LIBRARY 
 
 OF THB 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Gv. 
 
 Cl 
 

 T: 
 

 / 7 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN CARTER 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERICK JAMES iMILLS, 
 
 Sttustattantf. 
 
 CFTHE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY KURD AND HOUGHTON. 
 
 atitirftiac: BCbersfHe $ress. 
 
 1868. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 
 
 F. J. MILLS, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
 H. O HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 THE following narrative is published not 
 only as a record of a remarkable physical 
 phenomenon, or as a case which has excited 
 a just sensation amongst Artists no less 
 than throughout the medical world of Great 
 Britain, but as the record of a life that, taken 
 from whatever point of view it may, can 
 hardly fail to strengthen and encourage all 
 who read it. 
 
 The whole story of John Carter and the 
 development of his genius as an artist is 
 so brimful of interest and incident, so 
 wonderful, so unprecedented, so simple, and 
 so true, withal, that it is believed it will not 
 only amuse, but perhaps benefit many. \ 
 
 The details are taken chiefly from a me- 
 moir written by the Rev. William James 
 Dampier, Vicar of Coggeshall, Essex, Eng- 
 land (Carter's native place), whose text has 
 
 207532 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 been closely followed, and will be found to 
 explain the life of the man, his personal 
 character, the remarkable physical phenom- 
 ena connected with his accident, and his 
 wonderful method of drawing by means of 
 his mouth after he became paralyzed. 
 V The medical student anxious to become 
 better acquainted with facts of the highest 
 interest in connection with his Researches 
 into anatomy or physiology, the artist pupil 
 aiming at true success in his pursuit, the 
 general reader actuated by no such special 
 considerations, or last, though not least, the 
 Sunday-school teacher and scholar, and 
 especially the poor, the afflicted, the dis- 
 tressed, may each for himself or herself 
 draw matter no less attractive than instruc- 
 tive and consoling, from the contemplation 
 of John Carter's example of suffering afflic- 
 tion and of patience. 
 
 F. J. MILLS. 
 LYNN, MASS., September, 1868. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PORTRAIT OF JOHN CARTER AT WORK. Engraved by 
 
 W. Holl. (Frontispiece) 
 
 PAINTED BUTTERFLY. Fac-simile of Carter's first work . . 16 
 
 BIRD ON FLOWER. Fac-simile of Carter's early work . . 17 
 SYRIAN GOAT. Fac-simile of Carter's first line-drawing. 
 
 Engraved by W. Holl . 18 
 
 HEAD AFTER REMBRANDT by Carter. Engraved by W. Holl 23 
 
 SKETCH OF DESK, BRUSH, AND PENCIL USED BY CARTER 26 
 
 VIRGIN AND CHILD by Carter. Engraved by W. Holl . . 28 
 
 WOOD-CUT OF OUR LORD. Drawn on block by Carter . . 31 
 
 " THE SICK HORSE." Photograph after Carter 39 
 
 " THE HEAD OF A Fox." Photograph after Carter ... 39 
 
 LETTER. Fac-simile of Carter's writing in Lithograph . . 43 
 
 Extract from the Engraver's Letter accompanying the Proofs. 
 
 " I enclose the four Engravings .... you will perceive every 
 care has been taken to render them as perfect a fac-simile as 
 possible. 
 
 "W. HOLL." 
 
 " I never saw more faithful representations of any drawings than 
 the Engravings of Holl from John Carter. 
 
 "GEO. RICHMOND." 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 JOHN CARTER was born at Coggeshall, in 
 the County of Essex, England, of humble 
 parents, on the 3ist of July, 1815, and bap- 
 tized on the 27th of August following. 
 
 He was put to a dame's (or infants') school 
 in Church Street, Coggeshall, for some years ; 
 and afterwards, when about nine or ten years 
 old, to the Parish National School, where he 
 remained until the year 1828, when he was 
 removed into the endowed school in the 
 town, founded by the charity of Sir Robert 
 Hitcham. There he continued about two 
 years. 
 
 During his boyhood, he was not remark- 
 able for any particular talent. He was of 
 quicker parts, indeed, than the generality of 
 boys, and, as is too commonly the case, was 
 more frequently in mischief. 
 
 The only sign he showed, when at school, 
 
A MEMOIR OF 
 
 of the particular talent which was afterwards 
 developed in a providential way, and to a 
 marvelous extent, as will be noticed by and 
 by, was a disposition to scribble the figure of 
 a man, a horse, or a bird, or such like thing, 
 upon his desk or copy-book, when he should 
 have been doing his lessons ; or, as he 
 naively remarks in a letter to the Rev. W. 
 J. Dampier : " It was when I went to school 
 that I first remember having an inclination 
 for drawing. Whenever I had a pen or 
 pencil in my hand, I was sure to be drawing 
 in my books, or on my slate, and at home 
 about the walls of the house." But if dur- 
 ing the whole of his time at school he was 
 little different from the general run of boys 
 with whom he was brought up, showing 
 small sign of virtue, he yet experienced, 
 though unconsciously, the blessing of hon- 
 est parents, who had more care for him 
 than he had for himself, and whose lives 
 were conspicuous examples of industry and 
 integrity amongst the cottagers of Cogges- 
 hall. 
 
 When John Carter left the Hitcham 
 
 1 ft 
 
JOHN CARTER. 
 
 school, he was put to work with one Charles 
 Beckwith, at the silk-weaving trade, which 
 at that time was a gainful employment, 
 returning, after a very little practice, to 
 a steady hand twelve shillings or more a 
 week. 
 
 In 1835, he married, pursuing his calling 
 as a silk-weaver on his own account, until 
 he met with the accident which was the 
 turning-point in both his character and his- 
 tory. 
 
 The good seed which had been sown in 
 his infancy and childhood had as yet brought 
 forth but little fruit. He was not altogether 
 without respect for his parents, or care for 
 those belonging to him ; but his habits were 
 very irregular, and his natural quickness, 
 not being under the control of any fixed 
 religious principle, exposed him the more 
 to temptation. Some of his fellow-work- 
 men, and not the best, became the com- 
 panions of his leisure, or, as it seems, idle 
 hours. The excitement of wild mirth and 
 rambling adventure had often more power 
 with him than the quiet of his own home. 
 
8 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 He was, like most of the youth of our own 
 and every day, impatient of restraint ; and 
 it pleased God, in His wisdom and love, as 
 Carter thankfully acknowledged, to cast him 
 down, and bind him with invisible cords, 
 that he might be free indeed. Carter was 
 accustomed to spend much of his earnings, 
 and much of his time, at the public-house, 
 a certain sign of a depraved condition, 
 and of readiness for mischief. This is what 
 he says in the same letter to Mr. Dampier 
 (just quoted): 
 
 " And following the example of my fel- 
 low-workmen, I was frequently at the public- 
 house, and soon took delight in all evil and 
 mischief." 
 
 He neglected the religious observance of 
 the Lord's day, often wandering about the 
 fields with evil companions, instead of go- 
 ing to church. 
 
 It chanced, as the phrase is, that he 
 and some of his companions, one Saturday 
 night, in the month of May, 1836, were at- 
 tracted to the rookery at Holfield Grange, 
 near Coggeshall, the seat of Osgood Han- 
 
JOHN CARTER. 
 
 , a well-known banker of London, and 
 John Carter, forward in the evil enterprise, 
 ascended first one of the tall trees in search 
 of birds. When he had reached a height 
 of about forty feet from the ground, the 
 limb of another tree, to which he is said to 
 have been crossing, yielded more than was 
 calculated upon, or deceived him by its dis- 
 tance ; he missed his hold, and fell to the 
 earth upon his back. He was taken up 
 senseless, and from that time never moved 
 hand or foot. He was conveyed home to 
 his wife on Sunday morning, upon a hurdle, 
 by his miserable and affrighted companions ; 
 medical assistance was procured, and relief 
 was afforded, for the recovery of his senses ; 
 but a serious injury to the spine had de- 
 prived him of all power of voluntary motion 
 below the neck : the mischief, which was 
 at the fifth, sixth, and seventh vertebrae, 
 paralyzed the whole body downwards, and 
 was such that death might be expected to 
 ensue in a few days. Still he lived ; but 
 the paralysis was perpetual. The muscular 
 power of the neck was retained, no perma- 
 
IO A MEMOIR OF 
 
 nent mischief sustained by the organs of 
 the head, and the faculties were unim- 
 paired ; and if to this is added a very slight 
 power of motion in the chest and the left 
 shoulder, we have all the muscular power 
 which was left to John Carter by his acci- 
 dent. 
 
 For a while the poor fellow was filled 
 with distress for his physical condition, and 
 with shame and vexation for the whole 
 event ; but to this succeeded, by and by, 
 a time of reflection upon his state spiritu- 
 ally, and upon the great purpose hid under 
 this chastisement. The wanderer had been 
 struck down by the unseen hand which was 
 to bring him home again. And now the 
 seeds of grace, early sown, cleared of those 
 evil habits which, as rank weeds, kept them 
 down unproductive, and fostered by the 
 ministrations of the then vicar of the par- 
 ish, the Rev. A. C. J. Wallace, and the 
 warnings and counsels of afflicted parents, 
 had room and encouragement, under the 
 favoring circumstances of this bodily mis- 
 chief, to spring up and bear fruit. 
 
p 
 
 JOHN CARTER. \ \ 
 
 The sympathy of all was excited for the 
 poor fellow ; no efforts were wanting to do 
 him service ; relief for the body was freely 
 offered, and amusement for the mind, as 
 well as instruction and consolation for the 
 spirit. He had never altogether laid aside 
 the practice of private prayer, but now he 
 became more regular and earnest, and read 
 the Scriptures frequently, but seems to have 
 found his great strength and comfort in the 
 use of the ngth Psalm, which he would 
 read and ponder over continually. 
 
 A moment's reflection here will serve to 
 fetch home to the reader's mind the help- 
 less, the forlorn, not to say abject, condi- 
 tion of this poor young fellow at the mo- 
 ment of his fall from the fir-tree at Holfield 
 Grange. Just entering manhood, barely 
 twenty-one years old, plunged into a 
 state more impotent, physically speaking, 
 than an infant's! Is it possible to con- 
 ceive of any condition in life so likely to 
 drive a sensitive person to absolute de- 
 spair ? Hopelessly helpless ! Hopelessly 
 useless ! What a future ! CWhat could 
 
12 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 arise out of such a wreck, such a chaos--of 
 the human frame f\ 
 
 Picture him to yourself, gentle reader, but 
 for one short moment, as he lay on his bed 
 in the long weary hours by day and by 
 night, week after week, month afteT month ; 
 the familiar objects of " home " and its sur- 
 roundings ever present to his senses, and 
 yet, in so far as any active participation in 
 its' duties or its pleasures, all as a sealed 
 book, an utter blank ! Unconscious that 
 he possessed within himself a something, 
 which men call genius, to be afterwards de- 
 veloped in an untold degree. Without a 
 liberal, or at least an extended education, 
 which, if he had had, might have afforded 
 glimpses of resource far beyond anything 
 he could hope to enjoy. 
 
 And yet out of this human wreck, out 
 of this seeming chaos, that something did 
 spring forth so attractive in itself, so re- 
 deeming in its tendency, such a complete 
 exemplification of the triumph of mind over 
 matter, of soul over body, that one is filled j 
 with an astonishment calculated to shake 
 
JOHN CARTER. I 3 
 
 belief, even whilst possessing the best evi- 
 dence that Carter's history is perfectly and 
 undeniably true. 
 
 About six weeks after the accident, John 
 Carter and his wife were received into his 
 father's house, for the sake of economy, and 
 that his friends might the better attend 
 upon him, and at the end of several weeks 
 he told his father that he had suffered very 
 much in spirit for some time past, having 
 endured a sharp conflict, but that now it 
 was over, and the battle he believed was 
 won. Doubtless it cost him something to 
 put away old thoughts, and get rid of old 
 companions, and turn himself round reso- 
 lutely in quest of true riches ; but his energy 
 of character remained, and taking only a 
 new direction, carried him forward towards 
 the accomplishment of the great purpose of 
 his being. The grace of God wrought in 
 him a strong desire after forgiveness and 
 peace, and ultimately crowned his efforts 
 (we may well hope) with success. When 
 he began to see clearly his own faults, he 
 began in faithfulness to tell his companions 
 
14 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 in sin of theirs. This, however, as is com- 
 monly the case, was to them a signal to fall 
 off from coming to see him. But his course 
 was onward. From that time there is rea- 
 son to believe that his heart was given to 
 the one great work that was before him 
 even the salvation of his soul. 
 
 We return now to the earlier part of his 
 long-protracted affliction, to trace the devel- 
 opment of that extraordinary talent that was 
 given him, and which, rightly viewed, ap- 
 pears to have been designed to promote the 
 glory of God, and to furnish at once a new 
 employment and a reasonable recreation for 
 his servant. 
 
 The entire loss of the use of all his limbs 
 cut off the sufferer from many of the ordi- 
 nary recreations by which the tedium of 
 long afflictions is relieved. This circum- 
 stance set him upon expedients to amuse 
 himself, and called out the charitable contri- 
 vances of friends to afford him some pleas- 
 urable occupations. He was very fond of 
 reading, especially biography, and one day 
 read, in a little work which his wife had 
 
JOHN CARTER. 15 
 
 brought home to him, of a young woman, 
 named Elizabeth Kinning, at an asylum in 
 Liverpool, who, having lost the use of her 
 hands, had learned to draw with her mouth, 
 and it occurred to him at once that he might 
 do the same. 
 
 But we will let John Carter narrate this 
 first dawning of a talent that was subse- 
 quently to stamp him as one of the greatest 
 draughtsmen that ever lived, in his own 
 words, as contained in the same letter ad- 
 dressed to the Rev. W. J. Dampier; from 
 which we have before given extracts. Car- 
 ter says : 
 
 " Being fond of reading, I used to borrow books 
 from my neighbors and others. My wife one day 
 brought home for me a tract which gave an account 
 of a young woman in some asylum at Liverpool, who 
 had lost the use of her limbs, and used to amuse 
 herself by drawing with her mouth ; the thought at 
 once came into my mind that I might certainly do 
 the same, and I could not rest satisfied till I made 
 the attempt." 
 
 His energy was alive, and he began ac- 
 cordingly, drawing sometimes upon a slate, 
 
I 6 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 sometimes upon pieces of paper pinned to 
 the pillow, working first with a pencil, and 
 afterwards with water-colors. 
 
 The first piece produced in this way was 
 a butterfly, of which a fac-simile is here 
 given. The insect was caught in the room, 
 a sixpenny box of paints sent for, and the 
 drawing made forthwith. 
 
 This gave encouragement to proceed; 
 and here it is fit to mention that a lady, 
 Miss Hanbury, of Holfield Grange, now 
 Mrs. J. Bramston, then residing at Holfield 
 Grange, in the parish of Coggeshall, whose 
 interest in his welfare, temporal and spirit- 
 ual, never ceased, was untiring in her efforts 
 to do him service, visiting him frequently, 
 lending him books, doing everything in her 
 power to alleviate his sufferings, and to en- 
 courage his singular talent, that it might 
 afford him profit as well as pleasure. A 
 good many small drawings of birds and 
 flowers, a fac-simile of one of which is here 
 given, were done and sold for him amongst 
 his many sympathizers in and around 
 Coggeshall. 
 

OFTH-r v 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
CF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
JOHN CARTER. 1>J 
 
 Who, contemplating the astounding re- 
 sults that John Carter's pencil eventually 
 achieved, can look unmoved at these faint 
 tracings of his first footsteps, and refrain 
 from exclaiming, with a writer in the New 
 York " Daily Tribune " : - 
 
 " An inspiring sermon, teaching lessons 
 of faith, and hope, and constancy ; of sweet- 
 ness and humility joined to an invincible 
 courage and self-reliance, such as to read 
 ought to put strength into the weakest 
 heart that shrinks frightened and disheart- 
 ened from its appointed lot in life ! " 
 
 The difficulty, however, soon came as to 
 what STYLE he should adopt, whether that of 
 colored drawings, or etchings, or line-draw- 
 ings. He did, in fact, make attempts in all 
 these various styles, but his peculiar and 
 unrivaled talent settled upon line-drawing 
 chiefly, and certainly his best and most ex- 
 quisite works are in this style. His very 
 first work in this kind was a Syrian goat, 
 which is here given. This illustration is 
 a perfect fac-simile of the original ; it is 
 engraved on copper, by the celebrated 
 
1 8 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 W. Holl, of 10 Cornwall Terrace, Camden 
 Town, London, who, in a letter to the Rev. 
 W. J. Dampier on the subject of four en- 
 gravings he had just made from Carter's 
 drawings (of which the Syrian goat was 
 one), says : 
 
 " I inclose the four engravings. You will perceive 
 every care has been taken to render them as perfect 
 a fac-simile as possible. 
 
 "W. HOLL." 
 
 This important fact is attested by the em- 
 inent artist, George Richmond, of 10 York 
 Street, Portman Square, London, as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " I never saw more faithful representations of any 
 drawings, than the engravings of Holl from John 
 Carter. 
 
 " GEO. RICHMOND." 
 
 It will, we think, be interesting to our 
 readers, if an article which appeared in the 
 "Saturday Magazine," No. 519, of ist Au- 
 gust, 1840, published by J. W. Parker, West 
 Strand, London, is here given in extenso, as 
 it was written and published just three 
 
JOHN CARTER. 19 
 
 years after John Carter had met with his 
 accident, and BEFORE his later works had 
 stamped him as a great master in art; 
 though it is worthy of note, that even at this 
 early period of his career, he gave strong 
 promise of much that he afterwards 
 achieved. 
 
 The article, verbatim et literatim, runs 
 thus : 
 
 THE EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF JOHN CARTER. 
 
 "In the year 1589 there was published by Henry 
 Goltzius, a German engraver, a series of twelve heads, 
 representing the Twelve Apostles, under each of which 
 is a sentence of the Creed, in conformity with the 
 well-known tradition that that compendium of the 
 Christian faith was the joint work .of those first mis- 
 sionaries of the gospel ; each of whom is said to have 
 contributed a certain portion. This tradition is not of 
 a very early date, and the story is, on many accounts, 
 incredible ; although the substance of that Creed may 
 well endure the strictest scrutiny, its articles being 
 ' gathered together,' according to the words of St. 
 Austin, ' from those places where they lie scattered 
 throughout the Holy Scriptures.' There is nothing 
 remarkable in relation to this set of heads ; but the 
 circumstances under which one of the series (the head 
 of St. John) has recently been copied, and that, too, 
 
2O A MEMOIR OF 
 
 in a most beautiful manner, are well worthy of at- 
 tention. 
 
 " Three years ago the individual by whom the copy 
 was executed had never so much as thought of making 
 a drawing. Many persons will be ready to think that 
 there is nothing very wonderful in this, for that much 
 may be done in three years ; but they will probably 
 alter their opinion before they come to the end of our 
 narrative. 
 
