready's, 278 "Fighting Ttmeraire, The," J. M. W. Turner's, 214, 219 Finances, 177 Fisher, Kitty, 20 " Fishery, The," Richard Wright's, 163 Fittler, James, A.E., plates by, 296 Flaxman, John, R.A., supports a proposal to erect a monument to the glory of the British Navy, 141 ; the first holder of the Professorship of Sculpture, 179 ; genius of, 202 ; career of, 203 ; works by, 204, 205 ; his art as a sculptor, 205 ; his connection with Wedgwood, 206 ; birth and parentage of, 207 ; is defeated by Engleheart in the competition for the gold medal, ib. ; marriage of, ib. ; goes to Rome, 208 ; returns to London, ib. ; elected Professor of Sculpture, 209 ; monuments by, ib.\ his "Shield of Achilles," ib. ; his death, ib. ; Sir Richard Westmacott's eulogy of, 262 ; Jackson's portrait of him, 282 Foundling Hospital, the, exhibition of pictures for the benefit of, 9 Freemason's Hall, designed by T. Sandby, 63 Fresnoy, Du, his "Art of Painting," 124, 189 "Frosty Morning," J. M. W. Turner's, 214, 215 Fuller, Isaac, 4 Fuseli, Henry, R.A., elected Academician, 38, 39 ; his endowments, 145 ; birth and parentage of, ib. ; his intimacy with Lavater, 146 ; studies in Italy, ib. ; his conception of art, ib. ; elected Professor of Painting, ib. ; starts the Milton gallery, 147; elected Keeper, t'6.; admiration of Mary Moser and Mary Wollstonecraft for him, ib.\ Reynolds' estimate of his talents, 148 ; his audacity as an author, ib. ; Allan Cunningham's criticism of him, ib. ; death and burial, ib. ; the story of his vote for Mary Moser at West's re-election to the Presidency, 193 GAINSBOROUGH, Thomas, R.A., the paint- ings of, 6; joins the Society of Artists, n ; 404 INDEX his quarrel with the Academy, 35; his difference from Reynolds, 69 ; parentage of, ib. ; character of, 70, 74 ; art educa- tion of, 70 ; influence of Dutch painters on, 71 ; portrait of, ib. ; his wedded life, 72 ; letter written on his deathbed to Rey- nolds, ib. ; tribute to him by Reynolds, 73 ; his portraits of women, 75 ; his letters to William Jackson, the musician, ib., 76 ; his coarseness as a man, and his refinement as an artist, ib. ; self- reliant nature of, 76 ; his merits as an artist, 77 ; his picture of Mrs Sheridan, 79 ; his picture of " The Sisters," 80 ; his landscapes, 8l ; Ruskin's opinion of his art, ib. Gandy, Joseph, A., gains the gold medal, 296 ; death of, 297 Garrard, George, A., 295 ; his works, 296 ; death, ib. Garrick, David, rescues Zoffany from obscurity, 107 ; portrait of as Abel Drugger, ib. Garvey, Edmund, R.A., elected Associate, H3> !36, 165 ; merit of his landscapes, 136 ; death of, ib. George III., H.M. King, founder and patron, 28 ; his interest in the Academy, 29 ; his action in the dispute between the Council and General Assembly of the Academy, 172-176 ; control exercised by him over the Academy, 1 79 ; Wyatt's statue of, 284 George IV., H.M. King, Chantrey's statue of, 284 ; the interest taken by him in the Academy, 310; gold chain and medal presented by him, "George IV. entering Holyrood House," Wilkie's, 255 Gibbon, Edward, writes to Sir Joshua , Reynolds on his resignation of the j Presidency, 41 Gibson, Richard, 117 Gibson Gallery, the, works in, 382 Gilpin, Sawrey, R.A., 37 ; birth of, 200 ; j becomes a pupil of Samuel Scott, ib. ; j his pictures, ib. ; death of, ib. "Gipsy Boy, The," E. Bird's, 274 " Gipsy Girl," Lawrence's, 309 Girtin, Thomas, his influence on J. M. W. Turner, 216 " Giving a Bite," Mulready's, 279 Goldsmith, Oliver, appointed Professor of Ancient History, 313 Gold Medallists, lists of, 384-392 Gower, Countess, Lawrence's portrait of, 309 Graham, John, education of Wilkie at the school of, 251 "Granby, Marquis of." Penny's, 6 1 Green, Valentine, A.E., engravings by, 153 Guildhall, the, 88 Gwynn, John, R.A., 65, 102 HADFIELD, Maria, marriage of, 118 " Hagar and Ishmael," Benjamin West's picture of, 176 Haileybury College, the design for, 321 Hamilton, William, R.A., on the committee to consider the charges against Barry, 128 ; birth of, 145 ; death of, ib. Handbook to