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Royal Academy, and exhibited his well-known picture of "The Confirmation." He attained the rank of a Royal Academician in 1794. But this ostensible dignity did not remove him from the field of illustration; for, soon after he became an Academician, he made the designs for the "Pilgrim's Progress," which, as Mrs. Bray very justly observes, "as a series, have never been surpassed by his pencil ;" and he devoted himself with equal assiduity to the commissions which were given to him by Messrs. Rundell and Bridge; and most of the gorgeous plate which was at that period executed for the sovereign and nobility, owes its chief embellishments to Stothard's studious observance of nature and exquisite taste in art.

His name was now made; and though patronage did not pour in upon painters in those days à flots d'or, he received what he considered an adequate compensation for his toil, and executed some of his largest works we mean the paintings which adorn the grand staircase of Burleigh, in Northamptonshire, the seat of the Marquis of Exeter, for which he was paid at the rate of a thousand guineas for three years. These paintings occupied him from 1799 to 1801. They are the best record of his proceedings during that time; for the letters which he wrote from Burleigh to his wife afford but a meagre indication of his pursuits. While they were in progress he lost his mother, who died in her eighty-seventh year.

The next ten years of Stothard's life exhibit him ever occupied by designs and illustrations of multifarious character, and all of them stamped with excellence. He appears to have refused nothing as below the dignity of art, for by his art he exalted every subject; and whether he chose "Robinson Crusoe " or "Froissart" for his theme, or consented to paint the large transparency for the Jubilee, which was displayed in front of the house of Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, on Ludgate-hill, he was equally successful, though it was not by this latter enlargement of the sphere of his art that he earned the undivided admiration of the public. That was due to productions with which his name is indelibly associated, the foremost among them being the renowned "Canterbury Pilgrims."

The subject of this great work was suggested to him by Mr. Cromek, an engraver, who, notwithstanding the apparent difficulty of rendering a procession tractable to the highest purposes of art, was firmly persuaded that Stothard could accomplish that which would have been a stumblingblock to all other living painters. It was undertaken and completed in a comparatively short space of time-and how completed, it would be superfluous to say, since there are few who have any knowledge or love of art to whom the engraving made from the painting is unknown.

The picture itself was exhibited throughout the country, and the sale of the engraving was enormous. But observe how slight was the remuneration which Stothard received for "this, the most celebrated and popular of all the productions of his pencil." Up to the publication of Mrs. Bray's "Life," it has generally been supposed that the price paid by Cromek was 2007.; but the rough draft of a letter, in Stothard's own handwriting, which was found amongst his papers, establishes the fact that the sum in question was only sixty pounds! Here is Stothard's

statement:

When I undertook the picture, the price agreed was sixty pounds; the degree of finish was left to me at the conclusion of it. In the progress of the work,

the subject and design appearing more important-worthy of more attention than either of us at first apprehended, Mr. Cromek himself made the following proposition that if I, on my part, would give one month's additional attention to the picture, over and above what was first agreed, he would make the sum one hundred pounds. This additional forty was to be paid as soon as he could collect from his subscribers. This he did not do, excusing himself on the score of the expense he was at in advertising, &c. He sold the picture to Mr. Hart Davis for three hundred pounds or guineas (Mr. Alfred Stothard says it was five hundred). He then, in like manner, excused himself as he had done before; and as I received his plea of success with the public with indulgence, and as the plate was in progress towards completion, deferred my demand till publication. This I have done in his alleged difficulties. Schiavonetti's death following soon after, put a stop to the work; and from what succeeded to this, I had additional reason not to urge my demand on the widow.

While on the subject of this popular work, we may mention an anecdote illustrative of Stothard's invariable practice of deriving his authority from the fountain-head, wherever procurable. Stubbs, the animal-painter, being curious to know how Stothard would deal with so many horses as there are in the picture, called him for that purpose.

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On looking at it, Stubbs exclaimed, “ Mr. Stothard, it has been said that I understand horses pretty well; but I am astonished at yours. You have well studied these creatures, and transferred them to canvas with a life and animation which, until this moment, I thought impossible. And you have got such a variety of them; pray, do tell me, where did you get your horses?" "From every-day observation," replied Stothard; and Stubbs departed, acknowledging that he could do nothing in comparison with such a work.

We have said "wherever procurable," and we did so advisedly, for there is a notable instance in Stothard's "Boaz and Ruth" how the most observant and conscientious may sometimes fall into commonplace. Speaking of this work, Mrs. Bray says: "The buildings and terraces seen in the background have in them an appropriate character of Eastern taste and opulence." This is true enough; but nothing else in the composition is Eastern: the girls in the corn, in their round straw hats, and even Ruth herself, might as fitly do duty for Devonshire lasses as maidens of Palestine. Appropriate costume was not, however, so accessible fifty years ago as it is now; and artists were not seen then-like Roberts and Lewis-extending their studies in the Syrian deserts, and beside the banks of Nile.