 " John Carter, the person of whom we are speaking, 
 is the son of a laboring man, who is still living at 
 Coggeshall, in Essex. After having been taught to 
 read and write at the parish school, he was put to learn 
 the trade of silk-weaving, and, although not a steady 
 lad, was esteemed in due time to be a good workman. 
 At the age of twenty he married ; but, unhappily, he 
 did not give up his former bad habits, being fre- 
 quently intoxicated, and very rarely seen at church. 
 
 "One Saturday night, in May, 1836, he had been 
 drinking at the ale-house with seven or eight other 
 young men, as much inclined for mischief as himself, 
 when one of them proposed that the whole party 
 should go up to the plantations of Osgood Hanbury, 
 Esq., of Holfield Grange, to rob the rooks' nests. In 
 this reprehensible employment they were engaged un- 
 til near one o'clock on Sunday morning, when Carter, 
 having climbed to the top of a fir-tree, attempted to 
 reach another, which, in the darkness of the night, ap- 
 peared to be within his reach ; he jumped, missed his 
 hold, and fell to the ground. Happily for him the 
 
JOHN CARTER. 21 
 
 branches broke his fall, or he would, in all probability, 
 have been killed on the spot the height of the tree 
 being not less than forty feet. His companions car- 
 ried him home in a state of insensibility, and appar-. 
 ently dying, to his wife, who had gone to bed ill, and, 
 as usual, in no small anxiety about her unsteady hus- 
 band. Hearing the noise below, and thinking that he 
 had come home in liquor, she came down, and, as may 
 be easily imagined, was overcome by the spectacle that 
 presented itself. He was lying on a hurdle, and one 
 of his companions was sitting by his side, the others 
 having left him. Everything was done for him that 
 could be done ; but it was late on Sunday afternoon 
 before he recovered his senses ; and then his first 
 thought was that he should certainly die, and should 
 have to render up his account to his offended Maker, 
 with all his sins upon his head. A week of intense 
 pain, without a moment's sleep, served to increase his 
 alarm ; but by degrees his bodily sufferings were miti- 
 gated, and there appeared to be some reason to think 
 that his life might be spared, at all events, for a time. 
 As the inflammation and swelling subsided, it became 
 evident that he had sustained some injury in the spine, 
 which had entirely deprived him of the use of his 
 limbs, and, indeed, of every muscle of his body, and of 
 all sensation below the collar-bone. For twelve months 
 he lay motionless upon his bed ; but the time was not 
 lost ; for, by the blessing of God upon the endeavors 
 of the worthy and benevolent clergyman 'of the parish, 
 aided by some excellent neighbors, and a supply of 
 
22 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 good books, he was brought to a sense of the sinful- 
 ness of his former life, and to an earnest, and, as is 
 hoped, effectual inquiry after the means of pardon and 
 salvation, through repentance, faith, and renewed obe- 
 dience. He is now a devout attendant at church, and 
 at the holy 'communion, whenever the weather is such 
 as to allow of his being drawn thither on a sort of couch 
 upon which he is moved. 
 
 " About a year after the accident, his wife saw, and 
 borrowed for him, a little book which gave an account 
 of a young woman, who, having lost the use of her 
 hands, amused herself by drawing with her mouth ; he 
 determined to try to do the same. At first he copied 
 butterflies in water-colors, but soon adopted a better 
 style. His kind patrons, the family of Mr. Hanbury, 
 supplied him with Bewick's ' Birds,' and other en- 
 gravings of the same description, and he soon learned 
 to sketch them very accurately with a camel's-hair 
 brush and India ink. Inclined towards the right side, 
 with his paper and copy fixed to his drawing desk, 
 which is placed in a convenient position on the bed, 
 almost perpendicularly before his face, and with his 
 hair pencil between his teeth, he can produce, by 
 means of the motion of his neck, assisted occasionally 
 by the lips, the most delicate and beautifully-turned 
 strokes. He has just begun to try a new subject, the 
 human face and his first attempt in this way was the 
 head of St. John, of which we have been speaking. 
 
 " As far as regards his bodily state, there has been 
 no appearance of any alteration lately ; and if he should 
 
JOHN CARTER. 2$ 
 
 be spared for any length of time, and should pursue 
 his present course of improvement, he may one day be- 
 come no mean proficient in an art which seems to re- 
 quire, as an essential qualification, that which he does 
 not in the smallest degree possess the free use of 
 the hands. He lives upon a parish allowance ; his 
 weak state of health preventing any further application 
 to his new employment than is sufficient to procure for 
 him some few additional comforts, or, as they may be 
 well called in his case, necessaries." 
 
 " [We were desirous of presenting our readers with an en- 
 graving from Carter's copy of the old print, but found it im- 
 possible to convey, by means of stereotype plates and the 
 steam-press, any correct idea of the elaborate and minute ex- 
 ecution, and the singularly soft and beautiful effect of his camel- 
 hair pencil drawing.] " 
 
 His skill increased rapidly enough ; and 
 a very steady improvement might be ob- 
 served in his performances, from the butter- 
 fly first noticed to the date (1843) when he 
 sent his offering of a drawing to the late 
 Queen Dowager of England, through the 
 present Bishop of London. 
 
 His power and taste, however, as an 
 artist, will be best seen in the unfinished 
 head, done professedly in imitation of Rem- 
 brandt's method of work, shown on the 
 opposite page. The plate from which this 
 
24 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 illustration is given was carefully engraved 
 by Holl (it is one of the four alluded to by 
 him in his letter to the Rev. W. J. Dampier), 
 and is a faithful representation of the orig- 
 inal study from which Carter subsequently 
 drew his exquisite picture now in the pos- 
 session of the Queen of England. 
 
 The way in which he executed his work 
 must now be stated. The posture in which 
 he drew was lying a little on the right side, 
 with the head a little raised by pillows. A 
 small, light desk of deal, made under his 
 own directions, was adjusted for him (as 
 shown in the frontispiece) ; on this desk his 
 drawing paper was fastened with large, flat, 
 brass-headed pins, such as artists and archi- 
 tects use for the same purpose. He never 
 drew but in bed. He first sketched in his 
 subject with a lead pencil, sometimes as lit- 
 tle as four inches in length, which he held 
 between his teeth as firmly as if in a vise. 
 This done, a little saucer of Indian ink was 
 prepared, and the brush was moistened by 
 his attendant, and placed in his mouth, when, 
 by a curious muscular action of his lips and 
 
JOHN CARTER. 25 
 
 tongue, he would twirl the brush round with 
 great velocity, until he had thrown off all 
 superfluous ink and brought it to a very fine 
 point. He then held it fast between his 
 jaw-teeth, and by the motion of the head 
 produced the most accurate and delicate 
 strokes. He was accustomed to work with 
 very fine hair pencils (some almost as fine 
 as needle-points), about six inches long, 
 which, by bringing the work so near to his 
 eye, would manifestly much enhance the 
 difficulty of the operation ; and considering 
 how quick the evaporation would be in 
 summer time, and how impossible it was, 
 from his recumbent position, for the colors 
 to flow to the point of the brush, when ac- 
 tually touching on his work, it will easily be 
 imagined how troublesome an operation it 
 must have been to him, and how much in- 
 cessant assistance he required ; for the brush 
 was always taken from his mouth, replen- 
 ished, and replaced by his constant, watch- 
 ful, and unwearied attendant. 
 
 A slight sketch of the desk on which he 
 commonly worked, and of the brush and 
 
26 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 pencil he employed, is here given in the 
 belief that it will be found interesting. 
 
 At times, in difficult subjects, he would 
 have his paper divided by pencil lines into 
 squares, after the manner of engravers with 
 plates, but this was seldom done except with 
 the larger of his works ; and even then 
 Carter was commonly dissatisfied with the 
 want of precision in the ruled squares, they 
 not appearing accurate, generally speaking, 
 under the keen scrutiny of his microscopic 
 vision ; but without this aid the precision 
 of his drawing was perfectly marvelous. 
 The skill with which he sketched in a diffi- 
 cult figure in pencil was, perhaps, even more 
 astounding than that with which he finished 
 it in Indian ink. 
 
 In the progressive development of Car- 
 ter's character, two traits showed themselves 
 preeminently conspicuous above and be- 
 yond all others "a love of truth," and 
 u a singular patience and persistence in ac- 
 complishing his purposes." This latter gift 
 stood him, no doubt, in good stead of that 
 otherwise needful education and preparation 
 

 
JOHN CARTER. 27 
 
 imperative to mature the character of a true 
 artist, whilst "a love of truth," beyond all 
 other qualifications that-one thing needful 
 to every one who desires to excel, in art 
 especially, !he possessed in an eminent de- 
 gree ; and doubtless it was that " love of 
 truth " which aided his efforts so wonder- 
 fully in perfecting all that he undertook. 
 In his works Carter ever aimed at doing his 
 very best, that is to say he earnestly, patiently, 
 and conscientiously labored to develop 
 through the expression which his pencil 
 gave the truth, as he realized it in his 
 own mind, of whatever subject he was en- 
 gaged on ; and his was a mind that seemed 
 fitted and formed in a high degree for the 
 reception of truthful impressions. 
 
 He could enlarge or reduce with perfect 
 success. A single example may serve to 
 demonstrate this wondrous power of per- 
 ception and delineation, no less than his 
 " love of truth " as exemplified through his 
 works. A flower or insect, say a daisy 
 just plucked or a butterfly just caught, 
 would be brought to him for a study ; he 
 
28 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 would proceed to paint in water-colors a 
 perfect fac-simile, so absolutely perfect that 
 no difference appeared to exist between the 
 original and the copy either as regards size, 
 or, indeed, in any other particular. He 
 would then execute from his own drawing 
 the same subject in different sizes ; that is 
 to say, he would make two or three copies 
 each one so many times larger, and say two 
 or three copies each so many times smaller 
 than the original already drawn from nature, 
 every copy on a separately different scale, 
 yet each in perfect proportion, in perfect 
 accord, and so exact in detail, withal, that 
 the aid of a magnifying glass would fail to 
 detect that any one of those half dozen 
 little gems differed from another, size ex- 
 cepted, in the slightest degree ; each being, 
 per se, a complete exhibition of harmony 
 and truthfulness. 
 
 The exquisite grace and beautiful draw- 
 ing of the "Virgin and Child," after Albert 
 Dlirer, as shown in the annexed illustration, 
 must strike every draughtsman forcibly. 
 The original drawing of this by Carter is in 
 
JOHN CARTER. 29 
 
 the possession of his much-loved friend and 
 pastor, the Rev. W. J. Dampier, Vicar of 
 Coggeshall. This plate was engraved on 
 copper by W. Holl, who judged it abso- 
 lutely necessary to give these examples of 
 Carter's works on copper-plates, as nothing 
 else would do anything like justice to the 
 beauty and delicacy of his touch. 
 
 At one time, wearied a little, perhaps, or 
 maybe feeling after fresh powers, he ex- 
 pressed a desire to try some heads in chalk. 
 Some fine studies were immediately sup- 
 plied ; but Carter would first try his power 
 upon an inferior subject, and the result was 
 an admirable fox's head. He, after this, 
 finished two fine heads, and then aban- 
 doned the style ; possibly because of an 
 increased mechanical difficulty in working 
 with chalks. For chalk -drawings, to be 
 clear, required, of course, to be on a larger 
 scale than Indian ink drawings ; then came 
 the necessity for considerable pressure, to 
 make the chalk mark ; and there followed, 
 also, the sensibly increased exertion of ap- 
 plying a hard unyielding tool to an enlarged 
 
30 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 plane surface, by some unusual, combined, 
 and difficult action from which he shrunk 
 not perhaps knowing exactly what the dif- 
 ficulty was, but simply feeling that it was 
 great, and not compensated for even by suc- 
 cess. Chalk-drawing he therefore aban- 
 doned, once for all, and betook himself 
 again to line-drawing with sable pencil in 
 Indian ink, a style in which he was destined 
 to become not only a great master but really 
 unapproachable. 
 
 He took several likenesses of intimate 
 friends with marked success, in pencil and 
 in black profile, especially those of Miss 
 Hanbury, his father, and himself; this style, 
 however, he pursued but as a source of rec- 
 reation between intervals of more serious 
 study on line-drawing, upon the perfecting 
 of which all his genius and taste seemed to 
 centre. 
 
 Mr. George Richmond, the artist pre- 
 viously spoken of in these pages, knew 
 Carter well, and encouraged him to draw 
 on blocks for cutting, but he only did one 
 or two ; the labor was very great to him to 
 
JOHN CARTER. 31 
 
 see his work stroke by stroke plainly on the 
 block as he progressed, yet this was indis- 
 pensable ; besides, he required, for the same 
 obvious reason, white ground to work on. 
 The sitting figure of our Lord, in wood- 
 cut, after Albert Dlirer, is here given as 
 having been drawn by Carter himself upon 
 the block. 
 
 John Carter was singularly humble in the 
 possession of his talent, thankfully receiving 
 any hints which persons acquainted with 
 drawing were inclined to offer. ^Compara- 
 tively few have seen him at his work, be- 
 yond the members of his own family) and 
 those who, like the Hanburys of Holfield 
 Grange, the Whites of Highfields, the Rev. 
 W. J. Dampier, or his constant medical 
 attendant, Dr. James Stewart Nott, knew 
 him very intimately indeed, and had access 
 to him at all times. ( It was not that he dis- 
 liked to be seen at work, but that the pres- 
 ence of a stranger at such times made him 
 highly nervous, so that he dared not then 
 trust himself with any of the more delicate 
 portions of his subject; for a line or a mark 
 
32 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 once made must remain, as he rarely ven- 
 tured to wash out a false stroke in Indian 
 ink ; consequently, if visitors were intro- 
 duced when he was engaged, he would 
 usually stop or betake himself to a mass of 
 deep shadow, where little or no mischief 
 could come from a few tremulous strokes. 
 
 He was visited by many persons, high 
 dignitaries of the church, leading members 
 of the medical profession, the most eminent 
 artists in England, besides others distin- 
 guished alike in public as in private life, 
 being eager claimants for admission to his 
 cottage, all equally interested and aston- 
 ished at the almost superhuman power 
 in the art of drawing developed in the 
 poor, humble, paralytic John Carter, ifiap- 
 pily he escaped without any of that weak- 
 ening of the character which so commonly 
 follows upon petting ; he fell not into 
 that snare. Obliging to all, thankful to 
 all, and ready to adopt any suggestion that 
 was made to him, he was often a good 
 deal tried by the tax now and then laid 
 upon his talent and his good nature. Yet 
 
JOHN CARTER. 33 
 
 he was never known to refuse to make any 
 attempt, however troublesome and unsatis- 
 factory in its results, that he was requested 
 to undertake. This was the effect not of 
 conceit, but of the absence of it. He was 
 often dissatisfied with such experiments 
 himself; but, without regard to his reputa- 
 tion as an artist, he labored in a docile 
 spirit to do what was required of him. But, 
 as was intimated before, he delighted in 
 line-drawing, and in this he excelled. 
 
 One of his best works in this kind (and 
 this will bear the minutest inspection) is in 
 the possession of the Hanbury family of Hoi- 
 field Grange, his great friends and patrons. 
 Mrs. Gee of Colne House, Miss Martin 
 Leake of Marshalls, Mrs. Unwin of Cogge- 
 shall, Mr. Bell of Selbourne, Captain Browell, 
 R. N., the Rev. W. J. Dampier, Lady Mc- 
 Kenzie, and Hannah Carter, his sister, are 
 in possession of small though superb origi- 
 nal line-drawings by Carter. The Whites 
 of Highfields, Coggeshall, were, however, 
 amongst his warmest admirers and friends, 
 affording him, throughout his fourteen years 
 
34 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 of affliction, all the aid, sympathy, and kind- 
 ness it was in their power to bestow. In 
 token of his fervent gratitude and apprecia- 
 tion of manifold kindnesses received at the 
 hands of that family, he executed for Miss 
 White that which he ever considered one of 
 the most skillful, most elaborate, and beau- 
 tiful of all his works "Innocence;" and 
 truly it is exquisitely beautiful. It requires, 
 in fact, the best evidence to believe that 
 it is anything else than the finest possible 
 engraving on steel executed by a master's 
 hand. This superb work of art is drawn in 
 pure line, yet of so soft, delicate, and minute 
 a character as to bear the closest resem- 
 blance to the finest mezzotinto engraving. 
 The origin of this subject arose from this 
 incident : a kind friend showing Carter a 
 beautiful oil-painting by Hermann Winter- 
 halter, it so fixed his interest and admira- 
 tion that he made it the model for a draw- 
 ing which he designed should be, as indeed 
 it proved, the most elaborate, the most 
 highly finished, no less than the largest of 
 all his works. It is ten and a half inches in 
 
JOHN CARTER. 35 
 
 length, and eight and a half inches in 
 width, which appears to have been the ex- 
 treme compass within Carter's reach. The 
 shape of the picture is an oval, and every 
 part is finished with pre-Raphaelite minute- 
 ness. The face and half-length figure of 
 the peasant girl holding a flower between 
 the fingers of her right hand, representing 
 the subject, is as beautiful as it is simple 
 and true : nothing can exceed the limning 
 of the face, which in sweet expression con- 
 veys the appropriateness of the title " In- 
 nocence." It is but just and right to class 
 this work as amongst the best that Carter 
 ever produced, if only upon the fact that he 
 so judged and esteemed it himself to the 
 day of his death. In the opinion of many, 
 however, the question may arise whether 
 " Innocence " equals in artistic beauty and 
 truthfulness, Carter's wonderful work, " A 
 Rat-catcher with his Dogs," drawn expressly 
 for Mr, John Mills (brother of the writer), 
 son-in-law of Mr. White of Highfields, and 
 which was finished in April, 1849, rather 
 more than one year before Carter's death. 
 
36 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 A critic reviews the subject and descants 
 upon the merits of this drawing in a Boston 
 newspaper, the " Evening Transcript," un- 
 der date 23d October, 1867, as follows : - 
 
 " It represents the village Rat-catcher and his 
 Dogs, and tells its own story at a glance. The pic- 
 ture may be regarded as quite perfect. The old man's 
 face beams with a satisfied smile at the success of his 
 operations, and his whole attitude and expression are 
 full of the reality of life. The terriers in various 
 positions and with divers characters are admirably 
 rendered ; and the same may be said of all the curious 
 and grotesque and picturesque accessories. The 
 grouping is admirable, and the entire execution per- 
 vaded by delicacy, grace, and accuracy. The closest 
 study of details only brings out the varied excellences 
 of this singularly felicitous production abounding as 
 they do in spirit, and marked as they are by the touch 
 of genius. Simply considered as a. work of art, it 
 might be coveted by anybody for its unquestionable 
 merits." 
 