Young Painters, Leslie's, 326 " Hannibal Swearing Enmity to the Romans," V. Green's plate of, 153 " Happy as a King," William Collins's, 293 Haward, Francis, A.E., 154 " Hay Wain, The," Constable's, 334 Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 250 Hayman, Francis, R. A., birth of, 54 ; artistic rank of, 54, 55 ; appointed Librarian, 55 ; death of, ib. Hazlitt, his statement of contradictions in Reynolds' discourses, 23 Heath, James, A.E., engravings by, 154 Heathcote, Sir Thomas, liberality of, to William Collins, 292 "Her Majesty's First Council," Wilkie's, 254 Heroic Epistle, The, 49 Hibernian Academy, the Royal, the founding of, 311 Hilliard, Nicholas, 3, 117; his work, 118 Hilton, William, R.A.. parentage and ait education of, 288 ; his studies, ib. ; sub- jects selected by, ib. ; elected Keeper, 289 ; works by, ib. ; death of, ib. " His Satanic Majesty," Lawrence's, 310 History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A., Graves' and Cronin's, 25 Hoare, Prince, \\vs> Academic Correspondence, 1 80 ; his Academic Annals, ib. Hoare, William, R.A., 84 ; birth of, 106 ; pictures by, ib. ; death of, ib. Hodges, William, R.A., birth and parentage of, 144 ; studies in Shipley's School, ib. Hogarth, the paintings of, 6 ; his connec- tion with the School of Art in St Martin's Lane, 7 ; his letter on the project of the Dilettanti Society for creating a public Academy, ib. ; executes plates for the catalogue of the Society of Artists, 10 Hogarth, Mrs, 178 Hone, Horace, A., parentage of, 161 INDEX 405 Hone, Nathaniel, R.A., 117; his quarrel with the Council and with Angelica Kauffman, 33-35 ; birth of, 103 ; carica- tures by, ib. ; death of, ib. Honorary Members of the Royal Academy, list of, 368-369 Honorary Foreign Academicians, list of, j 359 Honorary Retired Members, list of, 363 Hoppner, John, R.A., on the committee to I consider the charges against Barry, 128 ; j life of, 199 ; his merits as a painter, ib. Howard, Henry, R.A., birth and education of, 242 ; elected Secretary, and Professor of Painting, ib. ; his art, 243 "Howe's Victory, Lord," De Louther- bourg's, 135 Hudson, Thomas, Sir Joshua Reynolds studies under, 17 Humphrey, Ozias, R.A., 117; birth of, 150; his paintings, ib. ; death of, ib. Hunter, Dr William, elected Professor of Anatomy, 59, 66 ; birth and early studies of, 67 ; lectures of, ib. ; papers contributed by him to medical journals, ib. ; his collection, ib. "INFANT ACADEMY," F. Haward's, 154 Instrument, The, creating the Academy, 12, 31, 58, 84, no ; text of, 345 " Irving, Washington," C. R. Leslie's portrait of, 324 Italian Renaissance, the, Art of, 92 JACKSON, John, R.A., 250 ; parentage of, 281 ; attracts the notice of Lord Mul- grave, 281 ; his appreciation of fine works of the Old Masters, 282 ; number of pictures exhibited by him, ib. ; death, 283 Jackson, William, Gainsborough's letters addressed to, 75 "Jacob's Dream," Allston's, 301 James, George, A., first painter elected an Associate, 155 "John Knox," Wilkie's, 254; Chalon's, 280 Johnson, Dr Samuel, writes a preface to the Catalogue of the Society of Artists, 10 ; monument to, in St Paul's, 43 ; Professor of Ancient Literature, 313 Jones, George, R.A., parentage of, 320 ; the result of his visits to foreign Schools of Art, ib. ; pictures by him, ib. ; elected Librarian and Keeper, ib. ; presentation to by students, 321 ; acts as Deputy to Sir M. A. Shee, ib. ; his resemblance to the Duke of Wellington, ib. Jordan's Meeting House, 186 Joseph, George Francis, A., fashionable portrait painter, 300 "Judith pictures," Etty's, 331 KAUFFMAN, Angelica, R.A., her objection to N. Hone's picture of the " Pictorial Conjurer," 34 ; her claims as an artist, 91 ; birth of, 92 ; her secret marriage with Brandt, 93 ; marries Antonio Zucchi, ib. ; pictures executed by her in Italy, 94 ; death and burial of, ib. ; conventionality of her art, 95 Keepers of the Royal Academy, list of, 365 " Kemble, John, as Hamlet," Lawrence's, 310 Keppel, Commodore, 18 Kilchurn Castle, J. M. W. Turner's drawing of, 216 "Kirkstall Abbey," J. M. W. Turner's, 230 Knapton, George, 86 " Knaresborough," J. M, W. Turner's, 217, 219 LAMBETH PALACE, Turner's drawing of, 211 " Lambton, Master," Lawrence's, 309 Landscapes of the eighteenth century, 81 Landseer, John, A.E., parentage and art education of, 297 ; champions the admis- sion of Engravers to full membership of the Academy, ib. ; starts The Probe, 298; death of, ib. Lane, Richard James, A.E., birth and parentage of, 339 ; appointed Litho- grapher to the Queen, ib. ; death of, 340 Lawrence, Sir Thomas, P.R.A., on the com- mittee to consider the charges against Barry, 128 ; parentage of, 303 ; his versa- tility, ib. ; appearance and precocity, 304 ; education, 305 ; his habit of flattering, ib. ; his introduction to Sir Joshua Rey- nolds, ib. ; his success as a portrait painter, 306 ; elected painter to the Dilettanti Society, and principal painter in ordinary to the King, ib. ; is knighted, 307 ; his industry, ib. ; historic portraits by, ib. ; honours conferred on, 308 ; elected President, ib. ; death and burial of, ib. ; pall-bearers at his funeral, ib. ; portraits by, 309; his "Sitters' Chair," ib. ; his portraits of exatled personages, 310 ; popularity of his election as Presi- dent, ib.\ his benevolence, 311; his collection of drawings and works by Old Masters, 312 Lectures, objects of the, 59 ; not to contain criticisms on living artists, 233 406 INDEX Leighton, Sir Frederic (Lord Leighton), I P.R.A., presents Sir Joshua Reynolds' i " Sitters' Chair " to the Royal Academy, I 26 Leslie and Taylor's Life of Reynolds, 37, 326 Leslie, C. R., R.A., 280; parentage of, 322; ! birth of, 323 ; education of, ib. ; his \ portrait of George Frederick Cooke, j 324 ; art education of, ib. ; portraits by, I ib. ; accepts the appointment of draw- | ing master at West Point, U.S.A., 325 ; | returns to England, ib. ; his interest in the affairs of the Academy, ib. ; his proposals as to the number of works to be sent ' into the Academy, ib., 326 ; various j other proposals, ib. ; elected Professor : of Painting, ih. ; publications by, ib. ; i the intimate friends of, ib. ; death of, ; ib. ; Thackeray's tribute to him, 327 ; his sons, ib. Leslie, Robert, 323 Librarians of the Royal Academy, list of, 366 Library of the Royal Academy, the, 382 Lindisfarne Gospels, the, 116 Little Arthur's History of England, 249 " Love pursuing a Butterfly," T. Banks's, 137 Lyric Odes to the Royal Academicians, loo M'DOWELL, P., R.A., monument by, to Turner, 225 Maclise, Daniel, R.A., designs the Turner gold medal, 226 Magdalen Bridge, Oxford, design for, 102 " Maid of Saragossa," Wilkie's, 254 Major, Thomas, A.E., the first elected Associate Engraver, 151 Marble Arch, The, Bas-reliefs on, 317 Marchant, Nathaniel, R.A., gem sculptor, 245 " Marriage of Cana," P. Veronese's, 19 " Marston Moor," A. Cooper's, 290 Martin, David, his influence on Sir Henry Raeburn, 275 Martin, Elias, A., birth of, 156; pictures by, ib. ; his death, ib. Marylebone Cricket Club, the, 55 Matthew, Mr and Mrs, 207 Mengs, Raphael, 92 ; his opinion of Rey- nolds' Discourses, 23 Meyer, Jeremiah, R.A., birth of, 103 ; pro- poses a charitable fund for Academicians or Associates, ib. " Milkmaid's Song, The," 66 Milton Gallery, the, 147 Miniature Painters, 3, 116, 117 " Miss Angel," see Kauffman, Angelica Modern Painters, the sentiments expressed in, 216 Monuments in Westminster Abbey and St Paul's, absurdity of many of, 237, 261 More. Hannah, Pickersgill's portrait of, 328 Morland, George, his influence on James Ward, 257, 272, 291 ; his friendship with G. Daws, 272 ; advice to W. Collins, 291 " Morning Greeting, The," 66 Mortimer, John Hamilton, A., birth of, 160; art studies of, ib. ; picture of him at the Academy, 161 ; his death, ib. ; picture by, ib. Moser, Geo. Michael, R.A., 8 ; his design for the headpiece of the diploma, 31 ; elected the first Keeper of the Royal Academy, 51 ; his influence, ih. Rey- nolds' eulogium of, 53 ; death and funeral of, ib. Moser, Mary, R.A., 51 ; only known as a flower painter, 90 ; marriage and death of, 91 ; letter from, to Hemy Fuseli, 107 ; her admiration for Fuseli, 147 " Mother rescuing her Child from an Eagle's Nest," Dawe's, 270 Mulgiave, Lord, 252, 281 Mulready, William, R.A., birth and art education of, 277 ; his "Crypt in Kirk- stall Abbey," ib. ; his character, 278 ; his marriage, 279 ; death of, ib. ; art of, it>. Munro, Mr. 213, 221 " Murder," C. R. Leslie's, 325 NATIONAL GALLERY, The, foundation of, 311 ; Wilkins's design for, 323 14 Negro and a Buffalo," Dawe's, 270 " Nelson boarding the San Josef]' James's, 320 Nelson's statue, 316 Newgate, design for, 88 Newton, Francis Milner, R.A., 8 ; elected first Secretary of the Royal Academy, 49; presentation to him on his retirement, 50 Nixon, James, A., one of the first students of the Academy, 161 Nollekens, Joseph, R.A., birth and parentage of, 119; is apprenticed to Scheemakers, 120 ; his eminence as a sculptor, ib. ; his marriage and life, ib. ; death of, 121 Nollekens and his Times, J. T. Smith's, 120, 121 Northcote, James, R.A., birth of, 142 ; he works in Reynolds' studio, 143 ; his penuriousness, ib. ; his writings, 144 OBLIGATION, The, 44 O'Brien, Nelly, 20; Reynolds' portrait of, 75 Officers of the Royal Academy, first appoint- ment of, 45 ; list of, 364-366 Oliver, Archer James, A., curator of the Painting School, 298 Oliver, Isaac, 3, 117 INDEX 407 Oliver, Peter, 3, 117 Opie, John, R.A., birth of, 139 ; introduced to London, 140 ; parentage of, ib. ; the art of, 141 ; his proposal for erecting a monument to the British Navy, ib. ; is appointed Professor of Painting, 142 ; his marriage, ib. ; his death, ib. Oriental Scenery, Daniell's, 2OI, 317 Owen, William, R.A., birth and parentage of, 239; his "Perdita," 240; his popular- ity as a portrait painter, ib. ; his art, ib. PAINTING, the English Art of, in the eighteenth century, 6 Painting, Professorship of, founded, 58 ; list of Professors, 366-367 Painting School, foundation of, 183 " Pandora crowned by the Seasons," Etty's, 330 " Parish Beadle," Wilkie's, 253 Parry, William, A., birth and parentage of, 1 60 ; art education of, ib. Pars, William, A., birth of, 157 ; studies of, ib. ; his connection with the Dilettanti Society, ib. ; his works, 158 Peake, Sir Robert, 3 Penny, Edward, R,A., elected Professor of Painting, 58 ; secedes from the Society of Artists, 6 1 ; his birth and art educa- tion, ib. ; works of, ib. ; his influence amongst his fellow-artists, 62 ; his lec- tures, ib. ; circumstances and death of, ib. " Penny Wedding, The," Wilkie's, 254 Pensions, 178 " Perdita," William Owen's, 240 Perspective, Professorship of, founded, 58 ; list of Professors, 368 Peters, William, R.A., birth and early art education of, 1 30 ; is ordained, ib. ; appointed Hon. Chaplain, ib. ; resigns, Phillips, Thomas, R.A., his portraits of eminent men, 243 ; art education of, 244 ; elected Professor of Painting, 245 ; his art, ib. " Phryne going to the Bath," J. M. W. Turner's, 218 Picker sgill, Henry William, R.A., art education of, 327 ; portraits by, 328 ; elected Librarian, ib. ; death of, ib. 'Pictorial Conjurer," N. Hone's, 34, 161 Pictures and other objects of interest belonging to the Academy, list of, 377-38 1 Picturesque Voyage to Inaia^ A ., Daniel! 's, 3 1 8 "Pitlessie Fair," Wilkie's, 251 Plate, Silver, presented by members, 381 Presidents of the Academy, list of, 364 Prince Consort, H.R.H., the, Speech at the Annual Dinner, 1851, 340 Probe, The, 298 " Procession to Mount Calvary, The," G. F. Joseph's, 300 Professors, the, duties of, 59 ; list of, 366- 368 " Prometheus bound to the Rock," Flax- man's, 205 Proxy, voting by, at elections, 1 14 " QUAKER FAMILY," West's, 190 RAEBURN, Sir Henry, R.A., parentage and education of, 275 ; influence of David Martin on him, ib. ; elected President of the Royal Society of Artists in Edin- burgh, 276 ; number of portraits by him, ib. ; is knighted, ib. ; appointed King's Limner for Scotland, ib. ; death of, 277 ; his art, ib. " Raffle for the Watch," E. Bird's, 274 " Rake's Progress," Hogarth's, 229 