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But criticism on Stothard's pictures is not the object of our present sketch. We return to the enumeration of some of his more important works, for to catalogue them all would far exceed our limits.

As a diligent student in the school of Raffaelle, he produced the "Angels appearing to the Shepherds," and found time to do something in the way of travel-not by that pilgrimage to Italy, which is now the recognised necessity of the young painter's studies, but by a journey to Paris in 1815, before the spoils collected by Napoleon had been restored to the galleries from whence they had been taken “ par droit de conquête." Stothard, Chantrey, and four others-" a goodlie companie" -performed the distance, all the way, in six days! We do it now in nearly as few hours. He thus describes his impressions of the Louvre :

I was much gratified in seeing the spoils of the Vatican, that I might say, These things I have seen. But, most of all, I was delighted with the assemblage of paintings to be viewed and compared with each other. The altar-pieces of

Rubens, with his school, covered the most space, and made a splendid show; but "The Transfiguration," by Raphael, surpassed everything else. The splendour of colouring far surpassed my expectation. It was splendid as a painted window, or as enamel painting, yet not tawdry.

Stothard's "St. John preaching in the Wilderness" is another example of one of his most successful efforts in the highest reaches of art.

"The Fête Champêtre" exhibits beauties of a different kind, being chiefly remarkable for its exquisite finish. It was purchased, as a surprise for her husband, Sir John, by Lady Swinburne, and the price which she paid for it was three hundred guineas, a sum which had already frightened an amateur baronet from his studio.

Stothard, without being an imitator, was thoroughly imbued with the style of his favourite masters. We have mentioned Raffaelle, and have to add Watteau. But similarity, as Mrs. Bray accurately remarks, is widely different from imitation; and though we trace resemblance, the servility of a mere copy is nowhere discoverable. On this point Mr. Leslie observes, with perfect justice:

It is scarcely possible but that, among the thousands of Stothard's productions, repetition of himself should not occur; nor that he should not occasionally have adopted ideas suggested by the antique, or by the old masters. He not seldom reminds us of Raphael, often of Rubens, and sometimes of Watteau; but he does so as one worthy to rank with them, and as they remind us of their predecessors. Yet his works will bear the deduction of every such instance of imitation, and of every repetition of himself, and we shall be surprised to see how much of the most beautiful original imagery will remain. His designs for the "Novelists' Library" remind us of no other painter.

In proof of what relates to Watteau, let the reader turn to Stothard's "Sans Souci" (engraved for the "Bijou," in 1827), and to his designs for the "Decameron." He will find in those pictures all the grace and gaiety of the French painter, transfused, not imitated, with a quality all his own.

The work which, next to the "Canterbury Pilgrims," will probably prove the most enduring monument of Stothard's genius, is "The Weľlington Shield," for which he furnished the designs. It was competed for by numbers, but Stothard was chosen by the committee to execute it without a dissentient voice. The history of this production in all its details is one well worthy the attention of the reader; and it is gratifying to learn-though we do so without surprise-that when, in the prosecution of his labours, Stothard sought "protection for his plates" from the illustrious warrior for whom the shield was wrought, he received it in a manner worthy of the noble Duke, who at once acceded to Stothard's request that no one else should make a copy of the shield without his permission.

But while we are adverting to Stothard's designs, we must not forget a memorable one, which assisted in establishing the fame of the greatest British sculptor of his time. This was the sketch which he made for Chantrey's celebrated group of the "Sleeping Children," in Lichfield Cathedral. The idea was derived by Chantrey from some remarks made by his own mother when her children were infants; but the sculptor felt that he could entrust the design to no artist who could do justice to the subject like Stothard, and to him he accordingly went. The result was the drawing of which the tenderness and truth have been so admirably preserved in Chantrey's marble group. The monument of Garrick, in

Westminster Abbey, and that of Miss Johnes, at Hafod, are also amongst the sculptured works which owe not their least value to the pencil of Stothard.

It would be a long task, however pleasing, to instance the endless variety which characterises Stothard's numerous compositions. To mention them by name would be impossible. The most we can do in this place is to refer the reader to Mrs. Bray's valuable and beautifully-executed volume.

