REMINISCENCES
OF A VERY OLD
ΜΑΝ Ο
JOHN SARTAIN • 1808-1897
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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The Reminiscences of
a
Very Old Man

JOHN SARTAIN, IN HIS 89TH YEAR
From a Photograph by Wright & Cook

HE REMINISCENCES
OF A VERY OLD
OLD MAN
1808-1897. BY JOHN SARTAIN
ACADEMICIAN OF THE PENNSYLVANIA
ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS, CAVA-
LIERE OF THE ROYAL EQUESTRIAN
ORDER OF THE CROWN OF ITALY, ETC.
INTER
DA
FRUCTUS.
FOLIA
BUCHUNTV
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK, MDCCCC

COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY
TO
TE
2
CONTENTS
THE INTRODUCTION
PAGE
ix
REMINISCENCES OF ENGLAND
1
25
34
51
72
I. London—1808 to 1830
II. The Peace Jubilees — 1814 and 1815
III. The Rod
IV. Covent Garden Theatre in 1821— The
“Kemhle Family” Picture
V. Theatre Life Continued— Marshalsea
and King's Bench Prisons
VI. Turnpikes
VII. Apprenticeship-William Young Ottley
and his Friends, Rogers, Leslie, Lawrence,
Dihdin, Douce, and Roscoe
VIII. William Blake and John Varley
IX. Studio Work—Henry Richter—Eman-
cipation

87
ho also
93
108
117
REMINISCENCES OF AMERICA
135
X. Philadelphia and New York in 1830–
National Academy of Design, Philadel-
phia Artists — Letter from Charles Wil-
son Peale to his Son, Rembrandt Peale
XI. Early Art Work in Philadelphia, Penn
Treaty Monument—Henry Inman— Pic-
ture Galleries — Academy of the Fine Arts
Fire
[v]
157
Redlass, 4-24-33, amle
129874
CONTENTS
171
196
XII. Thomas Bishop and Dr. Abercrombie-
Joshua Shaw; Artists' Fund Society and
Academy of the Fine Arts — Ivanhoe's
Rebecca — John Neagle and David
Edwin
XIII. Graham's Magazine -- Edgar Allan Poe
- Thomas Cottrell Clarke
XIV. Sartain's Magazine —Henry B. Hirst,
Thomas Dunn English, R. H. Stoddard,
John Howard Payne — Abolition Society
-- Christ Rejected, King Solomon and the
Iron Worker, Battle of Gettysburg, and
other Large Plates — American Gallery
of Art— Year in Europe — Larkin G.
Mead
XV. Stanfield, Ruskin, Eastlake, Cornelius,
Schnorr, 1863— New Academy of the
Fine Arts - American Exhibition in Lon-
don, 1887— Encaustic Painting
XVI. Centennial Exhibition, 1876—Stuarts
Washington
XVII. Washington Monument— Monument Cem-
etery, Philadelphia
XVIII. An Unexecuted Project — Some Thir-
teenth Century Woodcuts
XIX. Conclusion
THE INDEX

218
241
262
272
278
285
291
[ vi ]
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
JOH
12
18
24
30
40
OHN Sartain, in his eighty-ninth year. From a
photograph by Wright & Cook Frontispiece
The Toll-Gate hy Apsley House ; Entrance-Gates to
Hyde Park at Hyde Park Corner ; Turnpike-Gate
at Hyde Park Corner ( Looking West)
Old London Bridge. From an Etching hy E.W. Cooke
Whitehall Palace, as designed by Inigo Jones. After
a Drawing in the British Museum
Temple of Concord, Green Park, 1814. Britannia.
Transparency hy Thomas Stothard, R. A.
Old British Museum, Montague House
Cheapside before the Fire of London
The Trial of Queen Katharine—the Kemhle Family.
From an Engraving by John Sartain after the
Painting hy G. H. Harlow
The Opening of New London Bridge. After the Paint-
ing by Clarkson Stanfield, R. A.
Westminster, Old Parliament Houses and Westminster
Bridge
St. Paul's Cathedral. Lord Mayor's Day. After the
Painting by David Roberts, R. A.

50
64
80
100
112
[ vii ]

ILLUSTRATIONS
136
Remains of Winchester Palace, Southwark. From an
Engraving by George Cooke
124
Washington's Mock-Funeral Crossing Market Street,
Philadelphia. Centre Square Water-Works in the
Distance on the Site of the present City Hall. From
an Etching after W. Birch
Patriotism and Age. From an Engraving by John
Sartain after the Painting by John Neagle 142
Birthplace of Benjamin West, P. R. A. From a Draw-
ing made in 1837 by John Sartain
168
Miss Rebecca Gratz. From a Drawing by John Sar-
tain after the Painting by Thomas Sully
182
Pat Lyon. From the Painting by John Neagle in the
Possession of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts, Philadelphia
192
Edgar Allan Poe
Friends' Meeting-House at Springfield ( now Swarth-
more ), Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where Ben-
jamin West Received Permission to become a Painter.
From a Drawing made in 1837 by John Sartain 232
Thomas Sully. After an Engraving by John Sartain
from the Painting by Thomas Sully
255
212
[ viii
INTRODUCTION

B
BENVENUTO Cellini, the eminent Flor-
entine artist and consummate bravo, de-
clares that “It is the duty of every one,
in whatever state or condition of life, to be his
own biographer ; but he should not enter upon
this important and arduous undertaking before he
has attained the age of forty.” Now as I already
number much more than twice that many years,
it is fair to assume that Cellini would pronounce
me fully qualified, at least in the matter of age.
But I should never have entered upon this task,
for task it is, had it not been for the importunity
of numerous friends who insist that much that I
have seen, and much that I know of many per-
sons of distinction both in this country and in
Europe, ought to be recorded. Should I find time
from other pressing and more important affairs
to accomplish this writing, the reader - if reader
there happens to be — will find, I hope, that I
have avoided what Chester Harding calls an
Egotistography. My reminiscences will go back
to what I saw of the great national jubilee re-

[ ix ]
INTRODUCTION
joicings of 1814 on the occasion of Napoleon's
overthrow by the allied forces of Europe, and
his banishment to Elba.
Every drama, whether of real or mimic life,
must be provided with a stage and a theatre.
Even for the performance of Punch this is essen-
tial. What a shifting of scenery has not London
presented from time to time, as successive actions
—often tragic, sometimes ludicrous or pleasur-
able-passed in panoramic fashion before the
observer ! What it was my fortune to see in an
unobtrusive way of the scenes and performances
with which I happened to come in contact, it
will be the purpose of the following pages to
present in manner as best I may, a simple unpre-
tentious narrative.
It may not be out of place to mention here the
immediate impulse toward the starting of this
book. A small gathering of intimates in my li-
brary one evening included my esteemed friends,
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Janvier. In the course
of the general conversation, I had occasion to
relate the case of a man who endeavoured to evade
payment of a just claim by means of a quibble.
In the written obligation the words “this inden-

[x]
INTRODUCTION
ture” were used, but as the four smooth edges of
the document formed a perfect parallelogram, he
argued that there was no indenture, and there-
fore the contract was not binding. The judge on
the bench asked to look at the agreement. When
it was handed up to him, he took out his pen-
knife and cut one edge of the paper to a waved
line, and then returned it to the captious dispu-
tant, saying, “It is now an indenture.”
This suggested to Mr. Janvier an amusing idea.
He drew up an obligation that I would within one
year from date begin writing my reminiscences.
He placed the pen in my hand and I signed it.
He then cut it in two diagonally in a waved line
from one corner to the other. “There, that's an
indenture. You may have one half. I shall keep
the other, and will hold you to it.”
Hence this book.

[ xi ]
Reminiscences of England

CHAPTER I
London— 1808 to 1830
HE London of my earliest recollection, which
my mind's eye still sees with vivid distinct-
ness, exists no longer, or at least only in a
few detached fragments left here and there. The miles
of fields that I remember, and which in part I have trav-
ersed, are now covered with smoke-blackened houses,
and many extensive outlying wild commons are trans-
formed into beautiful parks and gardens. So now to
begin, let us ignore the London of to-day and sub-
stitute a few glimpses of the London of my child-
hood.
Those who are familiar with the picturesque beauties
of St. James' Park, its winding and varied lake shore
and islands peopled with swans and other water fowl,
must find it difficult to realize in imagination the place
as I knew it prior to 1820. A broad, straight canal
divided the enclosure into two long fields, from which
the public was excluded and which were used only for
pasturage. A few fine old elms stood here and there,
remote from one another. Midway of its length, the
canal was spanned by a one-arched Chinese bridge
with a pagoda over the crown of the arch. It had been
built for the Peace Celebration in 1814, and had be-


I
[1]

REMINISCENCES
come a valued short-cut by way of Queen Anne's
Gate to what was then known as Tothill's Fields. It
was for pedestrians only, and the rise at each end was
by a succession of steps and platforms.
The Mall on the north side existed then as now, but
the ranks of trees were finer and larger than the sickly
race that has succeeded them. The separation of the
Mall from the grassy enclosure was by a dry ditch
with a wooden railing at the bottom, painted black
with some kind of pitchy paint. There were no gates
anywhere, and I never knew how the animals grazing
within, chiefly sheep, were got in or out, but there
must have been somewhere concealed a movable panel
for the purpose. For all that, I and the other children
used to get in to gather the buttercups and daisies, and
the way we accomplished it was this: the upright rails
were mostly just a trifle too close together to let my
little head through, but after trying some twenty or
more, Eureka! a space a bit wider would be found.
Where my head would pass through my body would, ,
and thus went in the whole troop of us.
In those primitive days of innocence London had no
police, but only constables who were selected from
among respectable shopkeepers. They remained at
home minding their own proper business except when
called out to arrest a thief or some disturber of the
peace, and all the neighbourhood knew which grocer,
shoemaker or tallow-chandler represented the majesty

M
[ 2 ]
ENGLAND
of the law. As insignia of office and to inspire awe and
reverence of his authority, each constable was furnished
by the powers that were with a small round staff about
nine inches long, with a rude carving on the end in-
tended to represent a kingly crown, the whole painted
with some device that I do not remember. As these
defenders of law and order issued forth from their
private affairs only when summoned, we children were
never molested for trespassing on his Majesty's re-
served domain.
The south side of the park was planted with rows of
trees bordering broad straight walks, corresponding
with those on the north, but fewer in number. There
was no public carriage way then as now, no thorough-
fare except for pedestrians, and it was so little fre-
quented as to be always a solitude save when the drill
sergeant exercised his awkward squad of raw recruits.
At its eastern end, this southern boundary was irregu-
lar and zigzag and was known as Birdcage Walk. A
brick wall at the western end toward Buckingham
House enclosed the soldiers' barracks, and I have
stood near that wall listening with feelings of distress
to the agonized groans of a man being flogged.
West of the park stood the red brick mansion known
as Buckingham House, the town house of Queen
Charlotte, wife of George the Third and prolific
mother of his fifteen children, whom Byron styled “a
bad ugly woman.” The east view from its windows

[ 3 ]
REMINISCENCES
was along the straight canal, while northward, across
the Green Park, was seen the shining fountain of
the “Queen's Basin,” which lay parallel with Picca-
dilly and less than a stone's throw from it. This foun-
tain looked well enough when seen from afar, but it
was distance that lent enchantment to the view, for it
consisted only of an ugly iron pipe, some twenty feet
in height perhaps. A considerable body of water poured
from the top, which was covered with a plain iron cap
to spread the flow before it fell. A few feet from the
base of the pipe was a circular brick wall with a flat
stone capping, intended no doubt to contain the de-
scending flood which was to fall in a sheet over its
brim, but the open joints of the brick work let it
through so freely that the surface of the water within
was on the same level as that outside. In winter, I
have seen the water of this fountain frozen into the
st fantastic shapes, lovely to behold, stalagmites of
crystal rising to meet pendant icicles in the strangest
contorted forms, sparkling with beauty when the sun
shone. Four or five magnificent old elms stood west
of the fountain, with seats against their trunks under
the shade of their broad spreading branches, which
when occupied by ladies made a charming feature of
the place. But those fine trees died of old age long
years ago, and the Queen's Basin is filled
up
and
grass-
grown; and as the mind's eye reproduces the things
that are past and gone, a sort of hea
gone, a sort of heartache arises along

m
[ 4 ]