 The style of " A Rat-catcher with his 
 Dogs," is open line-drawing, that of " Inno- 
 cence," fine close lining, to resemble mezzo- 
 tinto ; each drawing is equally perfect both 
 in style and finish. 1 
 
 1 The writer is now in possession of both these admirable 
 
JOHN CARTER. 37 
 
 The most fascinating and attractive work, 
 however, without exception, both as to 
 
 works of art. That of " A Rat-catcher with his Dogs " has 
 been exhibited during the present year at Williams & Everett's, 
 Washington Street, Boston, Mass. ; at Schauss's, Broadway, 
 New York ; and at Andrew Geyer & Co.'s, Free Street, Port- 
 land, Maine. Hitherto this has been the only work by John 
 Carter, ever brought into this country, and, for that reason, the 
 criticisms and opinions expressed by the public press of the three 
 cities just named, are given in full at the close of this Memoir, so 
 as to afford parties at a distance, who may not have had the 
 opportunity of judging for themselves, a guide by which to form 
 a right and due comprehension and appreciation of the worth 
 and marvelous beauty of Carter's drawing. A photograph of 
 " The Rat-catcher " was taken by Mr. H. G. Smith, at the Studio 
 Building, Tremont Street, Boston, with marked success, which 
 has been published by the writer. Carter's works photograph 
 exceedingly well, arising from the fact that they are so clearly and 
 exquisitely delineated. It is in contemplation to exhibit " In- 
 nocence," as also to publish, either by engraving or photograph, 
 copies of that work. A preference has been given to photog- 
 raphy over engraving, in connection with works by John Carter, 
 because parties in the country desiring to possess copies of Car- 
 ter's drawings, on account of the great curiosity surrounding 
 them, might, probably would, in the absence of opportunity to 
 compare original with copy, esteem an engraving to be but a 
 flattering likeness, worked up and made into a beautiful picture 
 by the talent, skill, and taste of the engraver ; whereas a photo- 
 graph is necessarily a fac-simile, so far as it goes, too often 
 doing but small justice to works of art. Photography will at 
 least be acquitted of ever adding to the beauty, or brightening the 
 good effect of originals which it copies. The writer is also the 
 owner of two other drawings by Carter, which, though small, as 
 the majority of Carter's works are, will yet be found to be 
 
38 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 thought, expression, and execution, that 
 Carter's pencil ever produced, is an exquis- 
 ite gem illustrative of the first passage in 
 the Lord's Prayer, " Our Father who art 
 in heaven." The attitude of the two chil- 
 dren at devotion is so natural, the expres- 
 sion of their faces (likenesses) so sweet, so 
 simple, and so holy, that whilst it commands 
 our highest admiration for the beautiful 
 thought and feeling which pervades it, we 
 are no less entranced at the marvelous 
 touches of the pencil which gave the effect. 
 
 This work, in pure line-drawing, was left 
 to his sister, Hannah Carter, in whose pos- 
 session it remains, and by whom it is highly 
 and justly valued. 
 
 To convey a concise idea of Carter's ex- 
 traordinary powers as a draughtsman, two 
 illustrations are here given, being photo- 
 graphs from his original drawings, " The 
 
 absolutely perfect. One, " The Head of a Fox," the other, 
 " The Sick Horse," photographs of which (taken by Mr. H. G. 
 Smith, Studio Building, Tremont Street, Boston), from the orig- 
 inals, are inserted in this work. 
 
 F. J. MILLS. 
 Lynn, Mass., September, 1868. 
 
JOHN CARTER. 39 
 
 Sick Horse," and " The Head of a Fox." 
 A glance only at these will be sufficient to 
 demonstrate no less the vigor than the 
 beauty and delicacy with which Carter 
 could wield his brush. " The Sick Horse " 
 is a picture at once truthfully and feelingly 
 exhibited in a series of the softest and finest 
 strokes that can be imagined;* whilst the 
 " Fox's Head," not a whit less 'truthful, but 
 in a style at once sharp, vigorous, and bold, 
 is aptly in keeping with the subject. It 
 would be difficult to find better contrasting 
 specimens of Carter's powers as artist and 
 draughtsman than are here presented. 
 
 John Carter's peculiar talent for drawing 
 is noticed in a letter written by George 
 Richmond, an eminent English artist, to 
 the Rev. W. J. Dampier, on hearing of 
 Carter's death, which took place on the 2d 
 June, 1850. Mr. Richmond took a particu- 
 lar interest in Carter, and personally assisted 
 in endeavoring to bring his remarkable gift 
 to bear upon a profitable multiplication of 
 his works by wood-cuts. 
 
 Extracts from this letter are as follows: 
 
I $ 
 
 4O A MEMOIR OF 
 
 " 10 YORK STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE, 
 June 12, 1850. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I heard, a few days ago, with 
 great regret of the death of poor Carter ; I could not 
 but feel great interest in him, both as a man and as an 
 artist. 
 
 " I wish, while it was possible to have done so, I 
 had made a sketch of his own (as it appeared to me) 
 most beautiful face, for that would have interested both 
 you and many others. 
 
 " His powers were extraordinary I mean, would 
 have been extraordinary in one possessing hands to exe- 
 cute his thought with ; but to see him, with his short 
 pencil between his lips, executing, with the greatest 
 precision, and skill, intricate forms, and describing dif- 
 ficult curves, filled me with wonder and admiration. 
 
 " I wish I knew more of his works, for I would then 
 give you my opinion of them artistically, but I feel 
 sure that ordinary ntles of criticism should not be ap- 
 plied to him, who fought at such disadvantage, and 
 triumphed so nobly. 
 
 " GEORGE RICHMOND. 
 
 " The REV. W. J. DAMPIER, Coggeshall Vicarage." 
 
 It is a matter, doubtless, of great regret, 
 that so eminent an artist and portrait painter 
 as Mr. Richmond, did not take a sketch of, 
 as he truly expresses it, Carter's "most beau- 
 tiful face." Happily, however, the Rev. W. 
 
JOHN CARTER. 41 
 
 J. Dampier has supplied this want in some 
 measure by an admirable likeness from 
 which the engraving by W. Holl, forming 
 the frontispiece for this Memoir, is taken. 
 It is a truthful portrait, descriptive in every 
 way of Carter's highly intelligent, thought- 
 ful, and refined cast of countenance. It was 
 hardly possible for anybody to look on his 
 face as the writer saw him in June, 1849, 
 without being forcibly impressed not only 
 with his interesting and beautiful features, 
 but with an expression which seemed to light 
 up, as it were, a countenance indicative of 
 the highest cast of thought and feeling. 
 
 Mr. Richmond refers to his remembrance 
 of Carter's strikingly beautiful and intellec- 
 tual cast of countenance, no less than to the 
 wonderful control which he possessed over 
 his little camel's-hair pencil, in perhaps even 
 more forcible terms, in a letter, of very recent 
 date to the Rev. W. J. Dampier, as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " CHEVITON VILLA, FOLKESTONE, KENT, ) 
 y]th August, 1868. \ 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I perfectly remember * John 
 
42 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 Carter,' and have seen him at work with his little cam- 
 el 's-hair pencil of two or three inches in length held in 
 his mouth, which he used (if I may be allowed the ex- 
 pression) with wonderful dexterity. When not at work 
 he used to roll it about with his lips as I have seen a 
 countryman do a sprig or a straw. 
 
 " The first time I saw him, I was taken to his cot- 
 tage by the excellent Rector of ' Stisted,' the Rev. 
 Charles Forster, and the impression of that visit I 
 shall never lose ; for the contrast of the utterly help-- 
 less body of the man with the bright and beaming ex- 
 pression of his face, which only a peaceful and clear 
 spirit could raise, was a sight to do one good. 
 
 " It was ' as it had been the face of an angel J and I 
 always think of him in connection with this passage. 
 
 " I am glad that through your very interesting 
 Memoir many should become acquainted with John 
 Carter. 
 
 " Believe me, 
 
 " My dear sir, 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " GEORGE RICHMOND. 
 
 " The REV. W. J. DAMPIEU." 
 
 Till November, 1841, he was attended 
 upon by Lucy Carter, his wife, but in that 
 month she, having suffered severely for some 
 time from a disease of the heart, was taken 
 from him. His sister, Hannah Carter, then 
 

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JOHN CARTER. 43 
 
 succeeded to the * care of her afflicted 
 brother, and became his constant attendant, 
 ministering with exemplary tenderness and 
 affection to all his necessities to the last. 
 
 It ought to be mentioned in this Memoir, 
 that the subject of it was possessed, not 
 only of the power of drawing beautifully in 
 the way already described, but also of that 
 of writing well and most legibly with pen 
 and ink. One of his letters to his pastor, 
 the Rev. W. J. Dampier, which is singu- 
 larly well written, and by the same process 
 by which he was accustomed to draw, is 
 here given in lithograph. This, as contain- 
 ing his own account, in short terms, of his 
 early life and habits, and the manner in 
 which he was brought to his knowledge and 
 employment of the gift bestowed upon him, 
 for which he was so remarkable, will be 
 found deeply interesting ; here, in brief and 
 artless language, he tells his own story, 
 which, if rightly viewed, is hardly more 
 wonderful than the lesson it enforces is per- 
 tinent and instructive. This is the same 
 letter from which former extracts were 
 
44 
 
 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 given. The calligraphy betrays the differ- 
 ence between his matchless lines when 
 drawn with a fine, soft, sable brush, yielding 
 to every movement of his exquisitely deli- 
 cate touch, and the hard, unyielding nib of 
 the pen ; and will the better serve to explain 
 perhaps, the reason of his so quickly aban- 
 doning the study of chalk-drawing because 
 of its increased mechanical difficulty. 
 
 It has been thought well to insert here a 
 copy of a paragraph which appeared in an 
 issue of " The Lancet " (the leading medical 
 journal in England) for July 19, 1856, under 
 an article headed, 
 
 DEATHS FROM FRACTURES AND OTHER INJU- 
 RIES OF THE CERVICAL VERTEBRA. 
 
 " Of the seven patients whose cases are above de- 
 tailed, one lived only five hours and a half after the 
 accident ; three died in little more than twenty-four 
 hours ; one lived for two days ; another for six days, 
 and another for twenty-seven days afterwards. In a 
 case detailed by Dr. Eade ('The Lancet' for 1855, 
 vol. ii. p. 520), the patient lived for nearly four months. 
 
JOHN CARTER. 
 
 45 
 
 But by far the most remarkable case of this descrip- 
 tion with which we are acquainted is narrated in a Me- 
 moir of one John Carter, of Coggeshall, in Essex, 1 who 
 lived for fourteen years after the injuries which de- 
 prived his limbs of motion and sensation. Carter, at 
 the age of twenty-one years, in 1836, slipped from a tree 
 at the height of about forty feet from the ground, and 
 fell to the earth upon his back. He was taken up 
 senseless, and moved none of his limbs afterwards. 
 Muscular power in the neck and head was, however, 
 retained, and, it is added, a slight power of motion in 
 the chest and left shoulder. The brain appeared to 
 have suffered no injury from the fall. His mental fac- 
 ulties remained unimpaired during the rest of his life, 
 and he partially supported himself by drawing, by 
 means of a pencil placed between his teeth, upon paper 
 adjusted for the purpose upon appropriate machinery. 
 Some of his drawings made in this way, copies of 
 which are given in his Memoir, have singular excel- 
 lence, and one is said to be in the possession of Her 
 Majesty. . His death was occasioned by pulmonary 
 disease, accelerated by his being overturned with a 
 small chaise in which he was being drawn. At a post- 
 mortem examination, the fifth, sixth, and seventh cer- 
 vical vertebrae were found thrust out into an arch, and 
 the seventh was dislocated so as to press upon the 
 spinal cord. We learn that a considerable quantity of 
 
 1 Memoir of John Carter. By William James Dampier, 
 Vicar of Coggeshall. London, Parker, 1850. I2mo, pp. 44. 
 
46 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 extravasated blood was found in the immediate region 
 of this dislocation, which effusion was probably a result 
 of his last fall ; but as the Memoir is written by a non- 
 professional gentleman, we have no more precise ac- 
 count of the anatomical peculiarities of the injuries 
 sustained than that just given." 
 
 A further reference to this remarkable 
 case will be found in the same medical 
 journal, "The Lancet," for 27th October, 
 1860, part 2, p. 403, in "A Course of Lec- 
 tures on Pain and the Therapeutic Influence 
 of Mechanical and Physiological Rest in 
 Accidents and Surgical Diseases, delivered 
 in the theatre of the Royal College of 
 Surgeons," London, by John Hilton, Esq., 
 F. R. S., Surgeon to Guy's Hospital, and 
 Professor of Anatomy and Surgery to the 
 Royal College of Surgeons. Mr. Hilton 
 entitles it a " Case of Injury to fifth, sixth, 
 and seventh Cervical Vertebras ; Paralysis 
 and Loss of Sensation in the Upper and 
 Lower Extremities ; the patient lived four- 
 teen years and then died from another acci- 
 dent." And thereupon proceeds to say, 
 
 " Only a short portion of my appointed time remains 
 
JOHN- CARTER. 47 
 
 to me to-day, and I will detail to you a case of great 
 interest in two or three respects. John Carter, aged 
 twenty-one, had an injury to the fifth, sixth, and sev- 
 enth cervical vertebrae, producing paralysis of both legs, 
 and both arms. He lived fourteen years, and then 
 died from the effects of another accident. The par- 
 ticulars of this case, as far as I know them at present, 
 are these : The accident occurred in May, 1836. The 
 man's age was twenty-one. He fell from a tree, forty 
 feet, upon his back, or probably his head. He was 
 senseless, unconscious, and paralyzed below his neck. 
 He was carried home upon a hurdle, and was seen by 
 the late Mr. Whitmore, of Coggeshall, Essex, two 
 hours after the accident ; and he, some years ago, 
 wrote me this note : 
 
 " ' It was in May, 1836, that I (Mr. Whitmore) was 
 called up, on a Sunday morning, between four and five 
 o'clock, to John Carter, who had fallen from a tree, 
 when in the pursuit of young rooks. When I saw him 
 he was perfectly insensible and motionless ; cold, and 
 breathing imperfectly ; with a pulse weak in the ex- 
 treme ; and he appeared to have sustained some fatal 
 injury to the brain or spinal column, from which there 
 was scarcely a hope of his recovery. The accident 
 had then occurred about two hours, I believe. I or- 
 dered hot flannels, and other means to be used to 
 restore warmth to the body, and to bring about reac- 
 tion. In the course of the day reaction was estab- 
 lished, and there were signs of returning consciousness, 
 evidenced by a groan when aroused. Towards even- 
 
48 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 ing the pulse was so far reestablished as to warrant 
 venesection. In the course of the night he became 
 more conscious, and was sufficiently sensible next day 
 to enable me to ascertain that the serious injury was 
 high up the spine. There was a perfect absence of 
 muscular power, and of sensibility of the skin through- 
 out the body, except in the head and upper part of the 
 neck. The muscular power of the neck was lost also 
 for several days ; but after cupping the back of the 
 neck, and using proper remedies, a capability of mov- 
 ing the head gradually returned. The bladder was 
 paralyzed, and the catheter required/ There was no 
 appearance externally to indicate the precise situation 
 of the injury as to the vertebrae not the slightest 
 irregularity ; but the general symptoms and circum- 
 stances rendered it pretty certain that serious damage 
 had been sustained by the fifth or sixth cervical verte- 
 brae. After some weeks, a certain amount of motive 
 power was restored to the heatl and neck, and sensibil- 
 ity to the same extent ; but the rest of the body (as 
 long as I attended the case) remained perfectly para- 
 lyzed and insensible. I left Coggeshall to go on the 
 Continent, and after five years' absence, on my return 
 was surprised to find the patient Carter still living, and 
 in much the same condition as when I left England.' 
 
 " I, myself (Mr. Hilton then proceeds to say), saw 
 this man several times during the latter period of his 
 life, and these are the few notes I took of his case at 
 the time : . 
 
 " ' Perfect loss of sensation in the lower extremities 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 JOHN CARTER. 49 
 
 and in the upper extremities, except indistinct sensibil- 
 ity on the left side as far as the elbow. Muscles of 
 the left shoulder more developed than the right. Feels 
 distinctly on the left shoulder, and indistinctly on the 
 right shoulder. The left forearm is now flexed ; the 
 thumb is turned into the palm of the hand, and the 
 fingers are bent over it. Right arm nearly straight ; 
 the little and fourth fingers flexed. The hands re- 
 mained open until about six months after the accident, 
 when contraction commenced. No contraction in the 
 feet, except that the right foot is a little flexed. Legs 
 jump a little during the efforts at defecation, and 
 sometimes suddenly without obvious cause. Arms 
 jump, especially the right, during micturition. Bow- 
 els not open without medicine (senna). On some days 
 has peculiar sensations of chillness, becomes pale, 
 and then feels hot and flushed both at defecation and 
 micturition. The more constipated the bowels, the 
 more of these peculiar sensations are experienced. 
 Feels a distinct pain in the bowels occasionally, and 
 now and then an aching in the loins. When sick, 
 vomits with great difficulty. Spine : nothing abnormal 
 to be felt. No costal movements during respiration ; 
 no hiccough. One good meal of meat daily.' 
 
 " This case forms a great encouragement to give 
 every possible care and attention to the treatment of 
 injuries of the spine, with the hope of obtaining the 
 same happy result as occurred in this instance. Ac- 
 cording to the statistical averages, he ought to have | 
 died within a few days after the accident ; but repudi- 
 @ 4 
 
50 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 ating any such illegitimate duty, he lived during four- 
 teen years, and his death occurred from another 
 accident. Whilst being dragged about in a little four- 
 wheel cart by a boy, he was turned over, and as he 
 could not put out his hands to save himself, he fell with 
 great violence to the ground ; this led to some chest 
 affection, which occasioned his death in a few days. 
 His friends would not allow his surgeon, Mr. Nott of 
 Coggeshall, to examine the body, and only upon a very 
 special application, was he permitted to take out the 
 portion of spine which I now send round, just before 
 the removal of the body from the house for the pur- 
 pose of immediate interment, otherwise we should 
 never have known what kind of accident this patient 
 had experienced. 
 
 " In the diagram, or large drawing before you, made 
 from the preparation itself, the bodies and arches of 
 the fifth, sixth, and seventh -cervical vertebrae, are seen 
 blended together by bone ; the body of the sixth ver- 
 tebra is displaced, and projects backwards into the 
 vertebral canal, and no doubt was the cause of the 
 paralysis. It is worthy of notice that the interverte- 
 bral substances have disappeared ; but their outlines 
 are still marked, and their places occupied by bone. 
 The thin, articular laminae of bone usually interposed 
 between the intervertebrai substances and the bodies 
 of the vertebrae are still visible, although the interver- 
 tebrai substance is gone. Every one must admire the 
 perfect and level union by new bone which has taken 
 place at the fore part of the spine ; and if nature 
 
JOHN CARTER. 
 
 Represents a vertical section of J. Carter's spine, including the 
 six lower cervical vertebrae, and the first and second dorsal 
 vertebrae, marked 8 and 9. The 5th, 6th, and yth cervical ver- 
 tebras are seen consolidated by bone, both at their bodies and 
 their arches. 
 
52 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 could have been as effective in the other direction 
 that is, towards the vertebral canal this patient 
 might have lived and perfectly recovered." 
 