Of Stothard, the man, we have little more to say. He fought and struggled as all must fight and struggle who set Fame as the goal towards which they strive. He gained a hard-fought victory, and lived long enough to enjoy the laurels he had won, dying without effort, and of nothing but a natural decay of the vital powers, when he had nearly reached his eightieth year, the last day of his life being the 27th of April, 1834. He worked almost to the end; and his latest effort, in the autumn of 1833, after suffering from an accident, having been knocked down by a carriage in the streets, is thus recorded:

His son Alfred had been commissioned to execute a seal for the Central National School Society at Westminster. The subject he selected was from one of his father's designs for the poems of Rogers, from the Grecian story of the mother inducing her child to return from the verge of a precipice. This required some alteration, some adaptation to the subject proposed. Stothard made his remarks upon it, and advised a change of position in one of the hands of the principal figure. The better to explain his meaning, he made an effort to sketch what the alteration ought to be; but his son observed with extreme pain that he was unable to do so. The pencil dropped from the hand of him who had for years employed it with sucli inimitable grace. He never more regained it.

OLDEN DREAM S.

BY J. E. CARPENTER.

How sweet in slumber soft reposing
Some vision of the past to see,

Some dream of bygone bliss disclosing

The sunny days of youthful glee;

When fancy, fairy vigils keeping,

Gives back youth's bright and glorious themes ;

Oh! say not time is lost in sleeping

That conjures up such golden dreams.

When sailing o'er the raging billow

The hardy sailor's forced to roam,

How sweet upon his ocean pillow

His dream of absent friends and home;
Once more he views the woodland bowers,

The fertile hills-the gushing streams,

And nothing in his waking hours

Can charm him like those golden dreams.

But sweeter far, 'mid fancy dwelling

On some loved form to mem'ry dear,

Are those wild strains, with rapture swelling,
That but in dreams enchant the ear.

Oh! still may fancy, vigils keeping,

Give back youth's bright and glorious themes,

For time is never lost in sleeping

That conjures up such golden dreams.

YOUNG TOM HALL'S HEART-ACHES AND HORSES.

CHAPTER XX.

THE catastrophe with which we closed our last chapter, happened as follows:-Colonel Blunt, who was at all times rather rash with the reins, was doubly so when under the influence of liquor; and having got his horses well clubbed in going down hill, his difficulties were further increased by the cry of the hounds, and the cheering of the hunters, who presently crossed the road a little before him. Old Major Pendennis, who had a taste for the chace though it had not been much indulged in, first set the bars a rattling, which, being responded to by his brother leader, Billy Roughun, there was such a milling, and rearing, and squealing, and snatching as soon broke the pole, and landed the coach against the bank of a wide newly-cleaned ditch, shooting the ponderous colonel on to his head in the next field, with Mrs. Blunt a little beyond him.

The hounds had been running some fifteen or twenty minutes, with a breast-high scent over a stiffish country, settling all parties in their places with the regularity of a table of precedence. First came Bill Brick, the head whip, breaking the fences for Dicky Thorndyke, who was as pleased to ride second as first; after him came Lord Heartycheer, going as straight as a line, followed by a groom in scarlet to keep off the crowd, his lordship's maxim being that the real danger in hunting consists in being ridden over, not in falling at your fences.

"Y-o-n-der they go!" cried his lordship, flourishing his whip in the air, as he flew the hedge and wide ditch on to the Fleecyboroughroad; “y—o—n-der they go !" repeated he, eyeing the hounds settling to the scent on the pasture beyond. Just then, his quick eye caught the prostrate vehicle on the road; "Ha-hem-haw-corpulent captain capsized!" exclaimed he, glancing at the glorious confusion, as he gathered his horse for the off-the-road leap; "haw-ha-hem; sorry we can't offer him any assistance," added he, flying the fence into the next field. He then dropped his elbows, and rising in his stirrups, set to and hustled the white horse along as hard as ever he could lay legs to the ground, hooping and holloaing as if he was mad.

Fortunately, some of the field were less engrossed with the hunt than his lordship, and the half-dozen composing his immediate tail; indeed, some were very glad of an excuse to pull up; and ere the second whip was out of sight, a crowd of dismounted horsemen had gathered round the vehicle, joining their clamourous directions with the kicking, and struggling, and groaning of the horses.

"Sit on their heads!" shouted one; "Cut the traces!" cried another; "Get the lady out!" roared a third; "Where's the colonel?" asked a fourth; "Catch my horse!" exclaimed a fifth.

Lord Heartycheer's country being a good deal infested by sheep, as Dicky Thorndyke said, most of the gallant sportsmen carried knives to cut the nuts, and Mr. Shirker had scarcely seated himself on Major Pendennis' head, before a cry of "Now they're loose! stand clear!" was raised, and kicks and cuffs began to resound upon the horses' hides, making first one and then another rise like horses at Astley's; when, March-VOL. XCIV. NO. CCCLXXV.

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