ENGLAND
with the vision of what is no more. The same change
has come over what was Rosamond's Pond, which re-
posed amid the grove in the hollow some sixty yards
further west.
West of all this was, and is, Hyde Park Corner,
where the northwest and southeast angles of the two
parks terminate diagonally opposite each other at the
end of Piccadilly; but how different from its present
dignified and imposing appearance was this locality in
the reign of the third George. The classic gates of
Decimus Burton had not then risen in stately beauty,
nor had the residence of the Duke of Wellington put
on its architectural attire, for both Apsley House and
the hospital almost opposite were plain unsightly brick
buildings. The conspicuous feature of the spot was an
obstruction in the shape of a turnpike gate, which
stretched its all-embracing arms from side to side of
the wide avenue, and all comers not pedestrians had
to stand and deliver before being permitted to pass
through. Those were slow-going times, but imagine
if you can the traffic of to-day held in check by such
a barrier; the pent-up accumulation stagnating on both
sides of the gates would indeed be a sight to wonder
at.
So have I seen the waters of Father Thames piled up
at old London Bridge, waiting their turn to get through
the narrow ways between the piers of its small Gothic
arches. Whether the flow was up stream or down it
[5]


REMINISCENCES
was the same, almost like a waterfall over a dam. But
the toll-gate is a thing of the past, and so is King
John's old bridge, and free passage to traffic on land
and water is permitted on both thoroughfares.
No Regent Street existed as yet, nor Regent's Park;
the latter was, I think, planned and planted, but it
was invisible to the public. What is now Albany
Street, built up with houses on both sides, was then a
country road, with a walk for pedestrians on the east
side only, and on Sunday afternoons it was thronged
with the cockney populace on their way to Primrose
Hill. I once saw a frightened hare on this road rushing
full tilt toward the built-up part of the town, but un-
pursued because so unexpected. The prospect east-
ward from the top of Primrose Hill was a wide spread
of grassy meadows, and at the foot of its eastern slope
was Chalk Farm, to the neighbourhood of which duel-
ists used to resort to give and receive satisfaction,
when that style of mutual assassination was fashion-
able. The twin mount on the other side, the summit
of which is now covered with buildings, used to be
known as Blood Hill, and derived that appellation, I
think, from the circumstance that the bodies of some
murdered men had been found in the ditch at its foot.
Before Regent Street existed, the chief thoroughfare
between Oxford Street to the north (then commonly
called Oxford Road), and Piccadilly to the south, was
a narrow lane named Swallow Street, the only remain-

[ 6 ]
ENGLAND
ing portion of which still enters Piccadilly opposite
St. James' Church. The traffic arriving from the Strand
by way of the Haymarket, uniting with that from
Coventry Street, passed up Tichborne Street (now
obliterated), through Marylebone Street, and entered
Swallow Street from the northern end of Warwick
Street. The house line on the east side of the modern
Regent Street is the same as was the east line of Swal-
low Street, the present breadth having been obtained
by totally abolishing the entire west side of the old
lane. I remember distinctly the appearance before the
transformation began.
The avenue planned for connecting Waterloo Place
with Regent Street took the graceful sweep of a quarter
circle, and was named the Regent's Quadrant. When
the Roman Doric colonnade on both sides of the street
existed, as originally built by the architect Nash, the
effect was extremely beautiful, but the columns were
long since removed.
I remember well the beginning of the demolition of
houses for opening Regent Street, for before this, the
school I attended in Air Street stood on a spot now
in the middle of the road of the Regent's Quadrant.
At the foot of Waterloo Place, which is after all pro-
perly a part of Regent Street and was built at the same
time, stood Carlton House, the residence of the Prince
of Wales. He had become Regent upon the mental
failure of his father, George the Third, and the new

[ 7 ]

REMINISCENCES
street was named in his honour. The building had a
beautifully proportioned Corinthian portico of six col-
umns on the centre of its north front, of sufficient
projection for a carriage to drive under it, but unfor-
tunately this fine façade was partially concealed from
view by a wall on a line with the Pall Mall house
fronts. This wall served as base for a range of coupled
Ionic columns, interrupted at either end by arched
gates for the entrance and exit of carriages. The pal-
ace itself could be seen but imperfectly through this
screen.
I have mentioned the old London Bridge and the dam
it formed against the rising and falling tide, but it was
not only the stone piers that made the obstruction; it
was the starlings built around the piers for their pro-
tection that so seriously narrowed the channels. I re-
member that they resembled enormous barges with
narrow prows at both ends.
The next bridge west of London Bridge was Black-
friars, spanning the river in a graceful curve, each pier
being ornamented on both fronts with coupled col-
umns, which were utilized as supports for recessed
seats for weary wayfarers on the sidewalks above. This
fine structure was torn down a few years ago to give
place to one better suited to the requirements of the
enlarged traffic of the present day.
Farringdon Street, beginning at the foot of Holborn
Hill, leads southward to this bridge, and I well re-
[ 8 ]
ENGLAND
member the market house that occupied the middle
of the roadway from end to end, terminating at the
foot of Ludgate Hill. Often have I walked through
this market after dark during its hours of active busi-
ness, noisy, in the butcher's portion especially, with
invitations to “buy, buy, buy,” and the crisp, clicking
accompaniment of knife sharpening on steel. Under
the pavement where this market stood, is a culverted
sewer through which flows a torrent of fluid horrors.
Before it was arched over it inspired that couplet of
Pope's:-
There the Fleet ditch with disemhoguing streams,
Rolls its black trihute of dead dogs to Thames.
Yet this now noisome current must have been a beau-
tiful stream of clear water, flowing between green slop-
ing banks, high and wide, when it bore on its sheltering
bosom the Roman fleet. Cæsar's ships having floated
here gave name to it and to near localities, as Fleet
River, Fleet Street, and Fleet prison.
The river banks were high and in some places abrupt,
as was shown in many spots with which I was familiar;
Breakneck Stairs for instance, almost opposite Hol-
born Hill. This appropriately named long and steep
flight of stone steps came down from a squalid quarter
of tall, old lodging houses, decayed and wretched. I
always saw linen, miscalled white, hanging out to dry
on lines projected from the windows by means of long
poles. It was wash-day all the time with one or other
[9]


REMINISCENCES
of the numerous tenants. Here lived Oliver Gold-
smith, but in his day the place may have been better;
it is to be hoped so at least. The slope was much less
steep at Ludgate Hill, where once stood the gate to
Lud's town, afterward the Londinium of the Romans.
But further upstream the valley narrowed, as at Clerk-
enwell on one side and Mutton Hill on the other. The
former place derived its name from its having been
the favourite resort of the London clerks for their hol-
iday games, near a well of superior water. Saffron Hill
on the west side, running parallel with the stream,
was but slightly undulating for that reason. I remem-
ber it as a nest of thieves or worse, and the home of
the dangerous classes generally. Dickens in Oliver
Twist locates his bad characters in this neighbour-
hood, but a large part of the quarter has been pulled
down to make way for modern improvements. A long
way further north, almost as far as Battle Bridge (now
named King's Cross), occurs at Pentonville another
steep slope on the east bank, and here was a noted
pleasure garden called Bagnidge Wells. Although the
whole of the stream has now disappeared from view,
arched over for a culvert, I remember this northern
part running open to the air, and it formed a pleasing
feature of the garden of Bagnidge Wells, through
which it flowed. Its waters were of course pure and
uncontaminated at that time, for it still babbled among
green fields, not having yet reached built-up London.
[ 10 ]
ENGLAND
Still further north, beyond King's Cross, was old St.
Pancras Church on the right of the road going north,
and opposite was a steep, high bank, grass-grown,
which I climbed in 1823 to make a sketch of the
ruinous old building on the other side. The bank was
part of the ancient Roman camp, and its remaining
in such good condition for nearly nineteen centuries
proves the excellence of the protection grass sod af-
fords against the wear of the weather. The earthworks
here were probably erected by the men who came
over in the ships that lay in the stream below, and
Battle Bridge near by got its name from a conflict
between them and the native Britons.
When I recrossed to Europe in 1855 I went to ex-
amine the ancient camp, but to my infinite disappoint-
ment it had been levelled, and a model lodging-house
reared on the site. The tumble-down bit of old archi-
tecture opposite had also disappeared, and a brand
new Gothic church reared in its stead.
The names of places often serve to mark the site of
some interesting historical event, and frequently to my
great regret I find them changed by some busy body
who probably knows nothing of the past, and there-
fore cannot guess at the appropriateness of the original
appellation. Battle Bridge was so called for the greater
part of twenty centuries, but it is now known only as
King's Cross, and the new name has this trivial origin.
In the middle of the wide open space was erected a

[ 11 ]

REMINISCENCES
sort of watchbox, a shelter for members of the new
police force which had superseded the constabulary.
It was a ridiculous piece of architecture, too small to
hold more than two or three, and reminded most peo-
ple of a pepper-box, and it was commonly so desig-
nated. The crowning feature of the structure was a
statue of George the Fourth, and from that the space
was named King's Cross. A regrettable change of this
nature was made in a street back of the County Fire
Office and Regent's Quadrant, close against where I
was born, the sign on the corner of which now reads
Sherwood Street. The right name, however, which it
originally bore is Sherrard, derived from a curious old
mansion that stood on the east side, the residence of
Lady Sherrard, whose family owned Leicester Square,
then Leicester Fields. I suppose some wiseacre in
temporary authority fancied the true name to be a
corruption of the one he substituted, and thought he
was working a restoration. But I well remember the
dignified old house with its range of attached columns
in front, each alternating with a large window, many
paned; the open balustrade over whose entablature
screened the attic window above. In my mind's eye I
see it all distinctly now, the courtyard in front with
neither pavement, grass nor gravel, but only levelled
earth; it had been grassy originally, no doubt, but as
a playground for children was worn bare. The stair-
way inside leading to the main apartment was spacious,
[ 12 ]

HUI
GATES TO HYDE PARK: AT HYDE PARK CORNER
C
Hyde Park Corner.
THE TOLL GATE BY APSLEY HOUSE
TURNPIKE GATE AT HYDE PARK CORNER
ENGLAND
and the large L shaped room was used as a billiard
saloon as far back as I can remember. In my boyhood
I often went in and looked on at the play, and some-
times was pressed into service to mark the game
for
the players by moving the hands on the two dials.
This building was pulled down in the latter part of
1819, probably before that meddlesome Sherwood
man was born.
Near that clumsy old bridge at Westminster, that has
been replaced by one of extreme beauty, stood a group
of ugly, black, brick buildings on the left bank of the
river; the old Parliament Houses. As I was looking
at them from the opposite shore one day in 1820,
and thinking it was high time they were demolished,
there came down the stream a steamboat. I had not
noticed it until it was abreast of where I stood, so
noiseless was its movement and so absorbed in thought
was I. It swept around in graceful curve till it lay
bow upstream, for the tide was running out, and then
dropped anchor. I had never seen a steamboat before,
and I confess that I was awestruck, and a palpitation
in my breast arose at the novel sight. I am aware how
childish this must appear to a modern reader, but if
I write at all my experiences must go down faithfully
as they occurred. There are times favourable to in-
tense impressions, and on this occasion the broad spread
of the twilight sky, reflected from the dimpled surface
of the water, deepened the contrast of gloom on the

[ 13 ]
REMINISCENCES
dark Parliament buildings opposite, while the perfect
quiet made the sudden spectral appearance of the
steamboat all the more impressive.
The serene calm of this twilight experience was in sin-
gular contrast with the turbulent scene I witnessed
the next day in St. James' Park. The carriage of the
King, George the Fourth, was passing along the road
between Carlton House and the arched gate of the
Horse Guards, preceded by a small troop of horse
soldiers, while a similar troop followed in the rear. But
close alongside the carriage moved a group of women,
uttering loud groans and hisses, waving clenched fists
above their heads, and yelling execrations against
the royal occupant within, who was invisible because
the blinds of the carriage were close drawn. As the
cavalcade neared the building of the Horse Guards,
these amazons dropped off. What surprised me was
that the guards did not interfere, but kept on at a
gentle trot, scarcely faster than a walk, looking neither
to the right nor to the left, as if unconscious of what
was going on close to the carriage they were supposed
to be guarding. In explanation of this surprising
sight, I was afterward told that the general unpop-
ularity of the King was just then intensified by the
procedure he had caused to be instituted against his
Queen, which also accounted for the sex of the little
mob.
But to return to the river. In front of me lay a fleet