Ramsay, Allan, 267 " Rape of Ganymede," Hilton's, 289 "Raphael and the Fornarina," Sir A. W. Callcott's, 248 Raport, Mr, 15 Ravenet, S. F., A.E., birth of, and engrav- ings by, 152 Raymond's History of England, S. Wale's illustrations in, 66 Read, Miss Lucy, 303 Rebecca, Biagio, A., parentage and birth of, 158 ; decorative work by, tl. ; death of, ib. Reinagle, Philip, R.A., 267 ; studies under Allan Ramsay, ib. ; poverty of, 268 ; death of, ib. Reinagle, Ramsay Richard, R.A., fraud committed by, 318 ; receives pecuniary assistance, 319 ; death of, ib. "Return of Regulus to Carthage, The," V. Green's plate of, 153 Reynolds, The Life of, Leslie and Taylor's, 37, 326 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, P.R.A., 8 ; on the roll of the Society of Artists, II ; holds aloof from the Society of Artists and the Seceders, 12 ; first Discourse, 1 3 ; his early drawings, 1 5 ; the first utterance by him which has been handed down, 16 ; em- braces the artist's profession, ib. ; begins his life-work under Thomas Hudson, 17 ; the turning-point of his life, 1 8 ; in Italy, 19 ; pictures first exhibited by him after his return, ib. ; houses occupied by him, ib. ; his friendship with Dr Johnson, ib. ; his friendship with Edmund Burke, ib. ; his sitters, 20 ; partial blind- ness and death of, ib. ; his connection with the Academy, 21 ; his Discourses, ib. ; his estimate of the Old Masters, 22 ; not free from the prejudices of his 408 INDEX time, ib. ; contradictions in his Discourses, 23 ; his art, 24, 27 ; his character, 25 ; his industry, ib. ; his notebooks, 26 ; the date of his knighthood, ib. ; his " Sitters' Chair," ib. ; his formal election as Presi- dent of the Royal Academy, 31 ; his re- elections, 32 ; his assiduity in discharging his functions, 32 ; differences between him and the Academy, 37 ; his resignation, 39 ; public feeling on his resignation, 40 ; requested to withdraw his resigna- tion, 42 ; his portrait of Mrs Sheridan, 79 ; his advice to West when painting his picture of Wolfe, 96 ; his estimate of Fuseli's talent, 148 ; his death, 167 ; funeral of, 1 68 ; pall - bearers at his funeral, ib. ; monument to, ib. Reynolds, Rev. Samuel, 14 Rhymes on Art, Sir M. A. Shee's, 181 Richards, John Inigo, R.A., his employment at Covent Garden, 96 ; elected Secretary, ib. ; repairs Leonardo da Vinci's Cartoon, 97 Richardson's, Jonathan, Treatise on Paint- ing, its influence on Sir Joshua Reynolds, 4, 15 Richmond's, the Duke of, gallery of antiques, 9, 101 Rigaud, John Francis, R.A., one of the first twenty f Associates, 136; appointed Deputy Librarian, ib. Riley, John, 4 Rimbault, Stephen, 107 "Rivaulx Abbey," J. M. W. Turner's, 217 Robinson Crusoe, Stothard's illustrations to, 248 " Roger de Coverley going to Church, Sir," C. R. Leslie's, 324 Roger des Piles, 92 Roman de la Rose, the, 1 1 6 Romney, George, the art of, 169 Rooker, Michael Angelo, A., one of the first elected Associates, 157 ; his views of Oxford Colleges, ib. ; his contribu- tions to the Academy, ib. Rossi, John Charles Felix, R.A., birth and education of, 236 ; monuments by him in Westminster and St Paul's, 237 ; death of, 238 " Royal Academy Club in Marybone Fields," F. Hayman's, 55 Royal Patronage, the importance attached to, 29 Ruskin, John, quoted, 99, 212, 221 Russell, John, R.A., on the committee to request Sir J. Reynolds to withdraw his letter of resignation, 42 ; birth and parentage of, 144 ; his vogue as a portrait painter, ib. " Rustic Civility," William Collins's, 293 Sacred History, S. Wale's illustrations in, 66 "Sacrifice to Minerva, A," Biagio Rebecca's, 158 " Sailor Boy's Return," Bigg's, 273 St George's Hospital, the design for, 322 " St John preaching in the Wilderness," John Browne's plate of, 152 St Martin's Lane, the school of art in, 7 St Paul's Cathedral, the decoration of, 127 "St Paul .preaching to the Britons," Mortimer's, 161 "Sale of a Pet Lamb, The," William Collins's, 291 " Samson and Delilah," Chalon's, 280 Sandby, Paul, R.A., birth of, 105 ; draughtsman to the Survey of