 The remarkable physical phenomenon in 
 Carter's case may be thus described : The 
 nature of the original injury appears, from 
 examination, to have been a disturbance of 
 the fifth, sixth, and seventh of the cervical 
 vertebras, which were thrust out into an arch, 
 and the dislocation of the seventh vertebra, 
 by which the column of spinal marrow, 
 without being severed, or perhaps even lac- 
 erated, suffered severe compression, such 
 as to deaden completely the nerves of mo- 
 tion, and sensation, yet not such as to de- 
 stroy, or even damage the nerves connected 
 with the respiratory and digestive systems ; 
 for the functions of life were carried on for 
 a course of years with but very little occa- 
 sional medical assistance ; in fact, marvelous 
 as it may sound to common ears, the injury 
 was of that peculiar nature, that the man 
 may be truly said to have lived fourteen 
 years with a broken neck, and to have ac- 
 quired during that time the singular power 
 
JOHN CARTER. 53 
 
 of executing the very finest line-drawings in 
 existence, by the motion of the head, in the 
 manner particularly described in a former 
 part of this Memoir. 
 
 Carter experienced no sensation of pain 
 in his body or limbs. He might be severely 
 pinched, even till the skin was discolored, 
 without consciousness of pain in any degree ; 
 but he experienced considerable advantage 
 and comfort, when his appetite for food was 
 sluggish, or when he was suffering from ex- 
 haustion, in having his legs gently shaken 
 to stimulate the action of his system. 
 
 There is not, perhaps, on record, a more 
 extensive paralysis of the human frame than 
 this of John Carter ; and the perfect posses- 
 sion of the faculties of the mind, and the 
 fair performance of all the functions of life, 
 under these circumstances, and for a period 
 of fourteen years, together with the success- 
 ful exercise of an extraordinary mechanical 
 power, immediately connected with the seat 
 of the injury, will be an interesting fact to 
 all students of physiology. 
 
 But there are, also, other considerations 
 
54 
 
 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 arising out of this case that cannot fail to 
 strike the attention of the philosophical 
 moralist. It is one of those examples (es- 
 pecially valuable in such times as these) 
 which go far to show that the soul is a 
 spiritual unit, and not the mere concord 
 of numerous animal faculties; for all the 
 moral powers remained unimpaired nay, 
 were refined and exalted by the loss of every- 
 thing short of life. 
 
 Surely the fact that John Carter for four- 
 teen years retained and even increased all 
 his powers of mind and spirit, even when 
 his body was well-nigh dead, may help to 
 show how reasonable, as well as true, it is 
 to believe that the life of the spirit of man 
 depends not upon the life of his body. 
 
 During the winter months John Carter 
 was a close prisoner at home, amusing and 
 improving himself by reading ; for the light 
 in winter time was seldom strong enough to 
 enable him to follow his drawing with satis- 
 faction, or for any length of time. Occa- 
 sional conversations with friends who visited 
 him, the reading of good and useful books, 
 
JOHN CARTER. 55 
 
 and his own regular devotional exercises, 
 which consisted chiefly in mental prayer, 
 and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, 
 formed his chief occupation and delight in 
 the winter ; but when the summer sun shone 
 into his window, he began to feel that he 
 had been shut up, and longed earnestly to 
 be out again, that he might enjoy the beau- 
 ties of nature, of which he was very obser- 
 vant, and for which he had a keen relish ; in 
 this respect he was a true-born, genuine 
 artist ; but above all, that he might enjoy 
 the pleasures of God's House, and take his 
 accustomed place at the celebration of the 
 Holy Eucharist. It was an interesting and 
 affecting sight when he was brought into 
 the parish church at Coggeshall, upon his 
 couch (which was the body of his little car- 
 nage so constructed as to take on and off) 
 and laid in the chancel, where he could par- 
 ticipate with ease in the sacred ordinances of 
 religion. It was delightful and improving 
 to look upon the fine, intelligent counte- 
 nance of this remarkable paralytic, in whom 
 religion seemed to have wrought an un- 
 
56 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 earthly calm, and that humble, tranquil, set- 
 tled hope, which so strongly characterizes 
 devout followers of Christ. 
 
 John Carter had been a member of the 
 Episcopal Church of England, but he had 
 neglected the opportunity of being con- 
 firmed at the customary age. His habits, 
 indeed, at that time, would have been an 
 effectual hindrance had he offered himself a 
 candidate. When, however, the Bishop of 
 London (in whose diocese Coggeshall then 
 was) confirmed for the first time in Cogges- 
 hall Church, Carter earnestly desired the 
 imposition of the bishop's hands. Accord- 
 ingly, in the summer of 1843, he received 
 Confirmation, and it was an interesting cere- 
 mony, as well to the beholders as to himself, 
 and not the least so to the chief pastor of 
 the flock, when he was called upon to go to 
 the place in the church where the poor 
 man lay motionless on his couch, to lay his 
 hands upon him, " to certify him of God's 
 favor and goodness towards him." 
 
 In the summer time he would often be 
 brought into church on week-days, to join 
 
JOHN CARTER. 57 
 
 in the daily prayers, and was at all times a 
 worthy example of reverence and calm de- 
 votion. 
 
 For some years previous to his decease, 
 Carter was sensible of an increasing weak- 
 ness of the chest. His winter cold and 
 cough lasted longer than usual, and more 
 caution became needful in planning for his 
 going out, either to take his airings or to go 
 to church. 
 
 Scarcely had he begun to enjoy his little - 
 rides about the neighborhood of Coggeshall, 
 in the summer of 1850, than an awkward 
 and distressing accident occurred to shorten 
 his days on earth. He was being drawn 
 about on the 2ist May, but thinking to give 
 his sister, Hannah Carter, who was his con- 
 stant, watchful companion, the full enjoy- 
 ment of a favorite walk on a beautiful day, 
 he insisted upon her leaving him, and sent 
 her home across the fields, while he was 
 drawn on the road by a little boy whom he 
 usually engaged for the purpose, and a rela- 
 tive who had come to visit him in the Whit- 
 sun holidays. He watched his sister, anx- 
 
58 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 iously, as long as he could, to see that she 
 was not alarmed at some cattle which were 
 pastured in the field she was crossing ; and 
 in the course of a few minutes, in conse- 
 quence of the boy, who was guiding the car- 
 riage down a slight descent, tripping and 
 losing his power, the carriage was thrown 
 over, and Carter was seriously bruised and 
 shaken by the fall. This severe shock to 
 his whole system, it is supposed, gave an 
 advantage to his old complaint, which found 
 him this time without sufficient stamina to 
 rally. A considerable quantity of extrava- 
 sated blood in the immediate region of the 
 original dislocation, leads plainly to the 
 idea just expressed, that the fall from his 
 chaise, although not the immediate cause of 
 his death, which was from pulmonary affec- 
 tion, very much accelerated it. 
 
 It will not fail to strike the reader as 
 somewhat remarkable, that a fall should 
 have been the occasion of his long afflic- 
 tion ; and that after fourteen years of peril, 
 in which, in the most utter helplessness, he 
 had had to trust himself in many different 
 
JOHN CARTER. 59 
 
 hands, a fall should at last have contributed 
 to his release. How great a work had been 
 wrought between the two accidents ! And 
 this is the consolation. 
 
 The soreness of the bruises passed away, 
 and for a time, Carter felt as if he were re- 
 covering from the effects of his fall. But 
 the great mischief was within, and he soon 
 became sensibly worse. On the evening of 
 Sunday, the second of June, of that year, 
 1850, he expressed to the Rev. W. J. Dam- 
 pier a persuasion that he should not con- 
 tinue long on earth ; reassured him of his 
 deep sense of past sin, but of his humble 
 belief that his iniquities were pardoned and 
 put away for the merits' sake of his Re- 
 deemer, Jesus Christ. Still, the thought of 
 the past, and the thought of sin only, was a 
 pain and trial to his spirit. His repentance, 
 however, had been sincere, his faith was 
 firm, and his hope was fixed ; and therefore, 
 he had the peace of the penitent. He had 
 received the holy communion at church on 
 the Whitsunday, two days before his acci- 
 dent ; and he should have been strengthened 
 
6O A MEMOIR OF 
 
 and comforted yet once again on the Mon- 
 day (3d June), but that he had run out his 
 little span before it was quite expected, and 
 on Sunday evening (2d June), about nine 
 o'clock, he was taken to his rest. He rests, 
 it is believed, in peace. His latter days fur- 
 nish a notable example of the soul's tri- 
 umph amid the body's wreck. 
 
 Himself a singular instance of patience, 
 he prayed for patience ; but when the period 
 of his departure was close at hand, and he 
 found himself entering into his last struggle, 
 he prayed earnestly for help in the awful 
 hour of death. His dying words, which 
 have been carefully preserved with fond re- 
 membrance by his family, were as follows : 
 
 " O Lord, have mercy on me ! Help me through this 
 misery, and lead me in the way everlasting. Help me 
 through the valley of death, and pardon and forgive 
 all my sins ; and receive me into thy heavenly king- 
 dom, O Lord, I beseech thee, for Jesus Christ's sake. 
 Amen. O Lord Jesus, make haste to help me." 
 
 Thus he fell asleep, leaving to his aged 
 parents and affectionate sister a good hope 
 that his prayer was heard. 
 
JOHN CARTER. 6 1 
 
 To sum up, in a few words, the character 
 of this remarkable person. He was intelli- 
 gent, inquiring, thoughtful, and refined ; 
 obliging, humble, grateful for the least kind- 
 nesses, which he would recompense some- 
 times with good words, sometimes with little 
 presents of his drawings ; steadfast of pur- 
 pose, remarkable for his self-possession, not- 
 withstanding a somewhat sensitive nature, 
 and a high degree of nervousness ; charita- 
 ble, reverent, and devout ; but perhaps the 
 most striking features in his character were 
 a love of truth, a singular patience in endur- 
 ing trials and a persistence in accomplishing 
 his purposes. This energy of character may 
 be traced more or less distinctly throughout 
 his life, as far as the writer has been able to 
 present it in this brief memoir ; and one 
 lesson to be learned from the case of this 
 interesting person is, that many a character 
 which appears daring and mischievous in a 
 high degree, has in it those elements which, 
 when brought under the dominion of grace, 
 make it proportionably strong in all that is 
 great and good. 
 
62 A MEMOIR OF 
 
 The writer cannot close these pages with- 
 out adding one or two extracts from an arti- 
 cle which appeared in the New York " Daily 
 Tribune" of the i4th May, 1868, on John 
 Carter and his works ; it is most ably and 
 feelingly written the remarks so apposite 
 and true, that they cannot fail to recommend 
 themselves to every thoughtful reader. 
 
 (The article itself will be found in full, 
 amongst the Press Notices at the end of 
 this volume.) 
 
 . . . ." " An inspiring sermon, teaching lessons 
 of faith, and hope, and constancy ; of sweetness and hu- 
 mility joined to an invincible courage and self-reliance, 
 such as to read ought to put strength into the weakest 
 heart that shrinks frightened and disheartened from its 
 appointed lot in life. Nor ought it less to shame those 
 to whom strength and opportunity are given, but who, 
 in the possession of all their faculties of body and 
 mind, with sound limbs and perfect senses, still find a 
 lion in every path, and are tripped by every straw." 
 
 . . . . " It is beside a revelation of the power of 
 the human mind to rise above the afflictions and wounds 
 of the flesh ; to turn calamity itself into a blessing ; 
 and with a body hanging on the very verge of the 
 grave, to conceive an impossible task, and pursue it 
 
JOHN CARTER. 63 
 
 unwearied, uncomplaining, and undaunted, through 
 fourteen years of death-in-life 
 
 . . . . " We see the steps by which the artist 
 reached its height, and hail again in poor, igno- 
 rant, maimed John Carter, the glorious energy, the 
 will, the devotion that has so often shined with divine 
 fire in the history of man, and whose manifestation 
 in him, allies this humble peasant boy with the 
 noble ones of his race. It is the old story of faith 
 that removes mountains. The sublime lesson written 
 on the ages that there is no difficulty so great that per- 
 severing energy cannot conquer, no goal so distant nor 
 so high that the unwearied foot and untiring heart can- 
 not reach it 
 
 . . . . " All the good in his nature, all the 
 seeds of manly virtue that his poor, hard, unlovely 
 life of yesterday had kept from quickening, sprang 
 up and made the humble cottage in which he lived 
 as holy as the cell of any saint. A sweet patience 
 made complaint or repining a thing unknown ; his 
 cheerful gratitude for any help of word or deed, 
 made helping him or teaching him a pleasure ; and 
 when his mind, searching all about for something to 
 busy itself with, lighted on this plan of drawing, it was 
 wonderful to see the energy, the ingenuity, the uncon- 
 querable pluck with which this young man, who had 
 never in all his life done more in that way than is done 
 by hundreds of idle boys with pencils and chalk on 
 their books and slates, set himself to work to learn to 
 draw, and persevered until he drew like a master. 
 
64 A MEMOIR OF JOHN CARTER. 
 
 11 A hymn to Poverty, a hymn to Affliction and 
 Calamity! Riches and Health and Prosperity shut 
 the doors of heaven, and blind us to our best selves. 
 But these rude-seeming ministers are man's true 
 saviours, and to many, though to few in the same de- 
 gree as to John Carter, a real life a life of the spirit 
 has been made possible under circumstances most 
 cruel and adverse, and good has come out of evil." 
 
NOTICES AND OPINIONS 
 
 EXPRESSED BY THE PUBLIC PRESS OF BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND 
 PORTLAND, HAVING REFERENCE TO THE PICTURE OF " A RAT- 
 CATCHER WITH HIS DOGS," DRAWN BY MEANS OF THE MOUTH, 
 BY JOHN CARTER. 
 
 BOSTON. 
 
 THE EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF JOHN CARTER. It 
 is difficult to conceive a more extraordinary case in all 
 its bearings, than that of the late John Carter, a native 
 of the town of Coggeshall, in the county of Essex, Eng- 
 land who, by means of his mouth alone, executed one 
 or two of the most beautiful drawings in existence. 
 The following is a correct, though brief, memoir of his 
 life. He was the son of a common laborer at Cogge- 
 shall, in Essex, England, and, when a boy, received the 
 very limited education which parish schools, in villages 
 such as Coggeshall, usually afford ; that is to say, Car- 
 ter acquired, in a very imperfect manner, the rudiments 
 of reading and writing. He then became a silk-weaver 
 by trade, which he followed up to May, 1836, when he 
 reached the age of twenty-one years the opening 
 time, so to say, of his most extraordinary career ! 
 
 It is essential here to remark that, at this time (May, 
 1836), he had, from carelessness and bad habits, all but 
 lost the very small modicum of learning formerly gained 
 ! 5 i 
 
66 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 at the parish school ; he could neither read nor write, 
 with anything approaching to correctness ; as to the 
 art of drawing or designing of any kind, he had not the 
 remotest idea, then, of either the one or the other. 
 
 In May, 1836, Carter, in company with one or two 
 dissolute companions, went to Holfield, the estate of 
 the late Osgood Hanbury, a well known banker of Lon- 
 don, for the purpose of stealing young rooks from the 
 rookery on that estate (this was at night-time) ; when 
 he met with an accident by falling from the top of a fir- 
 tree, not less than forty feet high. 
 
 He was carried by his comrades home to his wife in 
 a state of insensibility. The parish doctor was sent 
 for, who pronounced that, though not actually dead 
 (as his companions and wife had supposed), yet that 
 he could not linger beyond an hour or so, at most. 
 He partially recovered, however, when it was found 
 that he had sustained an injury in the spine, which en- 
 tirely deprived him of the use of his limbs. From that 
 time forward, up to the day of his death (which took 
 place fourteen years subsequently, in 1850), he was, 
 physically speaking, never anything other than a use- 
 less, impotent trunk ; without power of motion, or feel- 
 ing in any of his limbs, or, indeed, in any part of his 
 body, save his head and neck. 
 
 The powers of speech, sight, and hearing were mer- 
 cifully preserved to him ; otherwise he was, to all in- 
 tents and purposes, as a dead man ; utterly helpless, 
 dependent for every want on the kind and tender care 
 of his wife, who, to the day of her death (which took 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 67 
 
 place four years and a half after the accident), soothed 
 and comforted him under his trial with the utmost de- 
 votion. Kind friends also came to his aid, amongst 
 whom may be named, specially, the late Osgood Han- 
 bury, and the members of his family, and the late 
 Richard Meredith White, Esq., of Highfields, near 
 Coggeshall. 
 
 About a year after the accident a lady brought a 
 little book to Carter, containing an account of a young 
 woman who, having lost the use of her hands, had 
 amused herself by drawing, by the aid of her mouth ! 
 This account interested Carter intensely. From a 
 careless, ignorant young man, he had changed into an 
 earnest, devout, and, all things considered, a very intel- 
 ligent being. He resolved to try and do the same, in 
 the way of learning to draw with his mouth ! 
 
 After long and persevering efforts, he managed to 
 copy flowers and butterflies, in water-colors, but not 
 long afterwards adopted a better style. His method 
 was to sketch the outline very accurately with a pencil, 
 then shade them in the manner of a line engraving, in 
 Indian ink, with a camel's hair brush. 
 
 From the time of the accident till his death, he re- 
 clined upon a sort of couch, capable of being drawn 
 hither and thither, and upon which he was moved 
 about. Resting upon this couch, he had his paper 
 fixed to a desk, which was placed almost perpendicular- 
 ly before, and in close proximity to his face. With his 
 head inclined towards the right side, and with his hair 
 pencil between his teeth, he produced, by means of 
 
68 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 the motion of his neck, assisted by his lips and tongue, 
 the most beautifully turned strokes, rivaling, in fact, 
 the greatest proficients in the art of drawing. 
 
 It would, at first sight, appear incredible that the 
 drawing which we have seen, and now more particu- 
 larly allude to (" A Rat-catcher with his Dogs "), could 
 have been done by any one not in possession of that 
 very essential qualification to the production of such 
 a work, " the use of his hands " a qualification, 
 however, which Carter did not in the smallest degree 
 possess. 
 
 His method was, for his wife or sister (or whoever 
 was in attendance upon him at the time) to fill his 
 brush with Indian ink from a palette, and place it 
 between his teeth, when Carter would, by a curious 
 muscular action of his lips and tongue, twirl the brush 
 round with a great velocity, until he had thrown off 
 all superfluous ink and brought the brush to a very 
 fine point. He would then execute the finest and most 
 wonderfully delicate strokes by means of the action of 
 his neck, etc., as just stated. There are but few of 
 Carter's works extant: one is in possession of the 
 Queen of England, another formerly belonged to the 
 late Queen Dowager, of England, one to the late Mr. 
 Hanbury, and one to the late Mr. White. Save these, 
 we know of none except this, his chef d'ceuvre, now 
 before us. 
 
 His health prevented a close application to his art, 
 though he learned to love it intensely, yet of necessity 
 it was a work of much labor, toil, and patience to him, 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 69 
 
 a considerable space of time intervening between each 
 stroke of his brush. All the latent energies of his 
 mind and faculties of body (crippled and confined 
 though they were) appear, per force, to have concen- 
 trated themselves in the sense of a wonderful sight, 
 and a touch with the tongue so delicate as to be mi- 
 raculous. From an ignorant worker in a factory, he 
 became a great, self-taught artist, and that, too, under 
 the most difficult and trying circumstances possible to 
 conceive. 
 