>
[ 14 ]
ENGLAND
of flat-bottomed coal barges, which at high tide were
moored afloat, at other times reposing on a bed of
black, shining mud. These mud-spreads of old Father
Thames at London were a serious eye-sorrow before
the days of the Thames Embankment. Between West-
minster and Waterloo Bridges, there was a sort of
cove on the north side, with acres of this unsightly
stuff festering and broiling in the sun at every low
tide. The Embankment reformed all this. We never
hear the name of John Martin, the artist, associated
as it should be with this great public improvement,
yet he it was who first urged its construction and
drew plans for it. I have an etching by him, done
not later than 1825, giving a perspective view along a
street he planned, from his projected embankment to
the southeast angle of St. Martin's Church, Trafalgar
Square, thus opening out to view a noble building
which up to that time was buried among narrow alleys
and low rookeries. His fertile brain had also perfected
a project for supplying London with an abundance of
pure water by bringing the river Coln to its doors,
through a varied and beautiful landscape, to be planted
as a park most of the way. I possess three or four of
his etchings of the scenery that he designed to create
for the passage of the stream, which occasionally de-
scends in picturesque cascades.
In one way or other, artists have had their full share
in the achievement of many of the most important

[ 15 ]
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improvements and conveniences that we at present
enjoy. Imagine what a slow-going people we should
of necessity be without steam navigation; the artist
Fulton was the first to apply successfully the force of
vapour to that use. How tedious would now appear
the means for communication of thought, if we were
suddenly deprived of the electric telegraph; it was
another artist, Morse, who first utilized that myste-
rious agent, electricity, for the purpose. Da Vinci even
exercised his brain for public utility in inventing the
wheelbarrow. The artist, Joshua Shaw, invented the
percussion cap for firearms, thus dismissing the clumsy
method of flint and steel. Difficult indeed it must
have been in the old time to follow the admonition
of Oliver Cromwell, “keep your powder dry.” This
same landscape painter, Shaw, invented the glazier's
revolving diamond for cutting glass in curves without
shifting the finger grip on the handle, an invaluable
advantage to workers in stained glass, in which curves
are multitudinous. He also invented the wafer prim-
ing for cannon. For this and other improvements
Congress voted him twenty-five thousand dollars, and
the Czar of Russia sent him a present of a purse of
money. Both Morse and Shaw were friends of mine,
and I was once in the same room with John Martin,
and was much amused at seeing him puzzled over
the drinking-glass of a bird-cage, wondering why
the whole bulk of water did not flow out, as it was

[ 16 ]
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to go
above the level of the cup where the bird dipped
his bill. He understood presently, however, that for
every drop of water that came out a bubble of air had
in.
Although London remained without a National Gal-
lery of pictures until so late a period as 1822–23, it
did possess a Museum, thanks to that enlightened en-
thusiast, Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection became
the nucleus of the present fine assemblage of curious
and beautiful objects housed in the British Museum,
a building of the utmost architectural grandeur, well
worthy of the nation. Montague House was the origi-
nal depository of the collection. It stood on a portion
of the present site, and although regarded at the time
of its erection as the finest residence in London, it was
insignificant in comparison with the present noble
structure. It was in the French style with mansard
roofs, and was built of brick. The eagerness displayed
by Sloane in adding to his gatherings on every pos-
sible occasion is alluded to by Alexander Pope in this
wise:
“Gate! How cam’st thou here?”
“I was brought to Chiswick last year,
Battered by wind and weather,
Inigo Jones put me together.
Sir Hans Sloane let me alone!
Burlington brought me hither."
Sloane's collections were largely in the line of natural
2
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history, I believe, but subsequently other kinds of
objects were added, such for example as a fine collec-
tion of Etruscan vases, then the Townley collection
of ancient sculptures, after that the Phidian marbles
from the Athenian Parthenon. Special galleries were
constructed for the display of these, and the Townley
galleries were admirable for showing the statues to the
best advantage; the light was direct, not diffused, and
the beauties of the forms were clearly seen and under-
stood. The objects were not then lost and over-
whelmed, as now, by the magnificence of the archi-
tecture, the jewels sacrificed to the casket.
In the Egyptian room of the British Museum is the
famous “Rosetta Stone,” the triple inscription on
which furnished the first clue to the deciphering of
Egyptian characters, the same inscription being re-
peated on it in Greek, hieroglyphic and enchorial or
demotic. This precious mass of basalt is now safely
enclosed in a glass case by itself, where no finger can
touch it, but when I was a student drawing from the
antiques there it must have been less valued, for it
lay unprotected on the stone floor and I used to sit
on it while eating my Abernethy biscuits for lunch.
There were only three bridges over the Thames at
London by which access could be had to what was
known as St. George's Fields, on the south side.
These were old London Bridge, Blackfriars and West-
minster; all three have since been taken down to make
[ 18 ]

OLD LONDON BRIDGE
Etching hy E. W, Cooke
From an
ENGLAND
way for more capacious structures. They were build-
ing a bridge at Vauxhall, and I remember the half-
spans of the iron arches lying about, ready to be used
on the stone piers. A superb level bridge of granite
was in course of construction, called the Strand Bridge,
and I was lifted up to get a view of it from between
the stone balusters of Westminster Bridge. It was not
yet baptized by the name of Waterloo, for the good
reason that the famous battle had not yet been fought,
as Napoleon was still living in retirement at his coun-
try residence on the island of Elba.
By the river side immediately below the Tower of
London was the district of St. Katharine's, as vile a
quarter as could be found anywhere in or near Lon-
don. Here newly-returned sailors were taken in and
done for, emerging penniless, and through the laby-
rinthian narrow ways no well-dressed person dared
venture after dark. In the olden time it must have
been a place of good repute, or otherwise the Hos-
pital and Chapel of St. Katharine would hardly have
been built there. This was an institution endowed as
an asylum for aged ladies who had been in the service
of the Queen, and whose reduced circumstances re-
quired that a suitable refuge should be provided
where they could pass the remainder of their lives in
comparative ease and comfort. The whole region de-
teriorated gradually, till it became such an utter abom-
ination that nothing short of total obliteration could
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be devised as a remedy. A St. Katharine’s Dock Com-
pany was organized, the houses pulled down, the earth
on which they had rested scooped out and the water
of the river let in. In place of the old endowed hos-
pital removed, a new one was erected on the east side
of the Regent's Park, a Gothic chapel in the centre
and the dwellings symmetrically placed on either side,
the whole forming three sides of an open court.
A little higher up stream on the Southwark side, in
the neighbourhood of the old church of St. Saviour's,
just above London Bridge, there must have been in
former times many structures of considerable architec-
tural pretensions, judging from the numerous frag-
ments that I remember well but which have since
been destroyed. My interest in such objects induced
me to search for them among narrow and crooked
lanes. A fire which occurred in one of the large ware-
houses, which threw down the roof and front wall,
disclosed to view in the end wall a circular window
with beautiful Gothic tracery. When I made known
this find to the eminent engraver, George Cooke, he
sent his son Edward (afterwards the Royal Academi-
cian), to make a careful drawing of it, from which he
engraved the plate in his London and its Vicinity.
He made also a beautiful plate for the same work of
the excavations for the St. Katharine's Dock.
The region known as Belgravia, at the west end, was,
as I remember it, a vast treeless plain of meadow land,

[ 20 ]
ENGLAND
extending north and west from Knightsbridge and
Sloane Street, and so far east as almost to reach the
garden wall of Buckingham House. It was known in
its entirety as the “Five Fields,” and was crossed by
a country road called the King's Road, a high bank
of earth with a ditch on each side of it, the latter
mostly dry. At one place alongside the road was a
pond of water that used to be crowded most of the
time by boys bathing, myself among them in my day.
It was the only place available for that pastime except
the Serpentine in Hyde Park, where it was not per-
mitted until after dark in the evening.
But as I fear this long talk of mine about the London
of my early remembrance is becoming tedious, I will
bring it to a close, although there is much more I
could tell. Those were the days when flint, steel, and
tinder box was the legitimate, accepted and only way
of obtaining a light. A few crack-brained people were
contending that it was perfectly feasible to light the
streets with an illuminating gas, conducted through
pipes, and to convince the people of its practicability
they kept one burner going at Charing Cross.
Another set, equally untrustworthy, were trying to
make people believe that vehicles could be run on
iron rails to advantage, instead of on good old-fash-
ioned roads, and could be drawn along by steam-
engines instead of horses. But it was difficult to get
people to credit it.
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Byron sneered that -
Soon
Steam engines will conduet us to the moon.
It cannot be denied that in those days people were less
annoyed than now by the smoke. With only a third
of the present population, they had much less than
a third of the smoke. The dome of St. Paul's Cathe-
dral could then be seen from a distance, but it cannot
now. The extensive region south of the Euston Road
was vegetable garden-ground, and nearly the entire dis-
tance between the Whitechapel and Stepney churches
was pasture-ground, including an equal distance north
and south. No wonder then that with these vast
spaces covered with smoke-producing houses, the all-
embracing veil continues to deepen. This boundless
modern Babylon is dominated by the noble master-
piece of Sir Christopher Wren.
The great fire of London in 1666 was commemorated
by the erection of a fluted Doric column more than
two hundred feet in height, which stands on the east
side of the street that was the northern approach to
old London Bridge, named Fish Street Hill. I used
to read an inscription cut deep into the stone, not far
above the eyes of pedestrians, and running all around
its four sides, to the effect that the conflagration was
intentionally the work of the Papists. It is there no
longer, having been obliterated by order of the au-

[ 22 ]
ENGLAND
thorities. It was this inscription that inspired Alex-
ander Pope to write the couplet:-
There London's column pointing to the skies,
Like a tall hully rears its head and lies.
The almost total destruction of the old city by fire af-
forded a fine opportunity for rebuilding it on a grand
scale worthy of a great metropolis. Sir Christopher
Wren submitted a plan to this end, with two spacious
streets running eastward from St. Paul's Cathedral, and
furnishing each owner with a lot far superior in location
to the one he had held before the fire. The second
great avenue provided room upon a broad street for
as many additional buildings as now have frontage
upon Cheapside and the Poultry. But the narrow-
minded citizens were obstinate, and each shopkeeper
refused to have any other than the exact spot he had
occupied before, in no matter how crooked and narrow
a lane, or inaccessible a nook in a no-thoroughfare
court. They verified the words of the poet:-
And there's St. Paul's, that's like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head, and that is London town.
Connected with this ground plan for the new city of
the
great architect was his design for St. Paul's Cathe-
dral, intended to be viewed directly in front, present-
ing when seen in its entirety a superb pyramidal mass.
I have in my collection also an engraving of another
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grand scheme for the embellishment of London which
was never carried out, the Palace of Whitehall as it
would have appeared if completed in accordance with
the design made by Inigo Jones for James the First.
Within this magnificent pile of architecture was to
have been a circular court, enriched with sculpture
and adorned with a central fountain. Another old
print shows the only part of the architect's plan which
was added by the king to Cardinal Wolsey's palace,
the Banqueting Hall, together with the old Whitehall
Gate near by.
[ 24 ]

GIAN
WHITEHALL PALACE AS DESIGNED BY INIGO JONES
After a Drawing in the British Museum
CHAPTER II
The Peace Jubilees— 1814 and 1815
HE excitement in London over the peace
that had been conquered from France by
the allied powers of Europe was so fervid,
that it would be impossible for any one who had wit-
nessed the jubilation to forget it, and what I saw re-
mains indelibly impressed on my memory, although
I was only a child, six years old. It continued through
several days, but the greatest display was reserved for
the last, when it culminated in one intensified burst
on a single night, the grand finale of the whole. By
this time everybody must have been utterly exhausted,
both those who made and those who witnessed the
successive shows.
The first of the scenes that I remember was a 'fleet
of ships on the Serpentine in Hyde Park, viewed
from the sloping ground on the north shore. I was
next led through the grove of trees, under and against
the embankment that holds back that large body of
water, and the winding paths were bordered by all
kinds of tempting attractions, in charge of very noisy
proprietors. One of these, a woman, darted forward,
obstructing the narrow way, and shook a bag in my
face, crying, “Now, my pretty dear, take a dip in my


