played to better purpose than those he assumed on the stage. The Rev. H. Bate Dudley (seeXVI. 1044, p. 412), when engaging the young couple on Garrick's behalf, reported the husband as being "a damned rascally player, though seemingly a very civil fellow." He was a Birmingham apprentice, who had joined the Kembles' provincial company of players. Before Sarah Kemble was seventeen she had fallen in love with him. "He was just the man," says her latest biographer, "to fascinate a young and high-spirited girl: good-looking, calm, sedate, even-tempered, not over burdened with brainpower, and with not too much will of his own." They were married in 1773, when Sarah was nineteen; and the marriage was a very happy one. Mrs. Siddons was greatly attached to her children, and her husband-besides being a handy man of business-protected her from the dangers of her calling. Towards the end of his life Siddons suffered much from rheumatism, and found it necessary to live away from his wife at Bath. At the beginning of 1808 she spent some weeks with him there; left him apparently much better, to perform an engagement at Edinburgh; but hurried back on hearing that he was again worse. He died on March 11. "May I die the death," she wrote to Mrs. Piozzi, "of my honest, worthy husband; and may those to whom I am dear remember me when I am gone as I remember him, forgetting and forgiving all my errors, and recollecting only my quietness of spirit and singleness of heart." 399. THE ESCAPE OF THE CARRARA FAMILY. See under XX. 398, p. 533. An episode from the history of the Italian Republics. Francesco Novello di Carrara, last Lord of Padua, having been forced to yield to Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, was for some time detained by the latter at Milan. He was then sent to Cortazon, near Asti, where he lived as a plain country gentleman with his wife and family. But the Duke of Milan stationed men in ambush to kill him-which when Francesco heard, he determined to fly for his life. Accordingly, in the month of March, 1389, he left suddenly, with his wife and a few servants, and arrived after many dangers at Monaco, whence he afterwards set out for Florence. Here we see him "toiling along steep mountain paths, support ing his wife at the edges of precipices," whilst the followers of the Duke of Milan are in sight in the valley below (from Sismondi's Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du Moyen Age, vii. 285, 288). From the technical point of view one is struck by the conflict of reds and pinks in the colouring, characteristic of the "glut of colouring" in which English painters at this period indulged (see Chesneau: The English School, p. 108). 428. COUNTRY COUSINS. In R. Redgrave, R.A. (born 1804: still living). Mr. Richard Redgrave, the son of a manufacturer, entered the Academy Schools in 1826, and for a time was a drawing master. 1840 he was elected A. R.A., and in 1850 R.A. He is best known, however, by his Century of Painters, which he published in conjunction with his brother Samuel in 1866, and for his connection with South Kensington. For many years he was art-assessor, as it were, to Sir Henry Cole. He was instrumental in the foundation of Schools of Art and in the other undertakings, in some of which he has held official appointments, associated with Sir Henry Cole's name. In 1858 he was also appointed Surveyor of Crown Pictures, but this post, as well as his other appointments, he resigned in 1880. The unwelcome intruders from the country are mere objects of curiosity to their town relatives— 414. WAR. A little more than kin, and less than kind. Sir E. Landseer, R.A (1802-1873). After the battle. "A cottage is in ruins, lurid smoke dashes the still sunny walls with shadows, the torn roses of the porch shine in the desolation, a dying horse and his dead rider lie near the door; a second horse and a second dead man lie close to the others" (Stephens, p. 90). 437. THE FISHERMAN'S HOME. Francis Danby, A.R.A. (1793–1861). This painter, chiefly distinguished for his sunset scenes, though it was on the strength of an historical composition that he was in 1825 elected A. R.A., was born and educated in Ireland, and was for some time a drawing master at Bristol. He afterwards came up to London, had one of his pictures bought by Sir T. Lawrence, and thus attracted public attention. He resided for several years in Switzerland, and afterwards at Lewisham, and finally near Exmouth. "The works of Danby, as I remember them forty years ago," says Mr. Madox Brown (Magazine of Art, February 1888), "enjoyed an immense reputation, and were credited with all sorts of qualities, while many people admired them in preference to Turner's pictures." Many of the "solemn and beautiful works" mentioned by Mr. Madox Brown are, however, now in a ruined condition; and the present picture can only be seen on exceptionally bright days. 609. "THE MAID AND THE MAGPIE." Sir E. Landseer, R.A. (1802-1873). From the popular tale so called, founded on a trial in the French Causes Célèbres, which Rossini adopted in his opera, the Gazza Ladra. "A pretty Belgian girl, with a gay red cap on her head, has come a-milking; the cow is willing, and turns with affectionate docility to her friend; but the girl, whose expression is happy, is ardently listening to her lover, who, leaning against a post, sighing and longing, speaks to her. Thus far she neglects her immediate duties. She is supposed to get into further trouble because, having placed a silver spoon in one of the wooden shoes at her side, she did not observe how a malicious magpie pilfered the treasure" (Stephens, pp. 97, 98). 