 During his lifetime, John Carter was an object of 
 almost as great interest to the leading members of the 
 medical profession of Great Britain as he was to her 
 chief artists. To the one branch of science it seemed 
 surprising how a man in such a state of bodily infirmity 
 should exist so long ; to the other, a matter of even 
 greater wonder how an ignorant man, totally unlearned 
 in the very rudiments of art, dispossessed of every 
 faculty apparently necessary for its successful prosecu- 
 tion, should yet, in spite of such overwhelming odds, 
 rise, in the brief space of but a few years, to bear favor- 
 able comparison with the best living artists of his day ! 
 These facts may seem paradoxical ; they are no less 
 true. Daily Evening Traveller , Oct. 5, 1867. 
 
 JOHN CARTER'S "RAT-CATCHER WITH HIS DOGS." 
 The little drawing by John Carter, called "A Rat- 
 catcher with his Dogs," briefly noticed in our columns 
 the other day, and now on exhibition at Williams & 
 
70 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 Everett's, is remarkable in more ways than one. The 
 attention of the public has been closely drawn, in 
 connection with this drawing, to the history of the 
 draughtsman and to the terrible accident which made 
 him an artist ; but his work, if this may be taken as a 
 fair specimen of it, can stand upon its own merits, and 
 would do credit to one who had the perfect use of his 
 hands, as well as to one who made shift to labor with 
 teeth, lips, and tongue alone. 
 
 The figure of the gray-haired old rat-catcher, who 
 sits on a bank over a rat-hole, with his hat pulled down 
 over his eyes, is admirable ; nothing, in particular, could 
 be more expressive than its pose ; and all that can be 
 seen of the face is brimful of the liveliest suggestion. 
 But the old man's faithful assistants four genuine 
 wide-awake rat-terriers are the most interesting fea- 
 tures of the sketch. There is life in every line, from 
 the ends of their powerful little muzzles to the extrem- 
 ities of their short, stiff, expectant tails. It is curious, 
 too, to observe how their characters are discriminated 
 in the drawing. Two are in a state of wild excitement 
 over their rat-hole, particularly the one in the fore- 
 ground, who has thrown his head and part of his body 
 over a log to peer into the recess. These two are evi- 
 dently of a nervous temperament and of a very differ- 
 ent pattern from the stern little dog on the left, who 
 unites high courage with caution ; while the fourth 
 puppy of the lot seems somewhat timid and is mani- 
 festly new to the business. We may add that all the 
 accessories of the drawing are cleverly done, and that 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 71 
 
 the work will repay a careful examination. Daily 
 Advertiser, Oct. 23, 1867. 
 
 THE VILLAGE RAT-CATCHER. The public for the 
 last few days have examined with much curiosity and 
 interest, a work of art at Williams & Everett's entitled 
 the Village Rat-catcher. It is the production of one 
 John Carter, an Englishman, a poor, crippled silk- 
 weaver, upon whom misfortune descended with a ter- 
 rible blow. Though a drawing, it has the appearance 
 of an engraving. The wonder of the production is 
 that it was drawn with the mouth. Carter, in May, 1836, 
 in company with dissolute companions, with whom 
 he was then a hail-fellow, went on an expedition to 
 steal young rooks, on the estate of Osgood Hanbury, 
 a banker of London. He accidentally fell from a fir- 
 tree, forty feet in height. This casualty entirely de- 
 prived him of the use of his limbs. He was, until he 
 died in 1850, hardly more than a useless trunk, with- 
 out power of motion and without feeling in any part of 
 his body, except his head and neck. A visitor, about 
 a year after this disabling paralysis, loaned him a book 
 containing an account of a young woman who, losing 
 the use of her hands, amused herself by drawing with 
 her mouth. This account interested Carter, and he 
 determined to try and do the same thing. After long- 
 continued efforts he succeeded, by slow degrees, in 
 becoming marveloiisly efficient. " Resting upon his 
 couch he had his paper fixed to a desk, which was 
 
72 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 placed almost perpendicularly before and in close prox- 
 imity to his face. With his head inclined towards the 
 right side, and with his hair pencil between his teeth, 
 he produced, by means of the motion of his neck, as- 
 sisted by his lips and tongue, the most beautifully 
 turned strokes, rivaling, in fact, the greatest profi- 
 cients in the art of drawing." His wife or sister as- 
 sisted him only by filling the brush from the palette 
 with Indian ink, and placing it between his lips, he con- 
 tinuing to twirl it rapidly round so as to bring it to a 
 fine point for use. He first outlined or sketched his 
 composition, and then filled in and shaded it after the 
 manner of a line engraving. The present drawing has 
 always been owned by the English gentleman who has 
 put it, as a curiosity, on free exhibition. It came into 
 his hands as a gift, and there is no doubt of its genuine- 
 ness or the truth of the account of its origin. It will 
 thus be seen that great interest attaches to the produc- 
 tion. The picture represents an old man surrounded 
 by traps and dogs, and the whole is full of spirit and 
 purpose. It should be seen by all. Post, Oct. 26, 
 1867. 
 
 A WORK OF ART AND A WONDER. Visitors to 
 Williams & Everett's will find there an exquisite little 
 drawing which they will at first be pretty sure to mis- 
 take for a fine engraving. It represents the Village 
 Rat-catcher and his dogs, and tells its own story at a 
 glance. The picture may be regarded as quite perfect. 
 The old man's face beams with a satisfied smile at the 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 73 
 
 success of his operations, and his whole attitude and ex- 
 pression are full of the reality of life. The terriers in 
 various positions and with diverse characters are ad- 
 mirably rendered, and the same may be said of all the 
 curious and grotesque and picturesque accessories. 
 The grouping is admirable, and the entire execution 
 pervaded by delicacy, grace, and accuracy. The 
 closest study of details only brings out the varied 
 excellences of this singularly felicitous production, 
 abounding as they do in spirit and marked as they are 
 by the touch of genius. Simply considered as a work 
 of art, it might be coveted by anybody for its unques- 
 tionable merits. 
 
 But it is more than a work of art ; it is a wonder, for 
 it is the chef d'mivre of an untaught, poor, crippled 
 silk-weaver, who drew and painted it with his mouth 
 alone, without instruction and without assistance ! It 
 is one of the results of his artistic impulses and his 
 constant, patient, unwearying experiments and dili- 
 gence. This seems incredible ; but such we are assured 
 is the strange fact. It has always been owned by the 
 English gentleman who has put it, as a curiosity, on free 
 exhibition. It came into his hands as a gift, and there 
 is no doubt of its genuineness, or the truth of the ac- 
 count of its origin. Besides this, only four of John 
 Carter's (for that is the artist's name) productions are 
 known to exist ; and one of those is in the possession 
 of Queen Victoria. 
 
 John Carter was the son of a common laborer, in 
 Coggeshall, Essex county, England. His only instruc- 
 
74 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 tion the rudiments of reading and writing was 
 obtained at the parish school. He* never had a lesson 
 in drawing or designing of any kind. In May, 1836, 
 in company with dissolute companions, with whom he 
 was then a hail fellow, he went on an expedition to 
 steal young rooks, on the estate of Osgood Hanbury, a 
 banker of London. He accidentally fell from a fir-tree 
 forty feet in height. This casualty entirely deprived 
 him of the use of his limbs. He was, until he died in 
 1850, hardly more than a useless trunk, without power 
 of motion and without feeling in any part of his body 
 except his head and neck. A visitor, about a year 
 after this disabling paralysis, loaned him a book con- 
 taining an account of a young woman who, losing the 
 use of her hands, amused herself by drawing with her 
 mouth. This account interested Carter, and he de- 
 termined to try and do the same thing. After long- 
 continued efforts, he succeeded, by slow degrees, in 
 becoming marvelously efficient " Resting upon his 
 couch, he had his paper fixed to a desk, which was 
 placed almost perpendicularly before and in close prox- 
 imity to his face. With his head inclined towards the 
 right side, and with his hair pencil between his teeth, 
 he produced, by means of the motion of his neck, as- 
 sisted by his lips and tongue, the most beautifully- 
 turned strokes, rivaling, in fact, the greatest proficients 
 in the art of drawing." His wife or sister assisted him 
 only by filling the brush from the palette with India 
 ink, and placing it between his lips, he continuing to 
 twirl it rapidly round so as to bring it to a fine point 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 75 
 
 for use. He first outlined or sketched his composition, 
 and then filled in and shaded it after the manner of a 
 line engraving. 
 
 Had we the space, much more might be told of this 
 remarkable case. Carter was, as well as he might be, 
 an object of great interest to the medical profession 
 and leading artists of Great Britain, who knew of his 
 condition and his works ; and it is safe to say that any 
 one of the former might be very glad to claim, if he 
 could, the old " Rat-catcher " as his own. The reader 
 may think that we have unconsciously exaggerated the 
 worth of this picture, considered simply as a picture. 
 Such is not the fact, if we can trust the testimony of 
 Landseer and other painters, and of engravers who 
 have mistaken it for a line engraving. Evening Tran- 
 script^ Oct. 23, 1867. 
 
 A DRAWING by the late John Carter, of England, 
 called " A Rat-catcher and His Dogs," is now on ex- 
 hibition at Messrs. Williams & Everett's, in this city. 
 Carter was a silk-weaver, without education ; by in- 
 juries received from falling from a tree, his body below 
 his neck became paralyzed. He lived for eighteen 
 years in this condition without the use of his limbs, 
 and learned to draw with wonderful skill, holding the 
 brush in his mouth. The drawing alluded to is con- 
 sidered his chef-d'oeuvre. Commonwealth , Oct. 26, 
 1867. 
 
76 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 THE wonderful drawing of John Carter, to which we 
 alluded in our issue of the 5th inst, in a brief sketch 
 which we then gave of the life of that extraordinary 
 man, is to be seen at Williams & Everett's, 234 
 Washington street. The exhibition is free, and one 
 which, we venture to say, all lovers of art, no less than 
 intelligent persons of every grade, must highly appre- 
 ciate. An opportunity is now presented to the citi- 
 zens of Boston, of seeing a marvel of art, which takes 
 its stand in the very highest place which such a treas- 
 ure commands. Of its class and kind we think it per- 
 fectly unique, and without a rival either in this or any 
 other country. Evening Traveller, Oct. 26, 1867. 
 
 THE wonderful drawing of the old " Rat-catcher," 
 on exhibition at Williams & Everett's, has a queer 
 history. The grouping is admirable, and the entire 
 execution pervaded by delicacy, grace, and accuracy. 
 Simply considered as a work of art, it might be coveted 
 by anybody for its unquestionable merits. It is the 
 work of an untaught, crippled silk-weaver, who drew it 
 with his mouth alone. John Carter was the son of a 
 common weaver in Coggeshall, Essex county, England. 
 His only instruction the rudiments of reading and 
 writing was obtained at the parish school. He 
 never had a lesson in drawing or designing of any 
 kind. In May, 1836, in company with dissipated com- 
 panions, with whom he was then a hail fellow, he went 
 on an expedition to steal young rooks, on the estate of 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 Osgood Hanbury, a banker of London. He accident- 
 ally fell from a fir-tree forty feet in height. This cas- 
 ualty entirely deprived him of the use of his limbs. He 
 was, until he died in 1850, hardly more than a useless 
 trunk, without power of motion and without feeling in 
 any part of his body except his head and neck. A 
 visitor, about a year after this disabling paralysis, 
 loaned him a book containing an account of a young 
 woman who, losing the use of her hands, amused her- 
 self by drawing with her mouth. This account inter- 
 ested Carter, and he determined to try and do the 
 same thing. After long-continued efforts, he succeeded 
 by slow degrees in becoming marvelously efficient. 
 " Resting upon his couch, he had his paper fixed to a 
 desk, which was placed almost perpendicularly before 
 and in close proximity to his face. With his head in- 
 clined towards the right side, and with his hair pencil 
 between his teeth, he produced, by means of the mo- 
 tion of his neck, assisted by his lips and tongue, the 
 most beautifully-turned strokes, rivaling, in fact, the 
 greatest proficients in the art of drawing." His wife 
 or sister assisted him only by filling the brush from 
 the palette with Indian ink, and placing it between his 
 lips. He continued to twirl it rapidly round so as to 
 bring it to a fine point for use. He first outlined or 
 sketched his composition and then filled in and shaded 
 it after the manner of a line engraving. Common- 
 wealth, Nov. 1 6, 1867. 
 
78 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 A WONDER OF ART. Our attention has been called 
 to a very remarkable piece of work now on exhibition 
 at the picture establishment of Williams & Everett, in 
 Washington street. It is a small drawing in India ink, 
 the style being that of a line engraving, and represents 
 a man with four terrier dogs unearthing rats, and 
 several rats lying speechless in the back-ground. The 
 delineation, even to the hair of the dogs and rats, is, as 
 far as our eye can distinguish, simply perfect, and 
 brimful of the liveliest expression. As seen by the 
 naked eye, the workmanship would do credit to any 
 artist who had the full use of all his organs and facul- 
 ties ; and we are told that even a powerful magnifier 
 ^ fails to detect the least blemish in the firm yet delicate 
 lining. And the wonder of the thing is, that it was 
 all done with the mouth and tongue, the author's whole 
 body being paralyzed, with the exception of the head 
 and neck. 
 
 It is the work of an Englishman, John Carter by 
 name, and a silk-weaver by trade, whose education in 
 his boyhood had not gone beyond the rudiments of 
 reading and writing. In drawing or designing of any 
 sort he had no practice nor knowledge whatever, nor 
 even any idea of them. At the age of about twenty-one 
 he went one night, with some companions, to poaching 
 from a rookery in the neighborhood, when he caught a 
 fall from the top of a fir-tree some forty feet high. His 
 spinal cord, as it afterwards proved, was fatally injured 
 just at the base of the neck. He was carried home in- 
 sensible, and nobody supposed he could live ; never- 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 79 
 
 theless he did survive for fourteen years, his entire 
 frame below the neck being all the while locked up in 
 a paralysis, without any sensibility or the slightest 
 power of voluntary motion. About a year after the 
 accident, a lady presented him with a book giving an 
 account of a young woman who, having lost the use of 
 her hands, had amused herself with drawing with her 
 mouth. He became much interested, and resolved on 
 trying to do the same. His first essays were in copying 
 flowers and butterflies in water-colors, but it was not 
 long before he proceeded to a higher style. His whole 
 vital force seemed to concentrate itself in his head and 
 face, his senses becoming wonderfully delicate and 
 acute, and the muscles of his mouth and tongue capa- 
 ble of the swiftest and exactest motions. Reclining on 
 a couch, he had his paper fixed to a desk which was 
 placed nearly in an upright position close to his face. 
 His attendant would then fill his camel's hair brush 
 with India ink, and put it between his teeth. This 
 done, he would then, by a curious action of his lips and 
 tongue, twirl the brush round with great swiftness till 
 he brought it to a very fine point, and got rid of all 
 superfluous ink. He would then, by the motions of 
 his neck and mouth, execute the finest and most ex- 
 quisite strokes, " rivaling, in fact, the greatest profi- 
 cients in the art of drawing." 
 
 The " Rat-catcher with his Dogs," which is said to 
 be Mr. Carter's best performance, is a piece of surpass- 
 ing excellence and beauty in itself ; but, considering 
 the circumstances in which it was produced, it is alto- 
 
8O NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 gether the most wonderful specimen of art-work that 
 we have ever seen. We understand the picture is to 
 be photographed. It is owned, we believe, by an Eng- 
 lish gentleman who has lately come to this country and 
 is now living in the vicinity of Boston. Gazette, Dec. 
 i, 1867. 
 
 WILLIAMS & EVERETT have published a very fine 
 photograph of the picture which has attracted so much 
 attention at their rooms "A Rat-catcher with his 
 Dogs." The picture is the work of Mr. John Carter, 
 who, in early life, lost the use his limbs, and subse- 
 quently acquired the art of drawing with his mouth. 
 The " Rat-catcher" is his best work : it is truly a 
 wonderful picture, when the manner of its execution is 
 considered. Journal, Dec. 7, 1867. 
 
 " THE RAT-CATCHER AND HIS DOGS." This is the 
 name of a drawing in Indian ink, which has been on 
 exhibition at Williams & Everett's (234 Washington 
 Street), for the last month. As a picture it would do 
 credit to any artist ; but the remarkable thing about it 
 is, that it is the work of a poor paralytic, without any 
 power of motion except in his head and neck. This 
 man, moreover, was, before the accident which so dis- 
 abled him, a poor silk-weaver in the county of Essex, 
 England, who scarcely knew how to read and write. 
 By persevering efforts he learned to draw with his 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 8 I 
 
 mouth, and with so much skill that his drawings are 
 not only curiosities, but works of art. 
 
 John Carter died in 1850, at the age of thirty-five. 
 He was fourteen years a cripple. There are not many 
 of his drawings extant. Of these one is in the posses- 
 sion of the Queen of England. The " Rat-catcher and 
 his Dogs " belongs to a gentleman in the vicinity of 
 Boston. Williams & Everett have had it photographed, 
 and so admirably, that in point of delicacy and beauty 
 there is little to choose between the copies and the 
 original. Gazette, Dec. 8, 1867. 
 
 WE noticed at some length, several months ago, the 
 chef-d'oeuvre of John Carter, "A Rat-catcher with his 
 Dogs," drawn with the brush held in the mouth. The 
 gentleman who owns it has caused it to be photo- 
 graphed. The work has been done under his imme- 
 diate supervision, and has been attended with a success 
 really remarkable. The picture is very neat and 
 taking, and we can assure the incredulous that Carter 
 would have been very highly esteemed as an artist, 
 even if he had worked with his hands. Daily Adver- 
 tiser, Dec. 9, 1867. 
 
 FINE ARTS. We draw the attention of our readers 
 to an advertisement from Williams & Everett, the well 
 known publishers, announcing that " The Extraordi- 
 nary Picture of ' A Rat-catcher with his Dogs,' drawn 
 by means of the mouth, by John Carter, has been most 
 3 6 \ 
 
82 
 
 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 successfully Photographed." * To add our testimony to 
 this fact, without further comment, would be doing but 
 bare justice ; that the photograph is a great success, is 
 unquestionable ; it appears, moreover, worthy of the 
 original picture which it represents ; it is difficult to 
 express greater praise than that, for Carter's drawing 
 stands, and ever has stood, in our estimation, as a 
 marvelous production, unique, and unrivaled. The 
 photograph now offered to the public will be found, we 
 think, to justify the pains and expense bestowed upon 
 it in order to produce a work of art equal to the occa- 
 sion, and at the same time at such a price as to be 
 within reach of all. Evening Traveller, Dec. 14, 1867. 
 