Scotland, ib. ; appointed Chief Drawing Master at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, ib. ; his water-colour drawings, ib. Sandby, Thomas, R.A., 8; on the committee to request Sir J. Reynolds to withdraw his letter of resignation, 42 ; elected Pro- fessor of Architecture, 58 ; birth of, 63 ; political services rendered by, /5. ; appointed Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park, ib. ; designs Freemasons' Hall, ib. ; creates Virginia Water, ib. ; his lectures, 64 ; death of, ib. "Scene from Coriolanus, A," G. F. Joseph's, 300 11 Scene on the River Stour," Constable's, 335 Scene painter, art of the, 135 Schools of the Royal Academy, 13, 39, 45, 170 ; system of teaching in, 52, 53, 312 Scott, Sir Walter, appointed Honorary Antiquary, 312 ; C. R. Leslie's portrait of, 324 ; his friendship with Leslie, 326 Scottish Academy, the Royal, foundation of, 311 Sculpture, Professorship of, 59 ; founded. 179 ; list of Professors, 367 Secretaries of the Academy, changes in mode of appointment, 46 ; list of, 364 Segar, Francis, 3, 117 Segar, William, 3, 117 Serres, Dominic, R.A., appointed marine painter to the King, 97 ; appointed Librarian, ib. ; his pictures, ib. Shakespeare Gallery, Alderman Boydell's, 136, 143, 295 ; the purchase of, 181 Sharpe, Samuel, 67 Shee, Sir Martin Archer, P.R.A., his Rhymes on Art, 181 ; money voted to, 286 Sheldon, John, Professor of Anatomy, 60 INDEX 409 Sheridan, Mrs, Gainsborough's portrait of, 79 ; Reynolds' portrait of, ib. ' Shield of Achilles, The," Flaxman's, 209 Shipley's Drawing School, 114, 120 " Shipwrecked Sailor Boy," Bigg's, 273 " Shrimpers," William Collins's, 293 "Sibyl," J. M. W. Turner's, 214 "Siddons, Mrs, as the Tragic Muse," F. Haward's plate of, 154 Siddons, Mrs, 20, 305, 307 " Sir Calepine rescuing Serena," Hilton's, 289 " Sisters, The," Gainsborough's, 80 Sketching Club, The, founders of, 280 " Sleep and Death," Flaxman's, 205 "Sleeping Children," Chantrey's, 284 "Sleeping Girl, The," Henry Bone's plate of, 266 Smirke, Robert, R.A., on the committee to consider the charges against Barry, 128 ; birth of, 193; elected Keeper, 199; George III. vetoes his election, ib. ; death of, it. Smirke, Sir Robert, R.A., 262 ; birth and parentage of, 264 ; public buildings by, 264, 265 ; elected Treasurer, 265 ; his resignation, ib. ; his death, 266 Smith, Anker, A.E., 295 ; plates by, ib. Smith's, John Thomas, Nollekens and his Times, 120 Soane, Sir John, R.A., suspended from the Council of the Academy, 172 ; his museum, 228 ; birth and early art educa- tion of, 230 ; his good fortune, 231 ; appointments held by, ib. ; elected Pro- fessor of Architecture, 232 ; his Professor- ship declared vacant, 234, 235 ; resumes his office, ib. ; his offer towards the pur- chase of Sir T. Lawrence's collection of Old Masters' drawings, 236 Soane Museum, The, 228 Society of Arts, The, decoration of the hall of, 127 Somerset House, the first home of the Royal Academy, 48 "Spithead," J. M. W. Turner's, 214 Sportsman's Cabinet, The, 268 Stephenson, George, Pickersgill's portrait of, 329 Stevens, Edward, A., drawings by, 155 ; death of, ib. Stothard, Thomas, R.A., on the committee to consider the charges against Barry, 128; Life of, by Mrs Bray, 196; birth and parentage of, ib. ; his employment as an illustrator, ib.\ his art, 198 ; elected Librarian, ib. "Stratford Mill on the Stour," Constable's, 334 " Strawberry Girl, The," 24 '-Stray Kitten," William Collins's, 293 Stubbs, George, A., the art of, 162 ; his work on the anatomy of the horse, ib. ; elected Academician, but never received diploma, 163 Students, the admission of, to the Academy 1 70 ; list of, who have obtained gold medals and travelling studentships, 383- 393 Studentship in the Royal Academy, changes in the period of, 179 " Sun rising in Mist," J. M. W. Turner's, 223 TATE GALLERY, the, 288 Thackeray's, W. M., tribute to C. R. Leslie, 327 Theed, William, R.A., 269; his "Thetis bearing the Arms of Achilles," ib. ; in- fluence of Flaxman on, ib. "Thetis and Achilles," T. Banks's, 