[ 25 ]
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lucky bag; all prizes and no blanks; only a penny!”
And thus as we walked on amid the numerous rivals
that lined the path on both sides, all were vociferously
importuning the passers-by for custom. Then as now,
a stream of water flowed through this pleasant dell,
fed by the overflow from the Serpentine, but at that
time it widened into an ornamental basin, called by
the boys, from its shape, “Leg-of-Mutton Pond.”
Where it narrowed, it passed under a one-arched
bridge, over which ran a road reserved for equestrians.
It then broadened again into a second, larger pond
before flowing under the three-arched bridge at Rotten
Row, where a dam held back the water so as to form
these two ponds, which are now filled up. From here
it flowed to and under Knightsbridge, a little stream
not more than ten feet wide and a foot deep, yet the
damming of this insignificant rivulet has made the
beautiful sheet known as the Serpentine. Knights-
bridge looks little enough like a bridge nowadays, but
in the old time I used to gaze from the parapet of
the bridge on the north side of the way into the run-
ning water, as it pursued its course to join the Thames
at Chelsea.
We went through the Green Park, where great pre-
parations were in progress, and then through St. James'
Park, where I saw building a triumphal arch across
the road on the north side of the Mall, not far from
its approach to Constitution Hill. Men were also at

[ 26 ]
ENGLAND
work finishing the pagoda on the middle of the Chi-
nese bridge, and covered galleries were erecting, three
stories high, at every coign of vantage. Carpenters were
busy everywhere, for all was of wood.
At night the streets were ablaze with illuminations,
but as this was before the use of gas, little oil lamps of
wrinkled glass of various colours had to suffice, some-
times emblazoning mottoes suitable to the occasion.
An official of the newly restored Bourbon dynasty
made an exceptionally brilliant display, as of course
became him, and among his inscriptions were promi-
nent the words, “Peace and Concord.” A party of
British sailors, gloriously drunk, mistook the last word,
and read it “Conquered.” Swearing the customary
oath of that day, involving disaster to their eyes, they
roared that England never had been conquered, and
proceeded to demolish not only the offensive illumi-
nation, but every pane of glass in the Frenchman's
house-front.
Opposite where I lived (and where I was born) in
Queen Street, Golden Square, was a house occupied
by French royalist fugitives, and from the windows
of each of the three stories, large white flags glittering
with fleurs-de-lis in shining gold hung in a flood of
light as bright as multitudinous tallow candles could
make it. I thought it a dream of dazzling beauty
realized, and can fancy I see it now. Everywhere the
streets were filled with the noisy, jubilant crowd, and

[ 27 ]
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among the most uproarious were the butchers with
their “marrow-bones and cleavers.” These were a rec-
ognized institution, now obsolete apparently, for I
have not heard of it of late years. The butchers
marched in a line in single file along the curb, and
each in turn struck his cleaver a blow with the mar-
row-bone, making a parody on a peal of church bells.
In burlesque of the wedding-chimes, the “marrow-
bones and cleavers” would sometimes ring their
changes in front of the house of some newly-married
couple, until they had extorted a guerdon—to leave

them in peace.
The great climax at length arrived, the crowning fes-
tivity—the sham naval battle on the Serpentine, the
ascent of Sadler's balloon from in front of the Buck-
ingham House, the unveiling of the Temple of Con-
cord, and the grand pyrotechnical display as a finale.
As one could not be in all three parks at the same
time, each sightseer had to be content with a third of
the shows, and the best of them was in the Green
Park, where had been erected the beautiful Temple
of Concord. It was there I had the good fortune to
be taken by my father, for from the same spot could
also be seen the balloon ascension and the fireworks.
During the inflating, the big balloon swayed restlessly
from side to side as if impatient to be off, and when
it arose, a little before sunset, the wind carried it in a
northeasterly direction. While it was well in view and
[ 28 ]
ENGLAND
apparently above St. James' Street, streams of sand
were poured out from the car, which I was told was
gold dust, and so it looked in the rays of the evening
sun.
In the southeast quarter of the Green Park stood a
grim, gray, fortress-like structure. It was made, how-
ever, only of painted cloth, and after dark at the firing
of a gun it all fell away, to the surprise of the crowd,
and disclosed the gorgeous Temple of Peace, resplen-
dent in colour, brightness and beauty. Large in dimen-
sions as it was, it revolved slowly and exposed suc-
cessively, to the view of all, its four sides enriched with
beautiful transparent pictures lit from behind. Those
filling the panels of the lower story were the largest,
being each thirty feet long, and were painted by the
best artists of the day for the style of art required.
One was by Thomas Stothard, R. A., and three by
Henry Howard, R. A.
Mrs. Bray, who in 1851 published her life of Thomas
Stothard, who was her first husband's father, tells
about the painting of his transparency for the Temple
of Concord. It represented among other things Bri-
tannia in a chariot drawn by four white horses. They
had neglected to inform the artist that the building
was to revolve, or which way it would move, conse-
quently it so happened that Stothard arranged his
composition the reverse of what it should have been.
It would have been an awkward circumstance to show

[ 29 ]

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Britannia's progress retrograde and her horses moving
tail foremost, so there was nothing to do but to place
the picture face inwards to reverse it, thus weakening
the colour effect considerably. Mrs. Bray says the pic-
ture was painted in a spacious apartment in the King's
Mews near Charing Cross (the site of the present
Trafalgar Square), because Stothard had not conven-
ience for so large a work at his home in Newman
Street.
She makes a singular mistake in stating that the Tem-
ple of Concord was in Hyde Park. I know positively
that it was in the Green Park, a little north of St.
James' Park, for I saw it and remember it as distinctly
as if it were last week. More than forty years ago she
wrote as follows: “Although thousands have passed
away since the event occurred, yet there are many
still surviving who can remember the grand National
Jubilee of 1814.” Yes, true enough, for I too survive
even yet, although millions have gone over to the
majority since she wrote those words. In 1863 my
daughter and I took tea and spent a delightful evening
with Mrs. Bray. She displayed remarkable energy and
vivacity, and although seventy years old, sang for us
to her own accompaniment, and insisted upon pulling
out unaided a bottom bureau-drawer, heavy with bun-
dles of papers. She was looking for some drawings of
Stothard's which she wanted to show me, when she
learned that I was an enthusiastic admirer of that
[ 30 ]

19
2009
OTRE DYRIC
BLUCHEN
ALTUSOTT
TEMPLE OF CONCORD, Green Park, 1814
Britannia : Transparency by Thomas Stothard, R. A.
ENGLAND
great artist. Great he was, combining in his work the
refined grace of Raphael with the splendour of effect
and colour of Rubens.
After the unveiling of the Temple of Concord came
the display of fireworks in a semi-circular enclosure
extending from the front of Buckingham House to
the eastern boundary of the Green Park. The rockets
went up in flights of fifty in a rush, and alternating
with them the set pieces were fired off. The beauty of
these last was destroyed to my mind and only inflicted
torture upon me, for somebody told me that a French-
man was burnt up in each one set off.
The fireworks were well placed for being seen by the
greatest number. The view was good, not only from
the Green Park but also from the open spaces of St.
James' Park, and especially from the Chinese bridge.
Unfortunately those on the bridge had a special dis-
play of their own, not by request as the announce-
ments read, but by accident. The wooden pagoda
caught fire, and all but the two lower stories were con-
sumed before it could be extinguished. This I could
not see from where I was posted, any more than I
could witness the naval battle on the Serpentine,
meant, I think, to represent the battle of Lake Erie.
Of the two hostile fleets one was destroyed and of
course it was not the English, notwithstanding the
despatch of the American Commodore Perry, “We
have met the enemy and they are ours.” Fable is as

[ 31 ]

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good as fact so that the people are pleased, and it was
then more easy to throw dust in the eyes of the pop-
ulace than it is now.
The fireworks were the close of the show, and with
that my eyes closed also, and I was carried home in
the arms of a family friend. A few evenings later my
father took me with him again to the same spot, and
the contrast with what I had last seen there was most
depressing. "Darkness there and nothing more.”
Later there rose occasion for another Peace Celebra-
tion, when Bonaparte was again overthrown, at Water-
loo. This jubilee was on a reduced scale compared
with the one of the preceding year, and its chief feat-
ure was the christening of the new bridge over the
Thames, until then known as the Strand Bridge.
This magnificent structure of granite was afterwards
and forever to be called Waterloo Bridge; the great
bridge and the great battle were to bear the same
name. The ceremony was performed on both land and
water with all the imposing pomp and state befitting
so important an occasion. A prominent figure every-
where of course was the Duke of Wellington.
As by this time I had arrived at the mature age of
seven, I felt myself entitled to escape from leading
strings and make for the sights alone. Accordingly, I
might have been seen at this Waterloo celebration,
threading my way among the legs of the horses that
were crowded together at the junction of the bridge
[ 32 ]
ENGLAND
entrance and the Strand. I saw little enough in the
densely packed crowd, my stature being that of my
seven years, but heard plenty, for the sound of boom-
ing cannon and braying trumpets penetrated every-
where. This finished the public rejoicings conducted
by the government upon the restoration of the old
conservative system, which had been universally pre-
valent before Europe was startled by the upheaval of
the first French Revolution.

3
[ 33 ]

CHAPTER III
The Rod
D
URING the nearly ninety years of my life
no greater progress has been made in any
direction whatever than in the methods em-
ployed in teaching and training children. As I myself
was one of the sufferers from the old system, I may
be pardoned for devoting a short chapter to recording
facts that can scarcely be realized in these days of
advanced thought, which have so fully recognized the
absolute importance of the most careful treatment of
childhood.
The Inferno of Dante is a description of the pun-
ishment of the guilty, but what follows relates to the
wanton infliction of pain on innocent helpless infancy,
the result of the old absurd doctrine that “to spare
the rod is to spoil the child.” The ways and degrees
of suffering, both mental and physical, are various.
Jove chained Prometheus on Caucasus and sent a
vulture to gnaw at his liver. This must have been
very trying, not merely in its severity but in its dura-
tion. The Holy Inquisition is credited with remarkable
ingenuity in devising contrivances for extorting by
torture any answers it desired to certain questions.
But though Mother Ward's methods of torturing the
[ 34 ]
ENGLAND
infantile pupils of her dame-school were less demon-
strative, they were no less effective. I was one of her
pupils and know all about it. We little ones sat in a
row on a bench without a supporting back, and were
ordered to sit upright. If, after prolonged sitting,
fatigue of the spine caused the weaker ones to droop
in the least, down came a sharp cane stroke on the
poor little knuckles without word of warning, and a
keener pain diverted for a time the attention of the
sufferer from the dull ache of the weary back. The
dame's vulture eyes glared over the top rim of her
spectacles, and all the eyes of Argus could not equal
the detective vigilance of hers. I frequently experienced
this exquisite agony and wondered in what I could have
transgressed. It was probably inflicted on the then
prevalent principle laid down by King Solomon, and
certainly the rod was not spared with or without
cause.
Why children were sent to such places I cannot un-
derstand, unless it was to get them out of the way,
but it may be assumed that they were also to be
taught something. All we learned there was what each
of the five vowels spelled preceded by the consonant
h, and also what “our god-fathers and god-mothers
had promised and vowed” in our names. “First that
we should renounce the devil and all his works, the
pomps and vanities of this wicked world and all the
sinful lusts of the flesh.” I have not yet discovered