 THAT astonishing drawing of John Carter's, executed 
 by means of the mouth alone, "A Rat-catcher and 
 his Dogs," which has been so successfully photo- 
 graphed, is on sale at Messrs. Williams & Everett's. It 
 seems almost beyond belief that anything so elaborate 
 as the original, rivaling in the great delicacy of its ex- 
 ecution the finest line engravings, could be accom- 
 plished without the aid of hands, but of this there 
 cannot be the slightest doubt. The following extract 
 from a letter to the owner of the original drawing, 
 dated " Upton, near Forest Gate, Essex, England, 
 Dec. 19, 1867," from John Mills, Esq., the well known 
 author of " The Old English Gentleman," " The Sports- 
 man's Library," " Our County," and many other stand- 
 ard works on sporting matters, gives some information 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 83 
 
 not only in reference to the picture itself, but to Car- 
 ter, which will be read with interest : " With regard to 
 John Carter and the drawing made by him of the ' Rat- 
 catcher,' I can only state that I gave him the order to 
 make it for you in the year that I was married, 1849. 
 That I myself saw him engaged in the work, and upon 
 completion I presented it to you. He was born in 
 Coggeshall, met with the accident in stealing rooks 
 from Holfield Grange, Coggeshall, which deprived 
 him of the total use of his limbs, and died at Cogge- 
 shall, in the county of Essex, 1850. I do not know the 
 exact date of his death j but the present Vicar of 
 Coggeshall, the Rev. J. W. Dampier, buried him, and 
 would, upon application, give you further particulars. 
 His life and strange method of drawing with his mouth, 
 was published in the " Illustrated London News," and is 
 a matter of history. Singular to relate, the immediate 
 cause of his death was from being thrown out of an 
 invalid chair, in which, occasionally, he used to be 
 drawn about the neighborhood." The photograph is a 
 splendid specimen of the art, reflects the original very 
 faithfully, and should be in the possession of all lovers 
 of the extraordinary in art. Evening Traveller, Jan. 
 2, 1868. 
 
 JOHN CARTER AND "A RAT-CATCHER AND HIS 
 DOGS." Some who have seen this remarkable, almost 
 marvelous production, have, naturally enough, made 
 two mistakes. They have failed to appreciate its 
 wonderful execution, under the impression that it is 
 
84 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 only wonderful as the work of a paralytic, and not in 
 itself considered. Then it has seemed too great a 
 draft upon their credulity to ask them to believe that 
 such a picture could have been drawn and finished by 
 an ignorant and crippled peasant, as is alleged. The 
 first of these errors is met by a study of the drawing. 
 To remove the other, the following statement, contain- 
 ing facts additional to those already made public, 
 which we are assured is strictly true in every respect, 
 has been handed to us. The reader will see how con- 
 clusive and satisfactory it is : 
 
 The owner of the picture is Mr. F. J. Mills, an 
 Englishman, at present residing at Lynn, who brought 
 it to this country from the Cape of Good Hope in 
 August last, and has had it in his possession in that 
 colony for the last nineteen years, namely, since 1849. 
 The Memoir of John Carter's life, already published 
 (and which is given with each photograph of the pic- 
 ture), taken from the account written by the Rev. 
 Philip Honey wood, then Rector of Coggeshall (Car- 
 ter's parish), in the county of Essex, England, alludes 
 to Richard Meredith White, Esq., of Highfields, 
 Coggeshall, and Osgood Hanbury, Esq., of Holfield 
 Grange, Coggeshall, as two in particular, amongst 
 many kind friends that Carter possessed ; it is not* 
 generally known, however, that these two gentlemen 
 mainly, if not entirely, supported Carter and his family. 
 It was in a cottage on the estate " Highfields," a 
 cottage given to him by Mr. White, that Carter lived 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 85 
 
 from the time of his accident in May, 1836, until he 
 met with his untimely death in 1850. 
 
 In 1847 Mr. John Mills, a brother of the Mr. F. J. 
 Mills just spoken of, expressed a wish to Carter that 
 he would execute a drawing for him. Carter had at 
 that time just reached the zenith of his wondrous skill. 
 He had completed one small picture of " Our Saviour 
 on the Cross," for the Queen of England ; a duplicate 
 of the same subject for the late Queen Dowager of 
 England ; the portrait of a favorite spaniel for Mr. 
 Hanbury ; and for Mr. White the likeness of his favorite 
 riding horse. In compliance with Mr. John Mills' 
 wish, no less than to mark a happy event which was to 
 take place in Mr. White's family (the marriage of Mr. 
 White's daughter to Mr. John Mills), Carter exerted 
 himself to accomplish his beautiful picture of the " Rat- 
 catcher with his Dogs." To be present at his brother's 
 wedding, which took place at Coggeshall, in June, 
 1849, Mr. F. J. Mills went from the Cape of Good 
 Hope to England, and it was then that he received 
 from his brother John tjie gift of this exquisite picture. 
 He again left England in September, 1849, to reside 
 permanently in the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 
 and carried the picture with him. 
 
 Thus this great work of art has remained in its pres- 
 ent owner's possession from the time of its completion. 
 The remote part of the world in which it has been 
 placed for this length of time, explains fully and truly 
 how it happened that a work of art so marvelously 
 beautiful, so deserving of a foremost place in the es- 
 
86 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 teem and knowledge of the public, should have re- 
 mained comparatively unknown up to the present time. 
 To Boston belongs the privilege of being the very first 
 place to bring it into public notice ; as it was at the 
 request of a few friends of Mr. F. J. Mills here that he 
 placed it in the hands of Williams & Everett for free 
 exhibition, and very recently has allowed it to be pho- 
 tographed. 
 
 In a letter received a few days ago, Mr. John Mills 
 makes the following remark to his brother touching 
 Carter's picture. The letter is dated "Upton, near 
 Forest Gate, Essex, Dec. 19, 1867," and is in reply to 
 one written from Lynn saying that some persons here 
 seemed to doubt the truth of the strange, eventful his- 
 tory connected with John Carter and his picture. Mr. 
 John Mills writes as follows : " With regard to John 
 Carter and the drawing made by him of the f Rat- 
 catcher,' I can only say that I gave him the order to 
 make it for you ; that it was completed in the year that 
 I was married, 1849, that I myself saw him engaged on 
 the work, and upon completion I presented it to you. 
 He was born in Coggeshall, met with the accident in 
 stealing rooks from ' Holfield Grange,' Coggeshall, 
 which deprived him of the total use of his limbs, and 
 he died at Coggeshall, in the county of Essex, 1850. 
 I do not know the exact date of his death ; but the 
 present Vicar of Coggeshall, the Rev. J. W. Dampier, 
 buried him, and would, upon application, give you fur- 
 ther particulars. His life and strange method of draw- 
 ing with his mouth was published, I think, in the 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS 87" 
 
 ' Illustrated London News,' and is a matter of history. 
 Singular to relate, the immediate cause of his death 
 was from being thrown out of an invalid chair, in which, 
 occasionally, he used to be drawn about the neighbor- 
 hood. A little boy was dragging him up a hill called 
 the ' Market Hill,' in Coggeshall, when it overpowered 
 him from the weight, and running back, Carter was 
 turned over and so much injured from the shock that 
 he died shortly afterwards. Such is fate ! " 
 
 The writer of the letter from which this extract is 
 taken is the same John Mills, who, as an author, 
 is well and favorably known amongst British sports- 
 men. His work entitled " The Sportsman's Library " 
 is a standard one of reference in the " Old Coun- 
 try," and other productions of his pen, as " The Old 
 English Gentleman," " The Stage Coach," " The 
 Old Hall," " The English Fireside," " Our County," 
 etc., etc., are books much read and enjoyed by all 
 lovers of sport " by flood and field." To attempt to 
 show how Carter became a really great artist how 
 from an uneducated, poor, ignorant silk-weaver, de- 
 prived of the use of every limb by paralysis, he was 
 able to draw, by means of his mouth, with a style of 
 nearly perfect finish and precision ; to reason or to 
 theorize upon the " why and wherefore " of all this ; 
 and more, as to how he was gifted with the accurate 
 perception necessary to delineate in true proportion 
 and perspective the human form divine, besides animals, 
 such as dogs and horses, all with an exactitude, and 
 with anatomical proportions simply perfect, is beyond 
 
88 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 our power. But here is the fact. Carter, brought down 
 to the lowest level to which it is possible to conceive a 
 once strong and hale man could be brought (a useless 
 trunk, with sense to see and comprehend his own utter 
 helplessness), did, by force of what we call genius, 
 manifest almost spontaneously the highest qualities of 
 an artist, as is testified by those most competent to 
 judge of success. Evening Transcript, Jan. 7, 1868. 
 
 CARTER'S "RAT-CATCHER WITH HIS DOGS." The 
 wonderful drawing by John Carter of the " Rat-catcher 
 with his Dogs," at Williams & Everett's, continues to 
 attract much attention and admiration. An artist of 
 high standing and an unquestionable critic in these 
 matters, remarked a day or two since that if this pro- 
 duction had come from the studio of a leading artist it 
 would be considered the finest work of art of its kind 
 in the world. The more thoroughly the work is ex- 
 amined the more wonderful it appears. Viewed 
 through a magnifying glass its construction and execu- 
 tion is even still more wonderful. That a man, who, 
 until long after the terrible accident that befell him, 
 knew nothing whatever of art as a matter of fact he 
 could neither read nor write should, by the use of 
 his mouth alone, in which the brush was placed, elab- 
 orate so exquisite an achievement, would be incredible 
 were it not established as a fact by the amplest evi- 
 dence. It is only another evidence that man has re- 
 sources which are never dreamed of, and which some- 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 89 
 
 times are never developed ; except as in this case, under 
 the saddest physical affliction. Mr. Carter for many 
 years was entirely helpless so far as body, legs, and 
 arms were concerned, not being able even to raise the 
 little brush which he used to his mouth. And yet here 
 is a work of art that will answer the most exacting de- 
 mands of criticism, and which would bring fame to the 
 greatest artist living. Let us do credit to the genius 
 of this humble man, who, to while away his dreary 
 hours, patiently worked out what thousands of our 
 citizens have gazed at with wonder and admiration 
 during the last six months. Post, Jan. 20, 1868. 
 
 CARTER'S " Rat-catcher " has gone to Portland, Me., 
 for a short time, an enterprising publishing house in 
 that city having sent its owner an order for quite a 
 number of the photographs, and in this way secured 
 the exhibition of the original for their customers. The 
 good people of the " Forest City " have now the chance 
 of seeing a curiosity of art never before equaled. 
 Evening Transcript, Feb. 21, 1868. 
 
 JOHN CARTER, THE ARTIST. The very high esti- 
 mation in which the works of John Carter are held in 
 England may be gathered from the following letter 
 addressed to Mr. F. J. Mills (owner of Carter's won- 
 drous drawing of " A Rat-catcher with his Dogs "), by 
 the Rev. W. J. Dampier, Vicar of Coggeshall, Essex, 
 England, the birthplace and scene of Carter's marvel- 
 
9<D NOTICES OF THE PRESS. ' 
 
 ous career. The letter is dated " Coggeshall Vicarage, 
 Essex, yth February, 1868," and states as follows : " I 
 am glad, indeed, to give you information about my 
 former parishioner, John Carter, for his case was the 
 most extraordinary upon record. His works, executed 
 with his mouth, in India ink, are exquisitely done, and 
 as he was, moreover, an examplary Christian, I was 
 induced to publish a memoir of him shortly after his 
 death, illustrated with copperplates and wood-cuts, 
 showing his progress from his first work to perfection. 
 I was permitted to present a copy to the Queen, who 
 had one of Carter's drawings, and the book sold well. 
 It is now out of print. I have been urged to print 
 another edition, but have not yet, though I have the 
 plates by me. I am pleased, but not surprised, to find 
 many on your side of the water so much interested in 
 the history of John Carter, and shall be glad to. hear 
 from you if there is anything you wish me to tell you." 
 Evening Transcript, Feb. 28, 1868. 
 
 RATS AND RAT-CATCHERS (Suggested by John Car- 
 ter's picture]. Amongst the thousands of our fellow 
 citizens who have lately gazed with astonishment and 
 delight at the wonderful picture by John Carter of " A 
 Rat-catcher with his Dogs," there are but few, com- 
 paratively, who thoroughly comprehend the " story " so 
 faithfully portrayed by that artist's magic pencil, sim- 
 ply because "the professional rat-catcher" is an un- 
 known personage in this country ; whereas, in Great 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 91 
 
 Britain, he follows a calling of considerable importance. 
 To the farmer or country gentleman, he has become an 
 absolute necessity, and is universally known within the 
 limits of his parish as well or better than the parson, 
 doctor, or village lawyer. The rat-catcher usually is a 
 jovial sort of " blade," fonder of " sport " than of " hard 
 work ; " one with whom the love of dogs and " var- 
 mint " is imbibed almost with his mother's milk. The 
 " calling " descends in nine cases out of ten from father 
 to son, a sort of heir-loom, and so continues for gen- 
 erations, an hereditary right, linked, no doubt, by an 
 hereditary taste. 
 
 At the " meet " of fox-hounds, harriers, or beagles, at 
 the draw of the " badger," or what not, so long as there 
 is sport to be had, you are safe to find the village rat- 
 catcher an interested and delighted spectator. Gen- 
 erally a welcome guest, too, wherever he goes ; anec- 
 dote and adventure, fun and frolic, are at his fingers' 
 ends, no matter whether it be culled for the amusement 
 of the " parlor " or " servants' hall." 
 
 A regular rat-catcher must be an undoubted judge 
 of dogs and ferrets, numbers of both of which he keeps 
 for their occupation : without such aid his occupation 
 would be gone indeed. In his estimation a thoroughly 
 trained terrier, or ferret, is an object of surpassing in- 
 terest and of great value. It would surprise our read- 
 ers did they learn the sums of money given for such 
 " perfect beauties," which, to the non-initiated, would 
 appear all but worthless. This value arises from the 
 
Q2 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 fact that the common brown rat swarms in Great 
 Britain and multiplies exceedingly fast. 
 
 What the American ranger said of the bear may be 
 applied to the rat in England ; it is the " knowingest 
 varmint " of any creature alive ; its sagacity and cun- 
 ning are extraordinary, and its daring courage equally 
 remarkable, considering its size. So ferocious are 
 these rats that they do not hesitate to prey on one 
 another when other food is lacking. They breed three 
 times a year, producing from ten to twenty in a litter. 
 The voracious and destructive habits of the rat not 
 only make it a great pest wherever grain is housed'or 
 stacked, but cause it to be disliked wherever found. 
 The farmer, however, is, perchance, the rat's greatest 
 enemy among men. Bent upon thinning its numbers, 
 or exterminating it, if may be, he does not hesitate to 
 support liberally the professional rat-catcher, who usu- 
 ally agrees with the farmer or country gentleman to 
 keep his house and grounds free from rats for an an- 
 nual payment, or else so much for the particular job. 
 The first mode of payment is of course the most satis- 
 factory to a man who follows rat-catching as a trade, as 
 it constitutes one of his certain dependences for a live- 
 lihood. 
 
 Traps and poison are generally most ineffectual 
 methods for destroying rats, even where they are 
 swarming, and the simple reason is that the sagacious 
 instinct of the " varmint " is a match for such puerile 
 attempts to capture it. Thus the professional rat- 
 catcher becomes a necessity to the rest of the com- 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 93 
 
 munity, and in order to render his method effective he 
 employs antagonists most dreaded by the rat the 
 " ferret," and the " wiry terrier dog." The former of 
 these two can follow a rat into its hole and through all 
 its tortuous " runs," and the alarm and horror it creates 
 is soon manifest. The rats fly wherever they can, 
 the ferret pursuing and darting at the neck. The rats 
 who fly to the mouth of the holes are killed by the 
 dogs, while those who remain in the " runs " meet a 
 similar fate from the ferrets thus few escape. The 
 rat-catcher's well-trained dog is not only a dexterous 
 but a humane slaughterer. He gives no unnecessary 
 tortures ; never tantalizes his victim while alive, nor 
 " worries " it when dead. If a dozen rats rush out at 
 once he wheels nimbly about, catches each by the nape 
 of the neck, and with a single nip polishes each off in 
 the most artistical way, and in the shortest possible 
 space of time. 
 
 Those of our readers who may have witnessed a 
 " rat hunt " at some farm homestead in the " old coun- 
 try," cannot fail to have been amused with the quiet, 
 mysterious air with which " the professional rat-catcher" 
 (save the mark !) goes about his business, and the con- 
 tempt he invariably manifests towards all dabblers in 
 the science. With his dogs in a cluster round, him, 
 and his cage of ferrets slung across his shoulders, he 
 takes a preliminary view of the position to be carried 
 by assault, and does so with all the grandiose air and 
 dignity of a general gazing at a citadel he is about to 
 storm and win. The barking of his dogs tells him 
 
94 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 in unerring language that there are rats below, and 
 taking a ferret from his cage he puts it down the 
 most promising " run." In a minute or two a squeal- 
 ing tells too surely the alarm and dismay which the 
 presence and assault of the ferret has caused. The 
 rat-catcher gives the word of command to his dogs, 
 " Stand ! " and each either guards a separate hole or 
 together form a circle round the lot ; a wave of their 
 master's hand indicates which they are to do. Then 
 with a smirk of self-complacency the old rat-catcher 
 takes up his position, close to his " favorites," and di- 
 rects their every movement with a wave of his hand. 
 
 Not a word is spoken ; no occasion to scold such 
 well-trained dogs ; each takes up the position indicated 
 to him, and stands, statue-like, with bated breath j not 
 daring to move a muscle, though bursting with impa- 
 tience, lest the sport should be spoiled. As the rats 
 rush out, each is snapped up in a twinkling by the 
 nearest dog, and so the fun goes on. 
 
 Such is an outline of the rural story which John Car- 
 ter, the peasant artist, has essayed to tell in this his 
 wonderful work. He was no doubt familiar with like 
 scenes from boyhood. Drawn " con amore" his picture 
 is as comprehensive in all its details as it is marvelous 
 in execution and finish. Evening Transcript, March 
 2, 1868. 
 
 THE " RAT-CATCHER AND HIS DOGS." Perhaps it is 
 not surprising, in view of the perfection of this drawing, 
 that some have hesitated and many still hesitate to 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 95 
 
 believe the marvelous story about the artist. The fol- 
 lowing correspondence, which has been handed us, 
 ought to silence all doubts ; for it shows that interested 
 parties, for business purposes, set on foot an inquiry 
 dictated by their own desire not to be deceived, and 
 they very generously allow the result of their investi- 
 gation to be made public : 
 
 To the Editor of the Transcript : In submitting the 
 following correspondence for publication, I may be 
 permitted to say that any attempt to defend Carter's 
 history and works of art from a charge of " untruthful- 
 ness " seems to me as trying 
 
 " To guard a title that was rich before." 
 
 To any one acquainted with the life and character 
 of this artist, it must appear, as it does to me, almost 
 sacrilege to couple his name and works with doubts 
 about his or their " truth ; " for of all men whom I have 
 ever seen, or ever read of, John Carter was, humanly 
 speaking, preeminently conspicuous for " truthfulness." 
 This was so marked in all that he said, in all that he 
 did, for the last twelve years of his life, as to make it 
 particularly observable to every one who approached 
 him. 
 