138; W. Theed's, 269 "Thetis and the Nereids," Flaxman's, 205 Thicknesse, Philip, 72 Thomson, Henry, R.A., birth and educa- tion of, 238 ; is appointed Keeper, ib. ; his letter on retiring from the office, 239 Thornbury, Walter, The Life of Turner by, 211 Thornhill, Sir James, his efforts to supply scientific training, 6 Tomkins, William, A., his pictures, 158 Toms, Peter, R.A., 87 ; painted draperies for Reynolds and others, 104 Travelling students, 383, 386, 388, 390 Treasurers of the Academy, mode of appointment of, 45, 46 ; list of, 365 " Treaty of Penn with the Indians," West's, 187, 190 Tresham, Henry, R.A., causes internal dispute in the Academy, 171 ; elected Professor of Painting, 201 Trimmer, Mr, 221 Trimmer v. Danby, the suit of, 225 Turk's Head Club, The, 20 Turner, Charles, A.E., his engravings, 340 Turner, J. M. W., R.A., his position in the world of art, 168 ; the art of, 210, 212 ; his first exhibited drawing, 211 ; birth and parentage of, 212 ; Ruskin's strictures on his art, ib. ; his art education, 213 ; his distinguishing characteristic as an artist, 214 ; his imaginative power, 215 ; the qualities of his art, ib. ; his water-colours, 216 ; influence of Girtin on, ib. ; his "Second Period," 217; the later 410 INDEX pictures of, 218 ; his greatest work, 219; houses occupied by, 220; his last days, ib. ; death and burial of, ib. ; Ruskin on his solitary life, 221 ; money made by him, ib. ; his affection for the Royal Academy, ib. ; his house in Queen Anne Street, 222 ; his will, ib., 223, 224, 225 ; monument to, 225 Turner Fund, the, 226, 227 Turner Gold Medal, the, 226 ; list of Turner gold medallists, 391, 392 Turner, Life o/, by Thornbury, 211 Tyler, William, R.A., 39; appointed to examine into the finances of the Royal Academy, 89 ; the chief actor in the revolt against Reynolds. 104; appointed Trustee and Auditor, ib. UDNEY, Miss, 119 " Ulysses and the Sirens," Etty's, 331 " Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus," J. M. W. Turner's, 214 University College, Gower Street, the design for, 322 VAN DYCK rescues William Dobson from penury, 4 ; his influence on English Art, 5 Varnishing Days, the establishment of, 180 ; Turner's attendance at, 221 ; Mulready's proposal to abolish, 278 "Venus and Adonis," Thomas Phillips', 244 Victoria, Queen, studies under Richard Westall, 199 ; A. E. Chalon's portrait of, 281 " View of Westminster Bridge," E. Martin's, 156 "Village Buffoon, The," Mulready's, 278 "Village Politicians," Wilkie's, 252 Virginia Water, created by Thomas Sandby, 63 "Virtue Rewarded and Profligacy Punished," Penny's, 61 Visitors in the Schools, first election of, 45 Voyage Round Great Britain, A, by W. Daniell, 318 WALE, Samuel, R.A., elected Professor of Perspective, 59, 64 ; his art, 65 ; is employed in designing illustrations to books, ib. ; works illustrated by, 66 ; his historical plates, ib. ; is appointed Librarian, ib. Walpole, Horace, on Art in England, 3 Ward, James, R.A., birth and education of, 257 ; George Morland's influence on him, ib. ; appointed Painter and Engraver to the Prince of Wales, 258 ; his art, 259 ; the part he took in the business of the Academy, ib. ; hit book on The Fasting Women of Tutbury, 260 ; the close of his life, ib. Ward, William, A.E., apprenticed to J. R. Smith, 300 ; appointed Mezzotint Engraver to the Prince Regent and the Duke of York, 301 ; death of, ib. Washington, Heath's engraving of, 155 Water - colours, The Royal Society of Painters in, 182 Water-colour painting in the eighteenth century, 65 ; Paul Sandby's water- colours, 105 ; Turner's, 216 Waverley Novels, The, A. Cooper's illus- trations to, 290 Webber, John, R.A., birth and death of, 149 ; is draughtsman to Cook's last expedition to the South Seas, ib. Wedgwood's pottery, 206 "Wellington, The Duke of," Lawrence's, 310 Welch, Mary, marriage of, 120 West, Benjamin, P.R.A., on the roll of the Society of Artists, n ; deputed to offer the Presidency of the newly formed Academy to Reynolds, 1 2 ; on the com- mittee to request Sir J. Reynolds to