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a
what 'earthly use (or heavenly either) there could be
in cramming into the mind of a child stuff so incom-
prehensible to it. But fortunately all things have an
end, and the long, long weary days of that dame-
school terminated for me at last.
I was next promoted to a school kept in the top story
of a tall house in Brewer Street opposite Bridle Lane,
and at the corner was a coal and wood store kept
by a famous man, Tom Crib, the pugilist, a brute
greatly venerated by high and low as the Champion
of England. On my first day at this academy, I saw
little friend of mine who was very dear to me,
standing on a form with a chain attached to a band
around his slender ankle, and at the end of the chain
a wooden block. The chain was carved out of wood
and the links were large. What this punishment was
for I did not know, but I saw that he had to walk the
length of the bench a few times back and forth, drag-
ging the block after him. The sight shocked me and
my
heart seemed to rise to my throat. I was the more
pained, no doubt, because I was so fond of this little
boy, who was a very gentle, affectionate child. I used
to wonder over his talent for drawing animals, and he
had the singular habit of making sounds similar to the
voice of the animal he was at the time engaged in
delineating. It seemed as if he could not help it, as if
he were carried away by a sort of inspired enthusiasm.
The surprise and indignation I felt made me regard
[ 36 ]
ENGLAND
this school as worse than the other, and I determined
I would not go to it. Next day I refused to return, so
I was carried there. I remember going up-stairs heels
foremost, borne ignominiously by four of the school-
girls, each taking a quarter of me. As soon as I was
forced into the room, I was marched to a dark closet
and bolted in. I don't remember learning anything at
this school.
My third and last experience was with a clergyman,
the Rev. Mr. Williams by name, by character a sav-
age. This brute was thin, had a keen, sharp black eye,
and wore his hair powdered, the pendant queue be-
hind making the collar of his black dress-coat white
with the hair powder; he had knee breeches, black
silk stockings, and large silver buckles on his shoes.
These shoes were thin-soled so that you never heard
him, when he came up behind you and began to
slash your head, ears and shoulders with the cane
which he always carried about with him, ready for in-
stant use. One morning when I was intent on my
writing copy, "all of a sudden miserable pain surprised
me,” and the wretch was lashing me over the head
furiously with his stick,—what for I never knew.
Naturally I threw up my hands over my head, and
they received part of the punishment. I made no com-
plaint at home, but my mother noticed great welts on
the backs of both little hands, and having learned the
cause went to see the reverend gentleman about it.

[ 37 ]

REMINISCENCES
Two of the scholars, I remember, were respectively
sons of Fores of the print shop at the corner of Sack-
ville Street and Piccadilly, and Leuschars of Picca-
dilly opposite St. James' Church, and at both places
I observe the same names still after a lapse of more
than eighty years.
This school was in Air Street, on what is now the
middle of the road of the Regent's Quadrant, for that
great improvement, the making of Regent Street, had
not yet been commenced. When the opening of this
new street began to be talked of, and it was decided
that the course of the proposed line would pass
through the reverend school-master's property, he set
to work with all diligence to improve it. A strong
force of carpenters soon covered the open yard with
a new room lit by skylights. People said this was done
solely to extort enlarged profits in shape of damages.
As soon as the building was condemned and Mr.
Williams had obtained a settlement for it, he sold the
good will of the school to the Rev. Philip Le Briton,
a man of milder type than his predecessor, and he
removed it to Poland Street. But my sufferings under
my first three tyrants had been so acute that nothing
could obliterate my intense disgust at the whole school
system, so that in a little over two years after my
father's death, my mother had to let me have my own
way and leave the detested régime for good and all.
For good it proved. From the time of my emancipa-
[ 38 ]
ENGLAND
tion, at the age of ten years, I became diligent in
study from the love of it, and have so continued all
my life since.
That this brutal method of bringing up children and
young people generally is happily falling into disuse, is
comforting to know, and I do not doubt that the ex-
posure of its shameful barbarities by Dickens, Huxley
and others has exercised a wholesome influence. But
not all the fossils are dead yet. There are some who
would like to see a progress backward to "the good
old times,” as witness the following advertisement cut
from a London newspaper within a decade; “Birch
Rods.—Small and handy, Is., by post, well packed.
Ida Weston, care of Mrs. Taylor, 8 Hawthorne Ter-
race, Canterbury.”
A friend out of curiosity ordered one, and in due
time it arrived, accompanied by the following note:
“Miss Weston encloses one rod herewith. It must be
steeped in water to restore its suppleness, and the
handle
may be wrapped in ribbon. Miss Weston ad-
vertises at a loss, but with a view to restore the rod
and reform the present untamed race of English boys

and girls.”
In Christ's Hospital, London, commonly called the
“Blue Coat School,” punishment used to be heavy
and frequent. The monitors had license to chas-
tise freely, with or without cause. Charles Lamb, who
was educated there, writes, “I have been called out
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REMINISCENCES
of my bed and waked for the purpose in the coldest
winter nights,—and this not once, but night after
night,-in my shirt, to receive the discipline of a
leather thong, with eleven other sufferers, because it
pleased my callow overseer, when there had been any
talking heard after we had gone to bed, to make the
last six beds in the dormitory where the youngest
children slept, answerable for an offence they neither
dared to commit nor had any power to hinder.”
These chastisements had to be borne with patience,
and the training had the effect of rendering the youths
hardy, but brutal. The formal punishment for runa-
ways was, for the first offence, fetters; for the second,
imprisonment in a cell large enough only for the cul-
prit to lie at full length upon some straw with a blan-
ket, a glimmer of light being admitted through a
small window. The confinement was solitary—the
prisoner seeing only the porter who brought his bread
and water, or the beadle who came twice a week to
take him out for an airing and a whipping.
As a general thing schoolmasters punished their boys,
not for any offence or unwillingness or incapacity to
learn, but on the theory of the Hebrew king. Eras-
mus bears witness that this was the principle on which
he was flogged, although he was a favourite with his
master, but the discipline nearly “spoiled the child,”
for his health and spirits were broken by it and he
began to dislike his studies. He says that whenever
[ 40 ]

WO
|CHRILLERUTII
OLD BRITISH MUSEUM, MONTAGUE HOUSE
ENGLAND
he dined with the Dean of St. Paul's, one or two boys
were served up to be flogged by way of dessert. On one
of these occasions the Dean called up a meek, gentle
boy, ten years old, who had lately been earnestly com-
mended to his care by a tender mother, -ordered
him to be flogged for some pretended fault till the
victim was fainting under the scourge. “Not that he
deserved this,” said the Dean to Erasmus while it
was going on, “but it is fitting to humble him.”
This flogging practice was not restricted to young
children and boys; it was permitted by the statutes of
many colleges, and was a favourite recreation of the
deans, tutors and censors of the day. Dr. Potter, of
Trinity College, flogged a collegian arrived at man's
estate and wearing a sword by his side. Dr. Samuel
Johnson, in his Memoir of Milton, says, “I am ashamed
to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was one of
the last students in either university that suffered
the public indignity of corporal correction.” There
is a tradition that Dr. Johnson himself was scourged
over the buttery hatch at Oxford. Well did the
French Commissioners remark in their report to their
government, that the English schools have “a kind
of punishment which we do not think we ought to
envy—the corporal punishment which is reserved
among us to children in the nursery. The Rod is one
of those ancient English traditions which survive be-
cause they have survived. A foreigner can hardly con-

[ 41 ]

REMINISCENCES
ceive the perseverance with which English teachers
cling to this old and degrading custom. One is aston-
ished at seeing English masters remove a garment
which the prudery of their language hesitates to
name.”
Thus much about masculine teachers. What shall be
said of the ways of the gentler sex? Two instances will
be sufficient, one illustrating the treatment of the
scholars of a charity school of their own by wealthy
ladies, the other of female domination over young
ladies moving in the well-to-do circles of society, both
realistic pictures drawn faithfully from life.
The charity school was established in the latter part
of the last century by the wife and daughter of an
earl, and as the names of the family and the locality
are not essential to the story they are omitted. “These
ladies provided and regulated everything, ruled the
teachers, laid down and enforced the laws, and the
younger one, Lady Maria, superintended all the pun-
ishments, doing a great deal of the whipping herself.
The Lady Marjory did not care to flog us, but de-
lighted to make her maid do it; and I have seen her
stand by and look on till the poor girl was quite ex-
hausted by the exercise of flogging a number of kick-
ing, squalling youngsters, both boys and girls; for
the ladies flogged indiscriminately, and it seemed to
me took pleasure in so doing. The school was in the
grounds, but some distance from the mansion, which
[ 42 ]
ENGLAND
was one of the finest in the county. From our win-
dows we could see the arms of the family emblazoned
on the great doors—two leopards, with golden crowns
upon
their heads and a shield between them. My lady
the Countess was a very handsome woman and always
finely dressed, but we were very much afraid of her;
she whipped without mercy; once she had the whole
school-twenty boys and twenty girls-up for pun-
ishment, which she and her maid administered, and
not for any fault committed.
“The school was an old building called the Hermitage,
built by a wicked earl for his mistress. It had not
been used for a long time, and on the present earl's
marriage his lady took a fancy to establish a school
there for the sons and daughters of some of the ten-
antry, and orphans who were to be clothed and edu-
cated at her expense. We were dressed in uniform and
my lady chose it extremely ugly, for it was a whim of
hers that her girls should not be like those of any
other school. Her daughters were the mistresses when
I was there, for when they grew up their mother gave
it
up to them, and they proved themselves worthy
successors to her, I can tell you. .
“The great event of each day was what we called 'pun-
ishment hour,' which was from four to five in the
afternoon. When gentlemen visitors were at the man-
sion the ladies would come in good temper with plea-
sant faces, but sometimes they would be very cross

[ 43 ]

REMINISCENCES
and ready to vent on us all the annoyances they might
have met with at honie. There was a great contrast
between the two. The Lady Marjory was fat and
sleepy looking like her father the earl, with light hair
and blue eyes; the Lady Maria was slight and dark,
with eyes like a hawk, the picture of her mother in
features as well as temper. Both ladies had copied the
French mode of dressing from their cousin Mademoi-
selle Burgoyne, from Paris, who was staying at the cas-
tle. They used to come to the school daily in toilettes
that were to our eyes like the draperies in a fairy tale.
The feathers and flowers, the sparkling jewelry, and
the huge scented fans they carried were subjects of
daily and hourly admiration among us. All the bad
marks against any boy or girl were laid before their
ladyships, who would appoint the punishments and see
them carried out. Lady Marjory used to bring her
mother's maid with her to do the whipping, taking
her to task severely for the awkward manner in which
she sometimes managed the business. I remember one
afternoon her giving the girl two or three sharp cuts
with the rod for not administering punishment in a
sufficiently smart manner. We were all mustered in
school, and among the long list of black marks there
were three to one girl, –a laundry mark, a talking
mark, and a mark for 'want of respect to my lady;'
any omission of duly curtseying to or saluting our
teachers was called by that name.
[ 44 ]
ENGLAND
“Betty Brown, the girl to be whipped, was ordered
to stand out, which she did, looking very shamefaced.
She was a big, tall girl, and in appearance far more
robust than either the Lady Maria or her cousin.
Betty stood before the party till Miss Thomas, the
schoolmistress, rose and, curtseying to the ladies,
read out the punishment. “Betty Brown will fetch
the rod,' my lady said; and the girl went, colouring
crimson and ready to cry. When she came back she
knelt, as was the custom, and presented it, and Ma-
demoiselle said sharply, Kiss it.' Betty kissed it,
looking dreadfully terrified while she was being pre-
pared for flogging. Joan the maid stripped her, and
she was made to fold up her clothes as though she
were going to bed, while we all sat in our places look-
ing on, not allowed to move or speak. When she
stood ready for the rod, the bell was rung for the
dairy-woman, —a great, stout person who had the en-
viable task of horsing us when we were to be birched.
Joan tucked up her sleeves, and, receiving the rod
from the Lady Marjory, with a profound curtsey pre-
pared for business. But Betty was not going to be
flogged without opposition; she was a big, strong girl,
and it took a good many pairs of hands to get her
fairly established on Dorothy's back, who did not like
her office at all. Once there and the girl's hands pin-
ioned by her brawny arms, there was little chance of the
culprit escaping, for Dorothy was as strong as a man.