 Two traits of character were astonishingly developed 
 in him, as the publication of his life by the Rev. J. W. 
 Dampier will prove, the one a strange persistency 
 in effecting his purpose ; the other a love, a deep-seated 
 love, of " truth." To the latter may be attributed, in 
 no small measure, that thorough, that complete success 
 
96 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 which attended Carter's efforts as an artist ; whilst the 
 other stood him in good need, lacking, as he did, any 
 education or rearing in the rudiments of his profession. 
 
 But as I have now laid my picture before the public, 
 and as I have solicited, and still solicit their patronage 
 with respect to the publication of the photograph issued 
 of that picture, I conceive I have no right any longer 
 to follow the bent simply of my own inclinations, but 
 as a duty, in return for public confidence and support, 
 to give all the aid in my power in placing every ques- 
 tion that may arise as to its genuineness beyond dis- 
 pute. 
 
 Yours obediently, 
 
 F. J. MILLS. 
 
 LYNN, MASS., nth April, 1868. 
 
 BOSTON, April 4, 1868. 
 F. J. MILLS, ESQ. : 
 
 Dear Sir, Two or three months since, supposing 
 we might possibly have an interest in the publication 
 of an engraving from your picture of the " Rat-catcher," 
 we sent your Life of John Carter to Messrs. Le Blond 
 & Co., of London (whose American agents we are), 
 asking them to ascertain if that account was altogether 
 authentic. In a letter of March 1 7, they write as fol- 
 lows : " We made several ineffectual attempts to learn 
 of Mr. Carter, the painter referred to in your last, but 
 without success, until happening to mention the sub- 
 ject to a friend who knew the family of the Hanburys. 
 She offered to write to headquarters the Mr. Osgood 
 Hanbury referred to ; and we have much pleasure in 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 97 
 
 handing you the letter our friend received in reply, 
 which confirms, we think, all that is stated of Mr. 
 Carter in the pamphlet you sent us." 
 
 The following is a copy of the letter received by 
 Messrs. Le Blond's friend : 
 
 " Miss Hanbury's compliments to Mrs. T. Farwell ; 
 and the account of poor Carter is perfectly true. He 
 was one of Miss Hanbury's grandfather's laborers, and 
 well-known to herself and all the family. We used 
 constantly to visit him and see him draw with his 
 mouth. 
 
 " HOLFIELD GRANGE, March 14, 1868." 
 
 If the above be of any service to you please make 
 
 use of it. 
 
 Yours, very obediently, 
 
 L. A. ELLIOT & Co. 
 
 LYNN, MASS., April '8, 1868. 
 MESSRS. L. A. ELLIOT & Co., Publishers, Washington 
 
 Street, Boston : 
 
 Gentlemen, I have received your favor of the 4th, 
 and can hardly help feeling, as you may conceive, sur- 
 prised at its contents ; because, during the negotiation 
 which we had together, with reference to your desire to 
 publish an engraving of Carter's picture, "A Rat- 
 catcher with his Dogs," nothing occurred which led 
 me to suppose for one moment but that you had, with- 
 out doubt, realized the truth as to the genuineness of 
 the history attached to that wonderful exhibition of 
 human skill. On reflection, however, I ought not to 
 
 8-7 ! 
 
98 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 be surprised or to feel hurt, that the account which I 
 gave you of the circumstances surrounding Carter as 
 an artist, did not meet with that ready belief at your 
 hands which an ordinary matter of every-day occur- 
 rence would doubtless have done. 
 
 It is, nevertheless, " hard " to discover that state- 
 ments made bond, fide, with seriousness as to actual 
 matters of fact, have been viewed, the while, in the 
 light of " traveller's tales." I can only add how de- 
 lighted I am to think that, as you did not believe, you 
 took your own method of proving the truth or other- 
 wise of what I claim for Carter. 
 
 It is, I will allow, a great demand on credulity, to 
 ask persons to believe that an English peasant, par- 
 alyzed from his neck downwards, unlearned in the art 
 of drawing (except so far as being self-taught), has, by 
 means of his mouth, achieved works as a draughtsman, 
 which out-rival all competitors. Yet such is the fact, 
 as you have now discovered for yourselves. 
 I remain, gentlemen, 
 
 Yours obediently, 
 
 F. J. MILLS. 
 Evening Transcript, April 15, 1868. 
 
 AN ENGLISH CRIPPLE. The wonderful chef-d'oeuvre 
 of John Carter, " A Rat-catcher with his Dogs," is a 
 striking illustration of the triumph of mind over bodily 
 infirmity. Mr. Carter was born in Coggeshall, in the 
 year 1815, received a very limited education, became a 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 99 
 
 silk-weaver, and when twenty-one years of age, fell 
 from the top of a fir-tree forty feet high, while stealing 
 rooks in the night-time. He was taken up for dead. 
 When he partially recovered, it was found that his 
 spine was so injured that he had wholly lost the pow- 
 er of muscular motion, save in the head and neck. 
 Until his death, fourteen years after, he continued to 
 be a helpless, impotent trunk. He could see, hear, 
 and speak, but otherwise he was like a dead man. 
 Having heard of a woman who had learned to draw 
 with her mouth, he resolved to try to do the same. He 
 never had shown the least taste for the work, but after 
 long and painful efforts he succeeded in copying flowers 
 and butterflies in water-colors. This he did afterwards 
 with pencil, shading the picture with Indian ink. He 
 always reclined on a bed with a desk almost perpendic- 
 ularly over him, near his face. An attendant handed 
 him his camel's hair brush, placing it in his teeth. 
 Carter then whirled it rapidly round by his lips and 
 tongue till superfluous ink was removed and a fine 
 point obtained. Then he executed the finest work 
 one specimen of which is in the possession of Queen 
 Victoria, another belonged to the Queen Dowager. 
 Medical men as well as artists visited this wonderful 
 cripple, amazed to see one who not only was physically 
 helpless, but mentally untrained, even in the rudiments 
 of art, exhibit such incredible dexterity in artistic labor, 
 rivaling the works of the first living artists. No one 
 can look at the photographs Messrs. Child & Co. have 
 for sale, without being impressed with the thought that 
 
IOO NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 there is in all of us a reserved force or talents seldom 
 developed, and also with the beauty of that law of 
 compensation which runs through nature, curiously 
 adjusting the differences and beneficently repairing the 
 losses of life. Boston Medical Paper. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 THERE has recently been on exhibition in Boston, at 
 Williams & Everett's, an exquisite little drawing, which 
 at first appears to be a fine engraving. It represents 
 the " Village Rat-catcher and his dogs," and though 
 very perfect as a work of art, it is of peculiar interest 
 as being the master-piece of a poor, untaught, crippled 
 silk-weaker, who drew and painted it with his mouth 
 alone, unassisted, and without instruction. Incredible 
 as this may seem, there is no doubt of the fact. John 
 Carter (for that is the artist's name) was the son of a 
 common laborer in England. In early life he fell from 
 a tree forty feet in height, which accident entirely de- 
 prived him of the use of his limbs, every part of the 
 body being paralyzed, excepting his head and neck. 
 In this condition the idea occurred to him of amusing 
 himself by drawing with his mouth ; and after long- 
 continued efforts he succeeded. His wife or sister as- 
 sisted him only by filling the brush from the palette 
 with Indian ink, and placing it between his lips. He 
 continued to twirl it rapidly round so as to bring it to 
 a fine point for use. He first outlined or sketched his 
 composition, and then filled in and shaded it after the 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. IOI 
 
 manner of a line engraving. His work was performed 
 resting upon his couch, his paper being fastened to a 
 desk, which was placed almost perpendicularly before, 
 and in close proximity to his face. With his head in- 
 clined toward the right side, and with his hair-pencil 
 between his teeth, he produced, by the means of the 
 motion of his neck, assisted by his lips and tongue, 
 the most beautifully-turned strokes, rivaling in fact, the 
 greatest proficients in the art of drawing. Harper's 
 Weekly, Feb. 22, 1868. 
 
 A CURIOUS WORK OF ART. We saw at Kurd & 
 Houghton's, on Saturday, a work of art which is not 
 only remarkable intrinsically, but whose -history places 
 it among the marvels of our time. It is a small draw- 
 ing, about twelve by fourteen inches, and is called 
 " A Rat-catcher with his Dogs." The rat-catcher sits 
 on sloping ground, near a barn, looking with pleased 
 intentness on the rat-hole between his outstretched 
 legs, and holding, ready for use, a long stick used by 
 men of his profession. On each side are the dogs, of 
 various colors and ages, and each in a peculiar attitude. 
 One is flat on the ground with his nose over the hole. 
 Another has his fore paws over a log in front of the 
 hole. Another, a young puppy, stands looking toward 
 the hole at a safe distance, and braced back for a sud- 
 den retreat. On the right a rat-trap, with two dead 
 rats near by, explains at once the character of the 
 picture. 
 
IO2 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 The simplicity and uniqueness of the design ; the 
 harmony of the expressions shown on the faces of the 
 human and brute rat-catchers ; the admirable drawing 
 and perfection of details, entitle this picture to high 
 rank in its line of art. It has an interest which can 
 only be secured by a drawing that is entirely true to 
 nature. We are glad, therefore, that full-sized photo- 
 graphs are to be offered for sale, one of which, now 
 before us, reproduces the original with wonderful ex- 
 actness. On its own merits so admirable a drawing 
 should have a large sale. Aside from this, however, 
 the picture has a peculiar interest. It was drawn by a 
 man named John Carter, a native of the town of Cogge- 
 shall, in England, by means of his mouth alone. It 
 seems that Carter, previously uninstructed in art or 
 anything else except dissipation, while engaged in the 
 operation of stealing rooks fell from the top of a fir-tree 
 a distance of forty feet. The injury permanently par- 
 alyzed all of his limbs. He could move no part of his 
 body save his head and neck. About a year after- 
 wards he read of a disabled young woman who learned 
 to draw by the aid of her mouth, and began to attempt 
 it himself. He finally succeeded. Resting on his 
 couch, he had his paper fixed to a desk, almost per- 
 pendicularly before and close to his face. With his 
 head turned to the right and his hair pencil between 
 his teeth, he was able, by the conjoint motion of his 
 neck, lips, and tongue, to produce the most delicate 
 strokes. There are but few of his works extant, of 
 which Queen Victoria has one. The one now here is 
 
I 8 
 
 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 103 
 
 regarded as his best effort. It is, or will soon be, on 
 exhibition at Schaus's Gallery, where the photographic 
 copies can be obtained. Evening Post, April 28, 1868. 
 
 FINE ARTS. Among the novelties at Schaus' pic- 
 ture gallery is a beautiful and daintily finished sketch 
 in Indian ink, entitled " A Rat-catcher and his Dogs." 
 By its own merits, this work of art would attract atten- 
 tion. But the peculiar wonder of the piece is, that its 
 execution was achieved by a self-taught artist, Mr. 
 John Carter, who, by an accident, was entirely deprived 
 of the use of his arms and hands. By holding the 
 brush in his teeth he has produced results which many 
 full-handed artists could not surpass, and given another 
 proof of the versatility of man's natural resources. 
 Journal of Commerce, April 29, 1868. 
 
 JOHN CARTER'S " RAT-CATCHER AND HIS DOGS." 
 Mr. Schaus has now on exhibition at his gallery in 
 Broadway, a work of art that with a silent voice 
 preaches a more eloquent sermon than often falls from 
 human lips. An inspiring sermon teaching lessons 
 of faith, and hope, and constancy ; of sweetness and 
 humility joined to an invincible courage and self-reli- 
 ance, such as to read ought to put strength into the 
 weakest heart that shrinks frightened and disheartened 
 from its appointed lot in life. Nor ought it less to 
 shame those to whom strength and opportunity are 
 given, but who in the possession all their faculties of 
 
IO4 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 body and mind, with sound limbs and perfect senses, 
 still find a lion in every path, and are tripped by every 
 straw. 
 
 Yet the work we speak of is so small and unpre- 
 tending that it may easily be passed by unnoticed. 
 To the superficial eye it has few attractions compared 
 with the bright-colored pictures, the showy engravings, 
 and the hundred curious and pretty knick-knacks that 
 cover Schaus' walls and crowd his tables. But the 
 eye that stops and studies attentively this drawing of 
 a few square inches will be well rewarded. For not 
 only is it an exquisite specimen of manipulation, 
 merely as a piece of drawing worthy to stand beside 
 the work of masters, it is beside a revelation of the 
 power of the human mind to rise above the afflictions 
 and wounds of the flesh ; to turn calamity itself into 
 a blessing, and with a body hanging on the very verge 
 of the grave to conceive an impossible task and pursue 
 it unwearied, uncomplaining, and undaunted, through 
 fourteen years of death-in-life. 
 
 This drawing, "The Rat-catcher and his Dogs," was 
 executed in Indian ink by an Englishman named John 
 Carter with the point of a hair pencil which was held 
 between his teeth, an injury to his spine having en- 
 tirely deprived him of the use of his limbs. The 
 difficulties he was obliged to overcome in executing 
 such a work, and which we shall presently describe, 
 were so many and so great that it will surprise no one 
 to be told that he produced very few drawings. Five 
 only are known to exist, of which " The Rat-catcher 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 105 
 
 and his Dogs " is said to be by far the finest. Of the 
 remaining four, one is in the possession of the Queen 
 of England ; another belonged to the late Queen Dow- 
 ager of England ; and Osgood Hanbury Esq., of Hoi- 
 field Grange, and Richard Meredith White, Esq., of 
 Highfields, near Coggeshall, Essex, two gentlemen 
 who greatly befriended Carter, each own one. " The 
 Rat-catcher and his Dogs " is the property of F. T. 
 Mills, Esq., to whom it was presented by Mr. White 
 on the occasion of a marriage between the families. 
 When we consider the extraordinary character of this 
 little picture, the excellence of its composition, telling 
 the story at once, its truth to nature, and the combined 
 vigor and delicacy of the drawing, such that, while 
 it loses nothing by being seen at a distance, it will yet 
 bear and repay the closest inspection, it is not surpris- 
 ing that many persons have been unwilling, perhaps 
 we should rather say, unable, to believe that it was 
 made by a poor unlettered peasant working under the 
 painful conditions we have described. Mr. Mills has, 
 however, fully satisfied us that the story is true in 
 every particular, and has enabled us to state our entire 
 belief that the whole matter is as he represents it. He 
 has put into our hands a very interesting Memoir of 
 Carter, written by the Rev. William James Dampier, 
 Vicar of Coggeshall, Essex, the artist's native place, 
 in which the fullest details are given of the life of the 
 man, his personal character, and his methods of work. 
 The book contained also a number of engravings, a 
 portrait of Carter at work, his desk and implements, 
 
IO6 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 together with fac-similes engraved with the greatest 
 care by Holl, of his earliest attempts at drawing. 
 These engravings Mr. Mills has judiciously removed 
 from the book and has had them mounted and placed 
 alongside Carter's masterpiece, " The Rat-catcher and 
 his Dogs," so that, while the intrinsic excellence of 
 that work and the qualities that produced it must al- 
 ways excite our admiration, the mere wonder of it is 
 greatly diminished, it is no longer a vulgar miracle ; 
 we see the steps by which the artist reached its height, 
 and hail again in poor, ignorant, maimed John Carter 
 the glorious energy, the will, the devotion that have 
 so often shined with divine fire in the history of man, 
 and whose manifestation in him allies this humble 
 peasant boy with the noble ones of his race. It is 
 the old story of faith that removes mountains, the sub- 
 lime lesson written on the ages that there is no diffi- 
 culty so great that persevering energy cannot conquer, 
 no goal so distant nor so high that the unwearied foot 
 and the untiring heart cannot reach it. 
 
 John Carter was born in the year 1815, in the town 
 of Coggeshall, Essex, England. He was the son of 
 poor parents in the lowest rank of English society, 
 his father having been a common laborer. The only 
 teaching he ever had was got in the parish-school, 
 where he learned to read and write after the manner 
 of English peasants, and also to cipher a very little. 
 He had no love of study, nor any aptitude for it. He 
 spent his time as boys of his class usually do, sharing 
 in all their sports and mischief, and, without being 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 1 07 
 
 notable either way as bad or good, grew up after a 
 poor enough fashion till the time came for him to earn 
 his own living, when he was bound apprentice to a silk- 
 weaver, at which trade he worked until he was of age. 
 In May, 1836, in company with some low companions, 
 he went one night to Holfield Grange, the seat of Os- 
 good Hanbury, Esq., to steal young rooks from the 
 rookery on that gentleman's estate, and having climbed 
 a fir-tree, slipped, lost his hold, and fell to the ground? 
 a distance of not less than forty feet. 
 
 His companions picked him up in a state of com- 
 plete insensibility, and carried him home to his wife. 
 The medical man was sent for, and he declared that, 
 though Carter was not actually dead, as had at first 
 been supposed, yet he could not live but a few hours 
 at the most. But the event proved the doctor mis- 
 taken, for, after some time, he partially recovered, and 
 lived, if living it could be called, for fourteen years, 
 not dying till the year 1850. But the doctor's sagac- 
 ity must not be called in question, for Carter's case 
 was one of the most extraordinary that has been re- 
 corded, and attracted the attention of the most learned 
 medical men and surgeons. After his death an exam- 
 ination of his body revealed the astounding fact that 
 several of the vertebrae of the upper part of the spinal 
 column had been violently displaced bent into an 
 arch so that the spinal cord was severely compressed 
 at different points and prevented from performing any 
 of its functions below that point In fact, Carter, to 
 use Mr. Dampier's language, lived for fourteen years 
 
108 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 with a broken neck. The effect upon his body of this 
 injury to the spinal cord was to utterly deprive him of 
 the use of his limbs, and of all sensation in his body 
 below his neck. He might be pinched until he was 
 black and blue, without suffering in the least, indeed 
 without consciousness, but it is said that he sometimes 
 experienced a little relief from having his legs gently 
 shaken. From the day of the accident to the day of 
 his death, he was, physically speaking, never anything 
 other than a useless, impotent trunk, without power of 
 motion or feeling in any part of his body excepting in 
 his head and neck. His head escaped without injury, 
 and he enjoyed the full use of the senses of sight, 
 hearing, smell, and taste ; the sense of touch, too, was 
 not wanting in the head and neck, and we shall see 
 that this sense, and that of sight, acquired, by reason 
 of almost incessant exercise, an extraordinary degree 
 of delicacy and precision. His eye became a micro- 
 scope, and his lips and tongue took the place of 
 hands. 
 
