works will show that the sculptor's invention had its limit, and that the personification of the virtues or talents of the persons he commemorated was his sole resource-save when the commission was confined to a single statue. Truth tramples on Falsehood, and Honour presents the insignia of the Garter, in the monument of Lord Halifax, whose bust stands in the centre. Britannia places one hand on the medallion of Sir George Pocock, and with the other shakes a thunderbolt over the ocean where that eminent commander was so long a ruler. A figure of Poetry bends over the head of Mason, and laments his loss. It is needless to augment the list. Name the defunct, and a man of ordinary penetration may divine in a moment how the sculptor has treated him. It is indeed no easy task to commemorate moderate intellect and ordinary virtue; great subjects dictate the proper mode of treatment, but what shall the sculptor do with a man who only paid his taxes and compounded for his tithes-visited London once a year-married when he was twentyfive-and died at seventy, leaving his estate unencumbered and his second wife in weeds? On one occasion, in the absence of Bacon, an order for a monument was left with the person who conducted his business :—the sculptor, on being informed of it, said, “Well, in memory of a private gentleman?— and what price was mentioned?" "Three hundred pounds, sir." "Three hundred pounds-a small

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bass-relief will do-was he a benevolent man? You inquired that, I hope." Yes, sir-he was benevolent-he always gave sixpence, they said, to an old woman who opened his pew on a Sunday." "That will do-that will do-we must have recourse to our old friend the Pelican."

When he was retouching the statue of Chatham in Westminster Abbey, a divine, and a stranger, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, in allusion to the story of Zeuxis, "Take care what you are

doing, you work for eternity." This reverend person then stepped into the pulpit and began to preach. When the sermon was over, Bacon touched his arm and said, "Take care what you do, you work for eternity."

He affected frequently to speak lightly of his art, and seemed unwilling to allow it the station in public esteem to which the genius of its professors had raised it. Being, on one occasion, complimented on the beauty of his public works, and also on their usefulness, he admitted that he had striven to render them acceptable by the religious sentiment or judicious moral which they imbodied; but yet, he added laying his hand on the sleeve of his friend, "What am I in the sight of God but an humble cutter of stone?"

The career of the sculptor, whose "pride thus aped humility," was now drawing to a close. He had lived fifty-eight years-every new season had brought an increase of employment and of famehis health was good, and his looks fresh and vigorous. On the evening of Sunday, the 4th of August, 1799, while sitting happy with all his family, he was suddenly attacked with an inflammation in his bowels, and in spite of skilful physicians, the disorder hurried him to dust in a couple of days, leaving two sons and three daughters by his first wife, and three sons by his second. When his will was opened, directions were found how his remains were to be honoured. He was buried in Whitfield's Chapel, Tottenham Court Road, under the north gallery, and a plain tablet was placed over his grave, for which he had written the following inscription:

"WHAT I WAS AS AN ARTIST SEEMED TO ME OF SOME IMPORTANCE WHILE I LIVED; BUT WHAT I REALLY WAS AS A BELIEVER IN CHRIST JESUS IS THE ONLY THING OF IMPORTANCE TO ME NOW."

He also directed that his second son, John Bacon,

should continue in the profession of sculpture, and finish the works which he had left incomplete. He distributed his wealth, sixty thousand pounds, equally among all his children.

In person, Bacon was about five feet eight inches high, well made, of a fair complexion, and with a look which betokened vivacity and address. He had seen much of the world, was intimate with the ways of men, and knew how to vary his conversation according to the character of those whom he desired to please. This devout man could be courtly among princes, joyous with the gay, enter into cal culations of loss and gain with the sordid, and sympathize in the rise or fall of stocks with the jobbers. Such facility is not uncommon in human naturebut it laid Bacon a little open to the imputation of hypocrisy-of which, however, no candid judge would venture to pronounce him guilty. He was charitable at least in theory; to resolve to do a benevolent act indicates a man who can take one step, at least, in the road of mercy; and it may be the fault of the reporters that I have heard oftener of his theory than of his practice. Of his modes of study, little can now be known, for no one living remembers him in the days of his youth, when amid the toils of the pottery he was indulging in visions of future eminence, and imbodying those shapes which visited his fancy. He was an early riser, quick in thought, decided in resolution, and remarkable for the common-sense views which he took of all matters connected with his art.

Bacon's merits have been widely acknowledged -he felt where his strength lay, when he said his statues were his best works. He infused more good English sense into his sculpture than any preceding artist. Having little imagination, he willingly welcomed those figures which Spenser calls "dark conceits," because they came without study or meditation. His style of sculpture was, with the

exception of his single statues, decidedly of that kind called the picturesque. The result of the whole is sometimes magnificent-the figures are well placed and commanding the auxiliary symbols are scattered with profuse liberality, and the workmanship is ever neat, skilful, elaborate. But a man can only infuse genius into his work in proportion as he possesses it himself; and the genius of Bacon was not of a high order. There is much external grace and lavish prettiness; but we trace few of those bright shapes and vivid sentiments which denote the hand of the inspired master. The manufacturer of images for a pottery is visible in many of his works-a good shape and interesting posture alone are aimed at. Nor was the making of artificial stone figures a pursuit more favourable for a mind which should aspire at stamping sentiment and feeling on his productions. Time with his scythe— Hercules holding an ale-vat-Apollo fiddling before a music-seller's shop-Minerva inviting customers to an ensurance-broker's-and Mercury displaying his winged helm and sandals at a newspaper-office, had corrupted the original feelings of his nature, and taught him to consider shape, posture, and arrangement of drapery as the essentials of his art. His natural strength exerted itself and shook off the fetters imposed by this sort of education, whenever he was commissioned to make a statue of one whom he had familiarly known. He placed, as it were, the images mental and bodily of Johnson, and Howard, and Rodney, before him, and thought of them alone till he completed his work: this is sufficiently visible in those fine statues-there all is original and unborrowed-and Bacon shows that, under more favourable circumstances, his general style might have soared far above the mere picturesque.

ANNE SEYMOUR DAMER.

"MRS. DAMER, daughter of General Conway, has chosen a walk more difficult and far more uncommon than painting. The annals of statuary record few artists of the fair sex, and not one that I recollect of any celebrity. Mrs. Damer's busts from the life are not inferior to the antique; and theirs, we are sure, were not more like. Her shock-dog, large as life, and only not alive, has a looseness and softness in the curls that seemed impossible to terra cotta; it rivals the marble one of Bernini in the royal collection. As the ancients have left us but five animals of equal merit with their human figures, namely, the Barberini goat-the Tuscan boar-the Mattei eagle-the eagle at Strawberry Hill—and Mr. Jennings's, now Mr. Duncombe's, dog—the talent of Mrs. Damer must appear in the most distinguished light. Aided by some instructions from that masterly statuary, Mr. Bacon, she has attempted and executed a bust in marble. Cerrachi, from whom first she received four or five lessons, has given a whole figure of her as the Muse of Sculp ture, in which he has happily preserved the graceful lightness of her form and air." Such were the words of Horace Walpole, in the year 1780, concerning this lady; loveliness-relationship-old descent, and lofty connexions influenced his courtly pen; but a colder account must be rendered of her genius and her works by one who has never been cheered by her wit nor charmed by her beauty.

Mrs. Damer was born in the year 1748: she was the only child of Field-Marshal Henry Seymour