[ 45 1

REMINISCENCES
“Hold that girl's feet,' was Lady Marjory's next
order, ‘or Joan will never be able to get at her. So
Miss Thomas made the feet fast, and then Joan be-
gan. The dreaded rod fell swiftly and surely on the
white flesh, raising red weals in all directions. If Joan
was clumsy she was energetic, and Betty Brown roared
and wrestled under the operation most lustily; but for
all that the performance did not satisfy the three ladies.
“«What a clumsy creature!' said Mademoiselle; “she
has n't an atom of grace.'
“Marjory should do it herself,' said Lady Maria;
‘one can't expect everything from servants.'
“I hate such violent exercise,' said her sister; and
then turning to Joan, 'You clumsy, awkward creature,
you! Have I not shown you a hundred times how to
use the rod? Has not my mother shown you?'
“Yes, and made me feel it too,' said the girl sulkily.
“The brat kicks so, there's no doing anything properly.'
Lady Marjory had risen to her feet and come
nearer to the girl and her punisher as she spoke, and
whether by accident or design I don't know, but Joan,
in raising her arm to give an effective blow, happened
to touch the face of her ladyship, who stood behind
her. My lady then forgot she did not like violent
exercise; she snatched the rod from the servant's
hand, and, poising herself in an attitude, commenced
heartily lashing the girl on her arms and neck and
wherever she could get an opportunity to strike her.
[ 46 ]
ENGLAND
1
For a minute Joan was too astonished to resist; but
when she recovered her scattered wits, she rushed
round the room with the lady in full pursuit, leaving
Betty Brown shivering and smarting on her uncom-
fortable elevation.
“The ladies not only whipped us girls, but they
whipped the boys too—but Lady Marjory had scru-
ples of modesty about it and declined. Mademoiselle
Burgoyne introduced many new ways into the school:
the whippings were to be done by long, regular, sharp
blows counted in a measured manner, and when sen-
tenced to a whipping we had to kneel and say, May
it please your ladyship to give me so many blows on
account of my great fault;' and when we returned the
rod, the formula was, 'I thank your ladyship humbly
for the whipping I have received;' and we had to say
it without sobbing or stuttering. My lady whipped
her maids and her pages, and my lord thrashed his
valet and his grooms; all servants were amenable to
this mode of punishment, and mothers whipped their
grown-up daughters. It would have rejoiced the heart
of Solomon to see what a universal following his ad-
monition received.”
The second instance referred to was as follows: A
fashionable London journal, The Queen, opened its col-
umns a short time before 1870 to a controversy on
the subject of the whipping of young ladies in schools.
A correspondent writes, “Whipping a child of seven

.
[ 47 ]

REMINISCENCES
or eight is one thing; but such castigation as some of
your correspondents describe I should have read with
incredulity but that my own recent experience fur-
nishes confirmation.
“I am a bachelor. Many years ago my only sister
died, leaving her daughter to my care. My niece is
only eighteen and is as modest and well-conducted a
young lady as I know anywhere. Up to last Septem-
ber she attended a London ladies' college of the first
rank, and gave extreme satisfaction and was at the
head of her classes. In that month I took a residence
at a pleasant town on the Thames. My niece, who is
fond of study, wished to attend certain classes at a
large school in the neighbourhood, and the arrange-
ment was made by me with the lady principal.
“One Saturday afternoon in the commencement of
December, I returned from London just before dinner
and was met with a very distressed face from my old
housekeeper. Her young mistress had come home
from the school in a half-distracted state and locked
herself in her room. The old servant had, however,
obtained admission and ascertained what was the
trouble. There had been a class for English com-
position at the school that morning, the teacher being
a visiting tutor. Lecturing rather glibly on English
poetry this person attributed the line,
We mortal millions live alone,
to Tennyson. My niece at once corrected him, saying
[ 48 ]
ENGLAND
that the line was Matthew Arnold’s. A governess who
sat in the class-room sharply told her not to interrupt,
and when the lecture concluded, a bad mark was en-
tered against her in the register. It is the custom of
the schoolmistress to inflict corporal punishment for
all the bad marks of a certain magnitude, and my
niece had seen one or two of the younger children
whipped, but her attendance being only on certain
days she did not know that the discipline was any-
thing but infantile.
“To her surprise, when about to leave after her les-
sons she was ordered into the school-room. To her
amazement and indignation she found she was to be
birched for impudence to a teacher. She protested
and implored, but in vain. Her resistance was useless
against force; she was held across a desk, the clothing
was completely removed from the lower part of her
person, and the lady principal gave her twelve sharp
cuts with a birch.
“You may imagine my indignation at such an outrage
to a modest young lady who is actually engaged to be
married. My resolution was soon taken. That evening
I consulted the wives of three of my friends, who ap-
proved of it. With much difficulty I induced my niece
to return to school on Monday. Luckily it was not
long to Christmas, and she escaped any further insult
except the occasional chaff of one or two younger
girls. Early in January I wrote a polite note to the

4
[ 49 ]

REMINISCENCES
lady principal, asking her to lunch at my house and
receive the amount due her. She came and was shown
into the library, where the three married ladies above
mentioned awaited her. Causing her to be seated I
told her my opinion of her conduct, observing that
for my niece's sake I desired to avoid the exposure
attendant upon legal proceedings, and added that with
the approval of the ladies present I should punish her
as she had punished my niece. Of course there was a
tempestuous scene, but she had to submit. I had rid-
den over to Eton and got a good stout birch from
the man who makes for the college. It is only neces-
sary to add that she was treated as my niece had been
in the matter of apparel, and that I gave
strokes, whose severity the state of her cuticle plainly
attested. She was well able to bear them, being forty
years old, unmarried, a tall, strong, stout woman. My
niece declined to be present at the punishment, but I
compelled the woman to apologize humbly to her
afterwards. I have since heard a rumour that she in-
tends to give up the school and leave the neighbour-
hood.”
her twenty
22
[ 50 ]

+
SO
CHEAPSIDE BEFORE THE FIRE OF LONDON
CHAPTER
IV
Covent Garden Theatre in 1821— The “Kemhle Family”
Picture
IFE is for work and not for play, and my
life-work began soon after I was twelve years
of
age.
A Mr. Charles Hawkes, to whom I
was warmly attached, kept a nursery garden on Prince's
Road, Lambeth, near where we lived, and I was fond
of being in his company, busying myself in his garden,
The laboratory of the Italian Signor Mortram, pyro-
technist and scenic artist, backed against this garden,
fronting upon Lambeth Walk, although at some hun-
dred feet distance from it. One day while I was occu-
pied in digging a trench in which to plant a dwarf box
border between the gravel-path and the flower-bed,
I saw Mr. Mortram watching my work. I supposed
he was interested in the operation, but I afterwards
learned that he was revolving in his mind something
that resulted in consequences to me. Presently he
addressed me, asking how I would like to be a fire-
works maker. I said I should like it very much. He
asked me who was my father, and I answered that
he had been dead more than four years. “Well then,
your mother,—you have a mother?” I told him that
I had. “Ask her to come to see me,
e, that we may talk


1
[51]

REMINISCENCES
it over; I live in Westminster Road, opposite the
Marsh Gate.” This was a turnpike gate and suitably
named, for all the surrounding flats had been a marsh.
My father's business, having been deprived of com-
petent direction by his death, had soon run down,
although my mother at first tried to carry it on and
superintend the factory. This made me glad of the
opportunity to earn money and relieve her somewhat
of her burden. Everything was arranged satisfactorily
and I went to work, making my start in life before I
reached my teens. The signor told my mother that
his attention was drawn to me by the vigorous way in
which I handled my spade. The truth is that some-
thing had occurred that ruffled my temper considera-
bly, and the ardour he admired was the giving vent to
my anger, but he did not know that.
The life was a hard one, considering the many hours
of labour almost every day, but not monotonous, being
full of varied amusement in connection with public
exhibitions. To my employer was confided the depart-
ment of “steam, smoke and fire” at Charles Kemble's
Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and such effects were
in frequent demand in afterpieces, and in pantomimes
especially. He was also assistant to Telbin Grieve, the
head scene-painter, as artist in the same theatre. In
addition, he was one of the two pyrotechnists to Vaux-
hall Garden, Madame Henzler being the other, and
as exhibitions were given three evenings in the week
[52]
ENGLAND
they alternated, each furnishing the display twice in
every other week. The exhibitions made those work-
days long on which they occurred, for the signal for
starting the fireworks was given by the clock striking
the hour of midnight, and the firing occupied half an
hour. However, Vauxhall Garden was open only dur-
ing the summer season. The theatre continued its per-
formances through the rest of the year and closed
very late at night, for in those days the public was not
satisfied with a full five-act drama, but exacted from
the management an afterpiece in addition. To walk
home after this to beyond St. Paul's, and then in the
morning another couple of miles to reach work at half
past seven, was not an easy life, but I cannot say that
it “was not a happy one.”
Macready was a member of the stock company of the
Covent Garden Theatre at that time (1821), but he
had not yet attained the highest position in it: that
was held by Charles Young, who on tragedy nights,
Mondays, always had the leading part. Macready used
to play Rob Roy MacGregor, Joseph Surface and
similar characters, but I saw him in Virginius, which
I understood had been written by James Sheridan
Knowles expressly for him, and I think he owned or
controlled rights in its production. Ordinarily his
manner was serious and dignified, and I thought he
generally had a look of discontent, but once and once
only I saw on his face an amused expression. The play

[ 53 ]

REMINISCENCES
was Virginius, and Macready was in the wing with
Virginia, both waiting their cue, and to her he was
addressing some sneering remarks about Abbott, who
held the stage in the character of Icilius. I stood where
I could see the faces of both, and it was clear from
Abbott's restlessness and the quick, annoyed glances
out of the corner of his eye, that he divined the nature
of the conversation going on at his expense and the
enjoyment of Macready at his vexation.
David Edwin, the eminent Philadelphia engraver,
was engaged by Mr. Warren of the Chestnut Street
Theatre, after he was compelled by his failing sight
to discontinue the use of the graver, and he was
often the messenger to the actors. He told me that
on one occasion he went to Macready, who was then
in Philadelphia, stopping at Head's Hotel, on Third
Street above Spruce, (originally the Bingham man-
sion), to take him a balance due on account of his
engagement. The actor looked at the money which
Edwin placed on the table, as if it would be a degrada-
tion to touch it, and then, raising his eyes to the face
of the messenger, gazed at him solemnly for a minute.
Putting his finger in the pocket of his vest he then
drew forth with great deliberation a Mexican half dol-
lar, and holding it by the edge between finger and
thumb horizontally, like a plate for charity, he ad-
vanced a step and offered it to Edwin, who with equal
dignity declined it, saying, “Sir, Mr. Warren pays
[ 54 ]
1
ENGLAND
me.” Macready raised his eyelids slightly as if sur-
prised, and returned the silver to his pocket without
a word.
My coign of vantage, from which I was able to obtain
a view of nearly the whole stage and yet be out of
sight of the audience, was close against the first side-
wing back of the foot-lights. On this spot I had to
stand to illumine with a blue sulphurous light the
ghost of the Commendatore in Don Giovanni, as he
stalked past me on to the stage. For this purpose I
held in my left hand an iron spoon filled with a com-
position of sulphur, nitre, meal powder and red orpi-
ment, and in my right, a small port fire, ready lighted.
My cue for applying the light was three heavy blows
on the floor with a large drumstick, given by the
prompter just before the time for his ghostship to
advance.
It was the custom to keep the wings and other parts
of the stage behind the scenes clear of persons not
actually on immediate duty, not excepting even the
actors, who were in the green room ready for the sum-
mons of the prompter, by his messenger the call-boy.
But I used to take my stand with impunity; being
small, perhaps I was unobserved, or maybe I was
treated with indulgence, for I perceived that the
“powder monkey” (the name I was known by) was
rather a favourite. My diminutive stature adapted me
all the better for some of my duties; for example, in