 About a year after the accident that so nearly cost 
 him his life, his wife one day brought him a book 
 which she had borrowed from a neighbor, and which 
 gave an account of a young woman in an asylum at 
 Liverpool, who had lost the use of her limbs, and who 
 used to amuse herself by drawing with her mouth. 
 Carter was so much interested in this story that, as he 
 says himself, he could not rest satisfied until he had 
 made the attempt to draw in the same manner. A 
 butterfly happening one day to come in at the window, 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 1 09 
 
 he determined to take it for his first subject, and it 
 having been caught, he proceeded to copy it with 
 water-colors. Mr. Mills has placed a fac-simile of this 
 little drawing at Schaus's, along with his other early at- 
 tempts. He appears not to have been satisfied with 
 his experiment, for he made no other drawings with 
 water-colors, but after casting about for some time to 
 find a suitable material and a good method of work, 
 he at last fixed upon a certain style, apparently sug- 
 gested by the study of some of Albert Diirer's wood- 
 cuts that fell into his hands, and of which he made 
 copies. He copied with an accuracy very remarkable, 
 considering his inexperience, the sitting figure of 
 Christ on the title-page of Diirer's " Small Passion," 
 and a Virgin with the infant Jesus, by the same mas- 
 ter. These two drawings have been carefully engraved 
 in fac-simile, by the celebrated engraver, Holl, who 
 has also copied Carter's next performance, a man's 
 head done professedly in imitation of Rembrandt's 
 method of work. Holl was very much interested in 
 Carter, and has testified his admiration in a note 
 written to Mr. Dampier, the author of the Memoir we 
 have above alluded to. As we have said, the engrav- 
 ings of all these preparatory studies have been placed 
 by Mr. Mills side by side with his best work, " The 
 Rat-catcher and his Dogs," and we are thus enabled 
 to follow the development of his talent from its first 
 rude beginning to the excellence of his latest produc- 
 tion. 
 
 As for the details of Carter's procedure in execut- 
 
IIO NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 ing these drawings, a few words may interest the 
 reader. From the time of the accident until his death 
 he lay upon a couch which, when occasion required it, 
 or a little change of scene was desired, could be 
 moved about the room. He lay upon his back, and 
 his paper was fixed upon a light framework so ar- 
 ranged that it was directly over his face and within a 
 few inches of it. His sister or his wife, or whoever 
 was in attendance upon him at the time, then filled his 
 sable brush with Indian ink, and placed it between 
 his teeth, when, by the combined action of the lips 
 and the tongue, most surprising to see and impossible 
 to imitate or even to follow, he would twirl his brush 
 round till he had got rid of the superfluous ink and 
 and had brought the brush to a very fine point. With 
 his head inclined to the right, he would then, by the 
 motion of the neck, aided by his lips and tongue draw 
 stroke upon stroke, shading the outline, which he had 
 previously drawn as accurately as he could with a pen- 
 cil, after the manner of line engraving. As may be 
 imagined, he worked with great difficulty and slowness, 
 for he rested after every stroke of the brush, and be- 
 thought him where the next stroke was to be made. 
 That it should be carefully made in the right direc- 
 tion, and of the right thickness, was of great impor- 
 tance, for, once made, it could not be erased. Nor 
 could he work with any regularity, for his health would 
 not permit it. Yet so intense was his desire to work 
 at this pursuit, in which all the faculties of his body and 
 mind had now concentrated themselves, and so un- 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. \ \ \ 
 
 wearied was he, that he often tired out his attendants 
 who filled his brush, sitting by his side for hours. His 
 wife, a most affectionate and devoted woman, whose 
 encouraging words and patient spirit were no less 
 strengthening to his mind than her kind and thought- 
 ful care was to his body, was taken from him four 
 years and a half after the accident ; there remained to 
 him, then, his sister, no less devoted to him, and 
 friends who made his life as comfortable and cheerful 
 as it was possible for generous men to do. It is plain 
 that, without devoted care and cheerful surroundings, 
 he could not have lived so long; but he also owed 
 many years of life to the interest excited in his mind 
 by his favorite pursuit. So intense was that interest 
 that it left him no time to brood over his bodily afflic- 
 tion. 
 
 Certainly, this is no common story. Carter's draw- 
 ing of the rat-catcher is intrinsically an admirable 
 performance ; Landseer is said to have declared that 
 he never anywhere saw a finer piece of animal draw- 
 ing than the white terrier, and everybody who looks 
 at it carefully will admit its excellence. But the 
 other dogs are also capital ; the old one at the left, 
 who has had experience, and knows his game too well 
 to share in the excitement of his white young friend ; 
 the heavy-footed, fat-bodied puppy on the right, who 
 does not quite know what is coming ; every lover of 
 dogs will enjoy these shades of dog character. And 
 how skillful, too, is the arrangement of the group ; 
 how clearly it tells the little story ! Well, all this was 
 
112 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 invented by John Carter. He had no sitter. Neither 
 dogs nor men came to his room. He must have drawn 
 it all from memory of what he had so often seen when 
 he was a village boy, idling and lounging about the 
 Coggeshall lanes, and in and out the cottages. An 
 idle good-for-nought, an ignorant peasant, without 
 much hope in the world ; without either aspiration or 
 care for the future ; without much care for the present, 
 except to get enough to eat for the day, and, later, 
 enough for his young wife. This man a man in 
 body, but with a child's undeveloped mind meets 
 with an accident that by a mere hair's breadth sheers 
 this side of death. Indeed, taken up for dead, he 
 continued through fourteen years to all intents and 
 purposes a dead man alive only in one small portion 
 of his frame, and for the rest so far as powers of 
 motion, or consciousness, or usefulness went, as dead 
 as when they laid him in the long-expected grave. 
 Yet in this condition John Carter developed a new, 
 and strong, and inspiring spiritual life. All the good 
 in his nature, all the seeds of manly virtue that his 
 poor, hard, unlovely life of yesterday had kept from 
 quickening, sprang up and made the humble cottage 
 in which he lived as holy as the cell of any saint. A 
 sweet patience made complaint or repining a thing un- 
 known ; his cheerful gratitude for any help of word or 
 deed, made helping him, or teaching him, a pleasure ; 
 and when his mind, searching all about for something 
 to busy itself with, lighted on this plan of drawing, 
 it was wonderful to see the energy, the ingenuity, 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 the unconquerable pluck with which this young man, 
 who had never in all his life done more in that way 
 than is done by hundreds of idle boys with pencils 
 and chalk on their books and slates, set himself to 
 work to learn to draw, and persevered until he drew 
 like a master. 
 
 A Hymn to Poverty, a Hymn to Affliction and Ca- 
 lamity! Riches and Health and Prosperity shut the 
 doors of heaven, and blind us to our best selves. But 
 these rude-seeming ministers are man's true saviors, 
 and to many, though to few in the same degree as to 
 John Carter, a real life a life of the spirit has 
 been made possible under circumstances most cruel 
 and adverse, and good has come out of evil. Daily 
 Tribune, May 14, 1868. 
 
 "THE RAT-CATCHER AND HIS DOGS." A very re- 
 markable picture is now on exhibition in the gallery of 
 Mr. Schaus ; remarkable for its intrinsic merits and 
 also for the circumstances under which it was produced. 
 It was the work of a man who was without the use of 
 his limbs. His arms and hands and feet were dead, 
 and this exquisite picture, every inch of which is full 
 of the most delicate and refined handling, was executed 
 with a brush held in the artist's mouth ! Many mem- 
 bers of etching clubs, having the full use of their hands, 
 would rejoice could they approach the spirit, firmness, 
 and refinement of this drawing. 
 
 The story of the artist, John Carter, of England, is 
 
114 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 full of interest. A brief memoir of him, prepared by 
 Mr. F. J. Mills, states that he was the son of a common 
 laborer at Coggeshall, England, and, when a boy, ac- 
 quired in a very imperfect degree the rudiments of 
 reading and writing. He then became a silk-weaver 
 by trade, and followed this business up to May, 1836, 
 when he was twenty-one years old. At this time an 
 accident befell him, which changed the whole course of 
 his life. Up to this time he had led a wild and disso- 
 lute life, keeping bad company, and losing what little 
 education he had acquired when a boy. One night, 
 at the time above mentioned, Carter and a few disso- 
 lute companions went to the seat of Osgood Hanbury, 
 Esq., a well-known London banker, for the purpose of 
 stealing young rooks from the rookery on that estate. 
 While in the very top of a fir-tree, not less than forty 
 feet high, he lost his hold and fell to the ground. He 
 was taken up by his comrades and taken home to 
 his wife in a state of insensibility. The doctors pro- 
 nounced his case hopeless. He partially recovered, 
 however, when it was discovered that he had sustained 
 an injury to the spine, which entirely deprived him of 
 the use of his limbs ; nor had he any feeling or power 
 of motion in any part of his body except his head and 
 neck. 
 
 The powers of speech, sight, and hearing were provi- 
 dentially unimpaired ; but otherwise he was a living 
 mind with a dead body. His devoted wife waited on 
 him with the tenderest care to the day of her death, 
 which occurred a little more than four years after the 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS, 
 
 accident. The misfortune that deprived John Carter 
 of the use of his limbs seemed to wake up the dormant 
 faculties of his soul. He became thoughtful, earnest, 
 and devout, and eagerly seized upon a plan that prom- 
 ised to give him something to live for. This was 
 learning to draw without hands ! About a year after 
 the accident, a lady brought him a little book contain- 
 ing an account of a young woman, who, having lost the 
 use of her hands, amused herself by drawing with her 
 mouth. Carter resolved to try the same experiment. 
 He began by copying butterflies and flowers, in water- 
 colors, but soon gave this up for a more effective style 
 of drawing. He used to lie on a couch, capable of 
 being moved about as occasion required. The paper 
 on which he drew was fixed to a desk placed almost 
 perpendicularly before his face, and so near that he 
 could reach it with a brush held in his mouth. His 
 wife or sister would fill the brush with Indian ink and 
 place it between his teeth, when, by an expert move- 
 ment of his lips and tongue, he would twirl the brush 
 round until he had thrown off all the superfluous ink 
 and brought the brush to a very fine point. He would 
 then execute the finest and firmest touches by the 
 action of his neck, his work rivaling that of the most 
 skillful draughtsman. Compelled to rest after every 
 stroke, he worked very slowly and with great difficulty. 
 Every touch had to be considered beforehand, because 
 alteration was impossible ; and as his health prevented 
 a close application to his art, his works were neces- 
 sarily produced very slowly. But five of his works are 
 
Il6 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 known to be extant one in possession of Queen 
 Victoria, another belonged to the Queen Dowager of 
 England, one to Mr. Osgood Hanbury, and one to Mr. 
 Richard Meredith White. The fifth is in the posses- 
 sion of Mr. F. J. Mills, and is now on exhibition in 
 Schaus's gallery. 
 
 This work, which has found its way to our city, is 
 considered Carter's finest performance. It is full of 
 character and meaning. The drawing of the old rat- 
 catcher is admirable, and so is that of the white dog, 
 to which Landseer, who is certainly an authority in 
 such matters, gives very high praise. The execution 
 of the picture is wonderful. Not a stroke is thrown 
 away. Every line tells, and conduces to the effect of 
 the whole. It must be remembered, that up to the 
 time of his accident, John Carter was totally ignorant 
 of art. He had never handled a pencil, never felt an 
 interest in drawing or in pictures. All his knowledge 
 was acquired when his bodily powers were almost dead, 
 and he was reduced to a condition which most people 
 would have considered an excuse for total idleness. 
 Such a life is a lesson for all men a lesson of rebuke 
 to many, of hope and encouragement to all who have 
 fallen into disfavor with fortune. Here was a man 
 who, by sheer force of will, overcame the most com- 
 plete prostration of physical powers that ever left a 
 man alive, and made himself proficient in one of the 
 most difficult of arts. Who, with such an example 
 before him, has a right to mope and despair ? Times, 
 May 16, 1868. 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 117 
 
 A WONDER OF ART. There is now upon exhibition 
 at Schaus's in Broadway one of the most remarkable 
 works ever executed by human patience and ingenuity : 
 interesting not only to the connoisseur of art, but to 
 the student of the human frame and its forces. It is 
 a small picture, drawn with the exquisite delicacy of a 
 line engraving in sepia or Indian ink, called " A Rat- 
 catcher with his Dogs." It represents a rat-catcher 
 sitting just over a rat-hole with a spud in his hands, 
 while his four dogs await the appearance of the rats 
 from the hole into which the ferrets, whose empty cage 
 is upon the bank, have descended. The marvelous 
 expression of every hair of every dog is not less 
 striking than that of the old rat-catcher. But the 
 wonder of the work is the fact of its execution. 
 It is a picture painted with a hair brush held in the 
 mouth of a wholly paralyzed man, who had had 
 scarcely any instruction in drawing. The story is so 
 incredible that the English gentleman who owns the 
 picture has shown the evidence of its perfect genuine- 
 ness to several well-known citizens, who have signed 
 a certificate assuring the public that the facts are un- 
 questionably as stated. Among those who have thus 
 signed are William C. Bryant ; D. Huntington, Pres- 
 ident of the National Academy of Design ; H. T. 
 Tuckerman ; C. A. Dana ; C. G. Thompson ; John R. 
 Thompson ; Hurd and Houghton ; and John B. 
 Bouton. We have satisfied ourselves also, by the most 
 ample proof, that there is no doubt of the authenticity 
 of the work, and we unreservedly commend it to pub- 
 
Il8 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 lie attention both for its intrinsic merit, which is mas- 
 terly, and for the wonder of its execution. John 
 Carter, who drew the picture, lived in the parish of 
 Coggeshall, not many miles from London, and the 
 vicar of the parish, after Carter's death, wrote a brief 
 biography, which was published by J. W. Parker and 
 Son, among the most respectable of English publishers. 
 From this little Memoir we have but space to quote a 
 letter of Carter's telling his own story. A fac-simile 
 of the butterfly of which he speaks is also at Mr. 
 Schaus's, with two or three interesting little studies, 
 and a slight pencil outline of Carter's face, singularly 
 sweet and refined. The letter is dated Coggeshall, 
 July 17, 1848 : 
 
 " DEAR SIR, In compliance with your wishes I have written 
 down my name and age, etc., as follows : My name is John Car- 
 ter. I am thirty-three years of age the 3ist of this month (July, 
 1848). After leaving school, where I had been taught to read 
 and write, and made some little progress in arithmetic, I was 
 sent to work at the silk trade. After assisting -the weavers for 
 some time, I was put to a loom, and learned to weave in the fig- 
 ured branch; and, following the example of my fellow- workmen, 
 I was frequently at the public house, and soon took delight in all 
 evil and mischief. It was when I went to school that I first re- 
 member having an inclination for drawing. Whenever I had a 
 pen or pencil in my hand I was sure to be drawing in my books 
 or on my slate, and at home about the walls of the house. The 
 manner in which I came to draw, after I had lost the use of my 
 limbs, was as follows : Being fond of reading, I used to borrow 
 books from my neighbors and others. My wife one day brought 
 home for me a tract which gave an account of a young woman in 
 some asylum at Liverpool who had lost the use of her limbs, and 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 119 
 
 used to amuse herself by drawing with her mouth. The thought 
 at once came into my mind that I might certajnly do the same, 
 and I could not rest satisfied till I had made the attempt. My 
 first piece was a butterfly, in water-colors. After drawing in this 
 way for some time I at last adopted the style in which I still con- 
 tinue to draw, which is to shade them after the manner of a line 
 engraving. Dear Sir, I hope your health is improving. May 
 God bless you with all happiness. 
 
 " I remain your humble servant, 
 
 " JOHN CARTER." 
 Harper's Weekly, May 16, 1868. 
 
 THE chief attraction -in the gallery of Mr. Schaus is 
 John Carter's " Rat-catcher with his Dogs," a small 
 drawing in Indian ink, which awakens wonder and 
 admiration in every one who looks at it, and reads the 
 story of the artist. John Carter, whose name was, 
 until recently wholly unknown to a majority of Ameri- 
 can readers, was an English silk-weaver by trade. In 
 his youth he was idle and dissolute, continually getting 
 into wild scrapes, and disliked by all the neighborhood. 
 A poaching excursion at length nearly cost him his 
 life, and put an end to his wild courses. While rob- 
 bing a rookery he fell from a fir-tree to the ground, 
 and was taken up and carried home for dead. He 
 revived, however ; and though so badly injured in the 
 spine as to be deprived of all use of his arms and the 
 lower portion of his body, his mental faculties, and the 
 powers of sight, hearing, and speech, were unimpaired. 
 But he was apparently worse than dead. The power of 
 
I2O NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 moving his head and neck remained ; the rest of his 
 body was as insensible and lifeless as clay. But John 
 Carter was not without friends. His wife and sister 
 waited on him with the unwearying assiduity of love ; 
 and whatever others could do to occupy and ease his 
 mind, was done. At length a fortunate day brought to 
 his knowledge the case of a young lady who, being de- 
 prived of the use of her hands, learned to draw with 
 her mouth ! He caught at the idea, and made the 
 trial himself. Having contrived a desk for his paper, 
 fixed in a convenient position near his head, he began 
 by attempting to draw butterflies and flowers, in water- 
 colors. This he found too difficult, and took a more 
 easily mastered method, that of drawing with a brush in 
 Indian ink. His mode of working was painful and la- 
 borious. His wife or sister would fill the brush. 
 Taking it in his mouth he would twirl it round so as 
 to throw off all the superfluous ink and bring the hairs 
 to a fine point. He would then work at his drawing 
 stroke by stroke, slowly, and not without much effort 
 and weariness, resting after every touch and studying 
 the next one. In this manner he executed a large 
 number of exquisite works, characterized by very high 
 artistic qualities. Many an artist who has all the use 
 of his hands would be glad to attain the firmness, the 
 precision, and the delicacy of touch which Carter ac- 
 quired. He was about twenty years old when injured, 
 and up to that time he had never studied drawing, nor 
 had he evinced any care for pictures. That in his dis- 
 abled condition he should acquire a knowledge of 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 121 
 
 drawing and of the principles of composition, is one 
 of the marvels of human experience. The Galaxy for 
 June, 1868. 
 
 PORTLAND. 
 
 INTERESTING WORK OF ART. One of the most sin- 
 gular and beautiful monuments of the genius, skill, and 
 the patient industry of man which we have ever seen 
 or heard of, is now on exhibition at the picture store of 
 Andrew Geyer, in Free Street. This is John Carter's 
 famous drawing of the " Rat-catcher and his Dogs," a 
 work which has excited the astonishment and admira- 
 tion of the whole world of art. It is a small drawing, 
 done in Indian ink, and representing an old man sit- 
 ting on a bank, surrounded by two or three rough, hairy 
 terriers, and having beside him a common box-trap 
 from which two or three rats are trying to escape. 
 The figure and countenance of the man, the attitude 
 and expression of the dogs, the very rats themselves 
 are depicted with a spirit, an accuracy and truth to life 
 and a delicacy of touch which would be surprising 
 under any circumstances, but which are simply mar- 
 velous in view of the way in which they were produced. 
 The little gem of art was executed by a poor man who 
 had lost the use of all his limbs, and who handled 
 the camel's-hair pencil with which the drawing is 
 made entirely with his mouth. This fact is indisput- 
 able, although it seems almost incredible. To add to 
 marvel, Carter had never, before losing the use of his 
 
122 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 limbs, received any instruction in drawing. His skill 
 and accuracy of touch were all acquired subsequent to 
 that time. But five drawings of his are known to exist, 
 and these are valued at very large sums. One of them 
 is in the possession of Queen Victoria. 
 
 This very beautiful and interesting work will be on 
 exhibition for a few days longer at Geyer's, and none 
 should lose the opportunity of seeing it. To defray 
 the expense of bringing it here a small admission fee 
 is charged. Daily Press. 
 
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