899. VIEW ON THE NULLAH, BENGAL. Thomas Daniell, R.A. (1748-1837). For Daniell, see under Wilkie's portrait of him, 231, P. 544. 430. DOCTOR JOHNSON IN LORD CHESTER FIELD'S ANTE-ROOM.1 E. M. Ward, R.A. (1816–1879). See under XX. 431, p. 510. An incident founded on Lord Chesterfield's neglect of Johnson during the progress of his Dictionary, the first prospectus of which he had dedicated to his lordship. "The world 1 This picture attracted much attention at the time of its first exhibition. It is interesting to note that it was a Johnson picture which was also one of Mr. Frith's great successes. This was the "Before Dinner at Boswell's Lodgings," which was exhibited in 1868 and sold in 1875 for £4567, the largest price ever paid at that time for a picture by a living artist. There was a period in English history," says Mr. Hodgson (Fifty Years of English Art, p. 22), "when the great lexicographer held the same position with artists that trumps do with whist players; the rule was, when in doubt about a subject, play Dr. Johnson." " has been for many years amused," wrote Boswell in his Life of Johnson, "with a story confidently told, and as confidently repeated with additional circumstances, that a sudden disgust was taken by Johnson upon occasion of his being one day kept long in waiting in his lordship's ante-chamber, for which the reason assigned was, that he had company with him; and that at last, when the door opened, out walked Colley Cibber; and that Johnson was so violently provoked when he found for whom he had been so long excluded, that he went away in a passion, and never would return." Johnson's own reference to the incident is contained in the letter which he wrote, on the completion of the Dictionary, to Lord Chesterfield: "Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to a verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I Notice the did not expect, for I never had a patron before." various devices by which the painter embodies Johnson's sense of disgust. The waiting is tedious: one of Johnson's companions in misfortune is yawning, another winding up his watch. Yet the indignity is greater for Johnson than for any other of my lord's petitioners; he is the cynosure of all eyes; whilst those who have been preferred to him regard him with the insolent curiosity of coxcombs. 1029. THE TEMPLES OF PÆSTUM. William Linton (1791–1876). "Linton was born at Liverpool, and was at first placed in a merchant's office there, to draw him from his fancy for painting, but to little purpose; he persisted in his choice, and in 1817, having got three landscapes into the Royal Academy exhibition, he was sufficiently encouraged. He made tours in Wales and in the Highlands of Scotland, painting many views. He eventually made several continental excursions, and produced some pictures of the most remarkable places, as this view of 'The Temples of Pæstum.' He died in London. He was a member of the Society of British Artists" (Official Catalogue). Poseidonia (the original Greek name of the place) "was founded in the sixth century before Christ, by colonists from Sybaris. Three centuries later the Hellenic element in this settlement was submerged by a deluge of recurrent barbarism. Under the Roman rule it changed its name to Pæstum, and was prosperous. The Saracens destroyed it in the ninth century of our era; and Robert Guiscard carried some of the materials of its buildings to adorn his new town of Salerno. Since then the ancient site has been abandoned to malaria and solitude. The very existence of Pæstum was unknown, except to wandering herdsmen and fishers coasting near its ruined colonnades, until the end of the last century. Yet, strange to relate, after all these revolutions, and in the midst of this total desolation, the only relics of the antique city are three Greek temples, those very temples where the Hellenes, barbarised by their Lucanian neighbours, met to mourn for their lost liberty. . . . Beneath the pediment of Pæstum's noblest ruin, I could not refrain from thinking that if the spirits of those captive Hellenes were to revisit their old habitations, they would change their note of wailing into a thin ghostly pæan when they found that Romans and Lucanians had passed away, that Christians and Saracens had left alike no trace behind, while the houses of their own ȧvτýλɩɩ Oeoí—dawn-facing deities—were still abiding in the pride of immemorial strength. Who knows whether buffalo-driver or bandit may not ere now have seen processions of these Poseidonian phantoms, bearing laurels and chanting hymns, on the spot where once they fell each on the other's neck to weep" (J. A. Symonds: Sketches and Studies in Italy). 422. THE PLAY SCENE IN "HAMLET." D. Maclise, R.A. (1806–1870). See under XX. 423, p. 520. The play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. The play being enacted in the background shows the act of murder by pouring poison into the ear-"'tis a knavish piece of work," Hamlet had explained to the king, his uncle, "but what of that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung." And the galled jade does wince; very palpably, as Hamlet lying in front and intently observing sees full well; behind Ophelia, who is seated on the left, is Horatio, watching the king also, as Hamlet had bidden him Hamlet to Horatio. There is a play to-night before One scene of it comes near the circumstance |