[ 55 ]
REMINISCENCES
Sheridan's play of The Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsed,
the ships of the Spanish Armada appear in a suc-
cession of three ranks, the first row, as demanded
by the law of perspective, being the largest, and the
scenic water on which they rested rising very little
above the stage. The second row, by the same law,
had smaller ships and a higher bank of water, and so
on to the third. To me was allotted the front rank
because I was small enough to be concealed from the
view even of the gods in the upper gallery, as I lay
listening for my cue, when I would fire from the guns
a broadside of small Roman-candle-stars, which would
expire before they could fall upon the stage.
Sometimes the most laughable and ridiculous blunders
happen before an audience when the work is handled
by ignorant and stupid assistants not properly super-
vised, and by this mention of the perspective arrange-
ment of the ships in the play of The Critic I am
reminded of an instance exquisitely ludicrous. At
Vauxhall Gardens, one of the successive shows of the
evening was a theatre of moving scenery, without
actors, and the effect was very beautiful. In front was
represented tumbling water flowing toward the spec-
tators, the realistic appearance being produced by
painted canvas stretched around three large rollers
revolving one behind the other, the foremost being
lowest. Behind these was a bridge, through whose
arch was visible a sheet of falling water, made by the

[56]
ENGLAND
obvious means of painted canvas passing over two
rollers, and beyond, seen over the bridge, appeared a
sheet of smooth water. Now all this was eminently
successful and elicited admiration and applause, until
the attendants began sending row-boats across the
water beyond the bridge. Some of the boatmen were
made small, of course, intended for the remote dis-
tance, while others were large for the nearest ledge,
and some were intermediate for the middle distance,
all accurately adjusted according to the law of per-
spective. But the senders of these automatic manikin
boatmen paid no attention to the obvious proprieties,
and despatched a diminutive rower across on the nearest
ledge while at the same time a colossus would be seen
labouring over in the remote distance. Nothing more
absurd than this spectacle can be imagined, and the
applause changed into roars of derisive laughter.
At the time of which I am speaking Abbott was a
very handsome man, and when Shakespeare's Two
Gentlemen of Verona was produced, altered into a
splendid show piece, he played the character of Sir
Proteus, and in that he met with a frightful accident
that I witnessed. In the last scene he had hardly
entered on the stage, engaged in a sword combat with
the robber from whom he was rescuing the Lady
Silvia, when he missed his guard, and his adversary's
heavy weapon came crashing down into his face,
cutting from above his brow on to the cheek-bone

[ 57 ]
REMINISCENCES
below the eye. The curtain was rung down immedi-
ately, and of course the play could not be finished. He
dropped his sword on the instant and clapped both
hands to his face. As he was led past where I stood,
which was not six feet from the spot where the acci-
dent occurred, I saw the sanguine stains between the
fingers of his white gloves. Conner then assumed
the part -in subsequent performances while Abbott's
wound was healing. Very many years after I saw
Abbott on the stage of the Park Theatre, New York,
and I naturally looked for the scar, and there it yet
remained. This theatre disappeared long ago. It stood
on Park Row, opposite the present post-office.
The rendering of The Two Gentlemen of Verona was so
altered from the original that Shakespeare would have
been greatly surprised, could he have seen it, but it
secured a long run in consequence of the liberties
taken. My part in the performance was to explode 'a
great tower with gunpowder. Sir Thurio (played by
Farren) cried, “Ah, Lady Silvia, we shall soon gain
the victory!” That last word being my cue, I applied
my light port-fire to the powder on the instant, and
the tower burst asunder; each half of the structure,
nicely poised on rockers by the framework behind,
was pulled over by a scene shifter on either side at
the moment of the explosion, producing an effect in
front that was realistic in the extreme. Then was
disclosed to the audience a dazzling, fairy-like scene.

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In the centre were three great flat wheels with curved
spokes covered with loose, shining tinsel of various
colours, revolving one behind the other in opposite
directions, the back one seen between the spokes of
those in front, producing charming, almost magical
moving patterns. Four separate groups crossed the
stage in succession, representing the seasons. But the
climax of the display was Cleopatra on her galley,
which was gorgeous in the extreme, and so large as to
fill the stage from side to side, while the broad ex-
panse of the ample sails of rich silk, pale green, rose
color and pearl, adorned with golden ornamentation,
left no vacant space anywhere above or around. The
vessel rocked slowly and majestically upon the bosom
of the mimic waters, which were made to rise and sink in
wavy swells in imitation of nature. No wonder the piece
had a long run with so much splendour to help it.
I often witnessed occurrences behind the scenes by no
means of the painful nature of that just narrated about
Abbott. One night, when the after-piece was The Two
Pages of Frederick the Great, Mrs. Chatterton and Miss
Foote, as the two pages, had both forgotten the dia-
logue, and when it was almost time for them to go on
the stage they were together trying in an anxious and
excited manner to help each other to the lost words.
When the time was up, I gathered from their remarks
that an approximation merely to the exact words would
have to serve. A few minutes later I watched the per-

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formance from the side wing and they both appeared
to go through their parts without embarrassment,
although just before they went on they were full of
serious trouble.
Liston, who was the foremost actor in London in the
line of drolleries, played Launce, and Farren played
Sir Thurio. Whatever character Farren took was sure
to be personated to the life. As Frederick the Great
he looked just like the old portraits made living, and
his manners were all that we read of about Frederick.
His Sir Peter Teazle in The School for Scandal was
such perfection that when suit was brought against
him in court for breaking contract and going over to
the Drury Lane Company, it was given in evidence
that it was not possible to produce The School for
Scandal at all without Farren as Sir Peter. Looking
at Farren in citizen's dress, I could never make up
my mind whether he was old or young. Miss Maria
Tree represented Julia; not the Miss Tree who after-
wards became Mrs. Charles Kean, for that lady had
not yet appeared on any stage, her début, when it did
occur, being for her sister's benefit. Of Miss Maria
Tree I have an admirable whole length portrait, after
a drawing by Wageman, in the character of the Rob-
ber's Wife, also another equally good by the same
artist of Jones as Puff in Sheridan's Play of The
Critic. Jones played Sir Valentine in The Two Gentle-
men of Verona. Occasionally I saw behind the scenes

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Charles Kemble's daughter Fanny. Of course she was
too young to have any business connection with the
theatre then, but some years later she made her début
as The Roman Daughter, a play selected for her first
appearance with a special meaning. The theatre was
large and the expenses heavy, and the management
needed a change from the routine attractions. The ap-
pearance of a new Kemble on the stage made a sudden
and immense success, and turned the tide of popularity
in favour of her father's theatre, and saved the fortunes
of the house. One of the last works of Sir Thomas
Lawrence was an elaborate and beautiful drawing of
the young actress, a facsimile engraving from which
was afterwards published.
It was somewhere about 1833 that Mr. Kemble and
his daughter played an engagement at the old Chest-
nut Street Theatre, near Sixth Street, Philadelphia.
They stayed at Head's Hotel, on Third Street near
Spruce Street, and here I saw them in their parlour.
Mr. Kemble had commissioned me to re-engrave his
portrait as Secretary Cromwell, copied from Harlow's
picture of the Kemble family, and I went there to de-
liver the proofs from the plate. I had previously en-
graved a portrait of Sir Thomas Lawrence, after the
fine print by Cousins, and I purposely placed the
Lawrence on top so that it should be the first seen
when opened. Miss Fanny was standing on the hearth
rug, her back to the fire, and her hands behind her.

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As the package was opened, she naturally expected to
see the portrait of her father, but to her astonishment
there was that of her friend Sir Thomas. The way in
which her sudden pleasurable surprise was expressed
was worth witnessing. I expressly planned the surprise,
and it was a success.
Among the members of the Covent Garden company
in 1821 were Mr. and Mrs. Fawcett and Miss Foote;
the latter used to personate Ariel to Charles Young's
Prospero in The Tempest. And then there was also
Miss Stephens, the accomplished vocalist, who after-
wards became Countess of Essex. Chapman, to whom
was assigned the role of the king in Hamlet, emi-
grated to America, and in 1830 I saw him at the
Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, of which he was
the lessee, and the larger part of the principal per-
formers were members of his own talented family. To
avoid the too frequent recurrence of the Chapman
name on the bills, some assumed other names.
Although all these actors have long since passed away
their lineaments are faithfully preserved to us in the
character pictures of George Clint. A fine print was
published of his Miss Foote in the Charaéter of Maria
Darlington, in A Roland for an Oliver, painted by him
for Colonel Berkeley, of which I possess a proof. But
it would resemble an ample catalogue to enumerate
the pictures Clint made of the prominent actors of that
period, and lovers of the dramatic art are under great

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obligations to him, for it was more than twenty years
earlier than the invention of daguerreotyping.
Besides painting original pictures, this accomplished ar-
tist occupied much of his time in engraving, especially
in mezzotinto, an art he had learned from Mr. Edward
Bell. His crowning work in that line was his famous
plate after George H. Harlow's splendid picture of
The Trial of Queen Katharine, which is also known as
The Kemble Family, because containing portraits from
life, of Mrs. Siddons as Queen Katharine, John Philip
Kemble as Secretary Cromwell and Stephen Kemble
as King Henry. But there are, besides the Kembles,
Miss Stephens, Blanchard, Conway, Park, and others.
The plate was so popular, and the demand for impres-
sions so great that Clint had to engrave it three times.
Many erroneous stories were current regarding the
work, and the origin of this remarkable picture was in
itself so remarkable that the particulars are worth re-
lating. The real facts of the case are to be had in a
letter from Mr. Cribb, who owned the copyright and
employed Clint to make the engraving. In correction of
erroneous statements the true history is given in the
following extract from Cribb's letter on the subject:

MR.
SIR:
R. Welsh employed Mr. Harlow to paint a
whole length figure of Mrs. Siddons upon a
small scale from recollection in the character of Queen
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REMINISCENCES
Katharine, for which he was to
to pay Mr. Harlow
twenty guineas, his usual price for that size picture.
After the artist had made a commencement he con-
ceived the idea of enlarging his subject and introdu-
cing other portraits. He mentioned his wish to Mr.
Welsh, telling him that if he could induce Mrs. Sid-
dons to sit for her portrait he would paint him a pic-
ture worthy of the subject. Mrs. Siddons did consent,
and on the day appointed went to Mr. Harlow's
studio. Mr. Welsh was present and was astonished
at seeing so large a composition sketched in chalk on
the ample canvas. After this he waited on the artist
and told him that it was not possible for him to pay
for so large a picture. Harlow replied that the picture
was his for the twenty guineas agreed on, that he
should be amply repaid by the reputation he would
gain by it, and that he should owe everything to him
(Mr. W.) for getting Mrs. Siddons to sit. Mr. Welsh
also induced most of the others to sit whose portraits
are introduced.
When the picture was finished Mr. Welsh presented
the artist with one hundred guineas, which Harlow
told me he considered very handsome conduct, as the
painting was to cost him only twenty guineas, and
it was his own affair that he had done so much, add-
ing, “It will make a noise at Somerset House, and
then I can do as I please.” The day after the exhibi-
tion opened he doubled his price for portraits.
[ 64 ]

Son
THE TRIAL OF QUEEN KATHARINE — THE KEMBLE FAMILY
From an Engraving by John Sartain from the Painting by G. H. Harlow
ENGLAND
In addition to the one hundred guineas, Mr. Welsh
relinquished to the artist the right to publish a print,
and Mr. Harlow, not caring to be troubled with
print selling, sold the copyright to me for one hun-
dred guineas. As to Mr. Welsh having received from
me five hundred guineas for the loan of the picture,
I never paid him a single shilling; he told me that
he had given up the right of publication entirely to
Mr. Harlow. I hope this account will convince you
that the imputations cast upon Mr. Welsh are wholly
undeserved.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
WILLIAM CRIBB.
15 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden.
The picture was painted in the year 1817, and while
the artist was engaged on it he also had in progress
a portrait of Fuseli for Mr. James Knowles. The
shrewd academy professor made several sharp criti-
cisms on the composition of the Queen Katharine,
and among other things suggested the introduction
of the page who is adjusting the cushion on which
they want the queen to kneel. My friend, William
E. Burton, the eminent comedian and manager, said
to me, pointing to the page in the print, “That's my
leg, —Harlow painted that boy's figure from me.”
The print before us was a small copy I had engraved
for Campbell's Foreign Semi-Monthly Magazine, of which

5
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REMINISCENCES
work I was both proprietor and editor, and it appeared
in the number for January 1, 1844.
The print of it by Clint is an admirable work and
conveys an idea of having been copied from a very
large picture, and I always supposed it was, until Mr.
Charles Kemble set me right. He spread out his
hands and said, “It was only about so wide.” I saw
it long afterward in the International Exhibition
of 1862 at South Kensington, London, and it looked
to me less brilliant and effective than the engraving
from it, but time may have subdued it somewhat.
Still I remember the artist's portrait of himself at
Florence in the Gallery of the Uffizi, and his picture
in the Gallery of St. Luke's Academy at Rome,
The Presentation of the Cardinals Hat to Wolsey, both as
fresh and clear as if they had not been painted a week.
Charles Kemble's portrait in the picture as Secretary
Cromwell, sitting beyond the table, pen in hand, had
been engraved by itself— I think by Lupton, a pupil
and protege of Clint's—and Mr. Kemble, when in
Philadelphia, showed me a proof of the plate in its
original state. He owned the plate itself, but it had
been worn out and then repaired by some unskilful
hand, the face being made ludicrous by distortion.
He asked me to restore it to its pristine condition,
which I did after nearly obliterating the old by a new
mezzotint ground, and he was greatly pleased with the
result.