withdraw his letter of resignation, 42 ; advocates a contribution by the Academy towards a monument to Johnson, 43 ; elected President of the Royal Academy, 170; duration of his Presidency, 171; his project for promoting the Fine Arts, 181 ; parentage of, 185 ; birth of, 187 ; pictures by, 187, 190 ; his dedication to the profession of painting, 188 ; studies in Italy and comes to England, 189 ; is an object of envy and calumny, ib. ; his belief in his imagination, 190 ; success of his career, 191 ; his intercourse with George III., ib. ; is offered a knighthood, 192 ; his character, ib. his popularity as President, id. ; resigns the Presidency and is re-elected, 193 ; burial of, ib. ; Lawrence's portrait of, 309 Westall, Richard, R.A., 198 ; on the com- mittee to consider the charges against Barry, 128 ; illustrates Crabbe's Poems and Moore's Loves of the Angels, 199; gives drawing lessons to Queen Victoria, ib. Westall, William, A., birth and early life, 299 ; his death, 300 Westmacott, Sir Richard, R.A., birth and parentage of, 261 ; monuments by, ib. ; his "Achilles Statue," 261; elected Professor of Sculpture, 262 ; knighted, ib. ; death of, ib. Wheatley, Francis, R.A., 149, 150 " Whistonian Controversy," Mulready's, 279 " White Horse, The," Constable's, 335 INDEX 411 Wilkie, Sir David, R.A., 249 ; his early predilections for drawing, 250 ; his education, 251 ; anecdotes of his early years, ib. ; pictures by, 251-254 ; his art, ib. ; adopts a change of style, 254 ; his personality, 255 ; his death, 256 Wilkins, William, R.A., parentage and education of, 321 ; buildings designed by him, z/5., 322 ; elected Professor of Architecture, ib. ; death of, ib. Wilson, Benjamin, 106 Wilson, Richard, R.A., on the roll of the Society of Artists, II ; birth and paren- tage of, 98 ; his place amongst British landscape painters, ib. ; his studies in Italy, 99 ; Ruskin's opinion of his art, ib. ; unhappy life of, loo ; elected Librarian, ib. ; "Peter Pindar's" lines on him, ib. Wilton, Joseph, R.A., 9 ; meeting at the house of, to consider the schism in the Society of Artists, 12 ; elected Keeper, 100 ; birth and education of, 101 ; be- comes joint manager with Cipriani of the Duke of Richmond's Gallery, ib. ; appointed State-coach carver to George III., ib.\ public monuments by, ib. ; embodies the charges against Barry, 128 Winckelmann, Abbe, 92, 95 "Witch of Endor," C. R. Leslie's, 324 Wolcott, Dr, introduces John Opie to London, 140 "Wolf and the Lamb, The," Mulready's, 279 Wollstonecraft, Mary, her admiration for Henry Fuseli, 147 Woodforde, Samuel, R.A., birth and early education of, 241 Wordsworth, Pickersgill's portrait of, 329 Wright, Joseph (of Derby), A., collection of his pictures at the Old Masters Exhibi- tion of 1886, 163 ; his letter to the Secre- tary on his election as an Associate, 164 ; declines to be an Academician, 1 66 Wright, Richard, 163 Wright, Thomas, 99 Wyatt, James, R.A., on the committee to consider the charges against Barry, 128 ; public buildings designed by, 138 ; Presi- dent elect, 139, 193 ; suspended from the Council, 172 Wyatville, Sir Jeffry, R.A., birth and parentage of, 319 ; appointed Architect to the additions at Windsor, ib. ; squib on, ib. ; is knighted, 320 ; works by, ib. ; death of, ib. VENN, John, R.A., his appointment as Treasurer to the Academy, 30, 149 ; suspended from the Council, 172 Yeo, Richard, R.A., 105 ZOFFANY, Johan, R.A., on the roll of the Society of Artists, II ; his nomination as an original member of the Royal Academy, 84 ; birth and parentage of, 106 ; obscurity of his early life, ib. ; engaged by Benjamin Wilson to paint faces, 107 ; rescued from obscurity by David Garrick, ib. ; early pictures painted in his own name, ib. ; success of, 108 ; his art, ib. ; goes to India, 109 ; death of, ib. Zuccarelli, Francesco, R.A., 105 Zucchi, Antonio, A., marriage of, 93, 156 ; birth and parentage of, 156; persuaded to come to England by the brothers Adam, ib. Printed by Oliver and Boyd Edinburgh .:.. BERKELEY LIBRARIES CQ14D0037E3 tf\l 252602