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I was introduced to Mr. Kemble in Sully's painting
room, going there by appointment for the purpose.
When the sitting was over, Mr. Kemble stepped down
from the raised platform and, looking at the picture,
remarked that the face appeared large. Sully said,
“You have a large face.” To which Kemble replied,
“Fortunate for me—in my profession.” This portrait
is only a head, and is in the permanent collection of
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. It was
painted about 1833.
Besides the actors already named as belonging to the
Covent Garden company, there was Mrs. Chatterton,
who played with Miss Foote in The Two Pages of
Frederick the Great, and Miss Hallande, who person-
ated Captain Macheath in The Beggars' Opera and
Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Liston, the
original Paul Pry, played Captain Dalgetty in The
Children of the Mist, with Yates as Son of the Mist,
and Macready appeared in Rob Roy.
But the company had an adjunct of a quite different
character that was needed occasionally, especially in
Christmas pantomimes. It consisted of a sort of ju-
venile rabble gathered from the slums in the imme-
diate neighbourhood just north of the theatre, between
Covent Garden and Longacre. Managers of popular
entertainments experience the necessity of sometimes
presenting to their audiences scenes of an exciting
character to add to the attraction, otherwise the in-

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terest is apt to wane and profits decline. John Philip
Kemble, dignified and severe a classic as he was,
and
for whom the theatre was built in 1808, tried it in
Macheth, but the refractory urchins who personated
the “black spirits and white, red spirits and grey,”
of Hecate's troop, were so outrageously unmanage-
able that he had to abandon the experiment. But it
was still necessary in certain cases to have within
summons a lot of such boys, and I had frequent
opportunities of witnessing behind the scenes how
difficult it was to bring this unruly element into some-
thing approaching order and obedience. There was
a scene in the pantomime of Harlequin and Mother
Bunch representing Blackheath, where the spacious
stage was pretty well filled by a crowd of these boys
of all sizes. On these occasions the mirth and fun
would become so fast and furious as to be contagious,
and I took to joining in the sport.
Among the boys, more particularly the older ones,
were some of a questionable sort, for I learned they
were thieves. I was pained to hear this of them, be-
cause they were such pleasant, good-natured fellows,
and, as I had occasion to know, strictly fair and honour-
able in their dealings with one another, however they
may have been with those not of their guild. When
disguised in oriental turbans and robes glistening with
jewels, as in the great procession in Blue Beard or
other similar pageants, they looked not merely highly

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respectable, but even impressively noble. What first
drew my attention to this group of older boys, and
led finally to my learning not only their character but
some of their exploits, was a song I heard them sing-
ing in a subdued tone, the refrain at the end of each
verse being:-
O gentlemen judges, may you all he damned
For sending poor lads to Virginia.
These experts were probably unaware that in the
upper strata of society there were many engaged in
the same line of industry as themselves, only with
larger enterprises and on a wider field, and involving
consequences more cruel. These latter too wear for a
time their stage costumes, indicating the highest re-
spectability, until some untoward accident uncloaks
them. An eminent financier whom I once knew was
met on the street by a lady who exclaimed, “Why
Mr. I heard you were drowned!” “Oh, no, my
dear madam, you see I am not.” “Well, I heard you
were drowned in the tears of widows and orphans.”
The made-up elephants for the procession in Blue
Beard when seen behind the scenes looked by no
means respectable, whatever improvement distance
might lend to their appearance. They could not be
made to step right, and Lord Byron tells of hearing
the hind legs of an elephant cursing the eyes of the
fore legs for not moving better.

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There were occasions when the painting room of the
theatre presented lively times in the rapid preparation
of scenery for some piece about to be produced with
too little time to do it. The design was always made
by the artist-in-chief, but it would take all the force
of assistants at command to hurry through its execu-
tion on the enlarged scale. My employer, Mr. Mor-
tram, was one of the scene painters, and in emergen-
cies he would have me help him forward with some
purely mechanical work. One morning while the new
scenery for the pantomime of Harlequin and Mother
Bunch was being rushed through, I was engaged in
sticking tinsel upon the artist's touches of glue, to
represent the glitter of the castle of polished steel in
the moonlight, when a lively controversy arose as to
who should go to sketch the “White Horse Cellar”
in Piccadilly, at that time the starting-place of the
stages going west. A view of it was wanted for the
piece. One man could not go because what he was
about must be done immediately, and another the
same, and so on through the group. At last one of
them cried, “Look here, Mortram, can't you send
that boy of yours? You say he draws.” No sooner
proposed than settled, and I was despatched with a
stiff card-board, two sheets of paper, and directions to
make a kind of map of the house-front with the sign-
boards of their relative size and proportion, and an-
other drawing of the signs on a separate sheet large

[ 70 ]
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enough to show their wording. I accomplished my
task sufficiently well to enable them to paint the scene
from my diagram, adding, however, in the foreground
a crowd of stage-coaches.

[ 71 ]
CHAPTER
V
M
Theatre Life Continued — Marshalsea and King's Bench
Prisons
R. Mortram had a son who was also a pyro-
technist. His manufactory was in Westmin-
ster Road, next door to Madame Hengler's,
and a short distance from the Obelisk which Dickens
calls the “Obstacle.” Father and son were on un-
friendly terms, and did not speak to each other until
a reconciliation was brought about in the following
way. When George the Fourth was to be crowned,
the government suddenly decided to have a display
of fireworks, and at the eleventh hour Sir William
Congreve (he of the famous rocket) sent an order to
the elder Mortram to undertake part of the work.
But he was away in the west of England, preparing an
exhibition at Bath to commemorate the same event.
Mortram, Jr., tendered his services on his father's
behalf; they were cheerfully accepted, and thus the
breach was healed.
The coronation display was held in the largest open
space of Hyde Park, north of the Serpentine and
some distance west of Park Lane. An extensive circle
was enclosed by a temporary open wooden fence, be-
hind which stood the set pieces, presenting a contin-


[ 72 ]
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uous front all around. The people for whom the sight
was prepared were fated, however, not to see it. The
authorities had issued orders that the firing was to
proceed slowly, and midnight arrived before half the
display, and the best half, had been set off, when a
sudden cloud-burst brought down such a deluge of
rain, that the pieces were all fired off at once in a
dazzling blaze all around the circle, while the people
with backs turned were running for shelter, like
straight rays from a central focus.
Mortram, Jr., employed a boy named Jim,-I never
knew his full name, — whose occupation was similar
to my own, and we were consequently thrown together
to assist each other where the strength of either was
insufficient. In some of the performances at Covent
Garden Theatre a good deal of lime was used, as
hot water dashed on it would produce a volume of
steam to pour out of a chimney, whether of a moving
steamboat or of a factory. This lime was deposited in
our closet in quantities no greater than a barrelful at
a time, for fear of a fire, I believe, and it took the united
strength of Jim and myself to carry it to the theatre
from the lime-yard where we bought it. The barrel
was swung on a pole, one end of which rested on his
shoulder and the other end on mine. Our way was
through Hungerford Market, and under the western
colonnade of the old building was one of our accus-
tomed resting-places for change of shoulders. A boy

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1
about the place became friendly with us, and we talked
while resting. He told us some gruesome stories about
the locality, among others that the buildings were
haunted by the ghost of a lady. He had not seen it
himself, but he knew those who said they had. It was
supposed to be a Lady Hungerford, who had owned
the place when it was a palace, and who had been
hanged at Tyburn for murder. The site of the old
Hungerford mansion, as near as I can make it out,
must now be covered by the Charing Cross railway
station. Hungerford Stairs led down to boats on the
water at high tide, and at low tide to the expanse of
acres of shining black mud of which I have spoken
elsewhere.
A little later another boy was employed about this
half-ruinous structure, but at the end nearest the
Thames, where it was most dilapidated. His occupa-
tion was pasting labels on Warren's blacking-boxes,
to the musical accompaniment of a prosperous colony
of squealing rats, that inhabited the room next below
his. He earned in this way a shilling a day, and must
have been a consequential little fellow, for going into
a public house one day he called for a glass of ale and
added, “Let it be your very best.” The landlord and
his wife surveyed him in amused surprise, and then
the woman lifted him up and kissed him. Charles
Dickens himself has told us this story of his boyhood.
[ortram, Jr., got arrested for debt and was confined

[ 74 ]
ENGLAND
in the Marshalsea Prison in the borough of South-
wark, but I did not know it until Jim and I were
one day on our way to the Elephant and Castle,
a great stage-coach station. Jim stopped near the
church and told me to wait for him till he had done
an errand. He went into a building which stood back
from the line of the street, the space in front being
enclosed by a dwarf brick wall with an iron railing
on top. I had to wait a considerable time for him,
and when he came out I asked him what it
was,
for
I thought it looked different from the other houses.
He said that it was the Marshalsea Prison for debtors,
and that his master was in there. He had to take to
him a present from my Mrs. Mortram, a Christmas
plum pudding. He said I could go with him on his
next visit, but I must carry something. This occurred
very soon, but it was in the evening. The turnkey
reconnoitred before opening to our knock, sliding
back a movable panel which covered a small aperture.
When we were inside, in a room comfortably warmed
by a large coal fire, the outer door was secured with
a big key and another opposite was unlocked. Through
this we emerged into the open air again beyond,
where there was yet another unfastening and fastening
of a strong lock as we passed through a gate in a tall
iron railing. We then crossed a paved space of per-
haps three or four yards, and were at the dwellings of
the inmates.

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Jim behaved as if perfectly at home, and took me
through the first door on the left. A cheerful fire
blazed in a grate in one corner of the room and
seemed to give more light than the two candles, stuck
in the necks of bottles, that stood on a long table of
rough boards. Seated on long, rude benches at each
side of the table were seven or eight persons, two or
three of them women, and some were intent upon a
game of cards. Jim told me to wait there until he came
for me, and I stood back against the wall very
much
abashed, though no one noticed me. At the further
end, away from the players and the lights, were three
well-dressed men in conversation across the table. The
one near me, as I stood, sat astride the bench and
leaning sideways spoke earnestly. “I tell you, man,
his name ought not to be Garth, but Guelf, for Garth
was not his father. What I know of that disgraceful
business ought to bring me a pretty penny out of
the hush-money bag that that man in Regent Street
holds the strings of. It would lift me out of all my
present difficulties.” “Then why don't you make a
try for it?” asked one of the others. “Well, because
- because I'm afraid. It's a ticklish business dealing
with men in power. They might rake up some things
that are best forgotten.” “How can they find out?”
“Find out? Why, they've as many eyes as Argus, and
the ear of Dionysius; spies everywhere, especially
among women and those you would the least sus-

[ 76]
ENGLAND
pect.” They stopped talking and all three turned their
eyes toward the end of the room, and even the ab-
sorbed card-players ceased playing and looked up.
A decently dressed, middle-aged woman had been
brought in, looking most unhappy and forlorn. She
glanced slowly around in a bewildered sort of way,
and said presently, “They have brought me here for
no debt of mine; it was my husband's, and he has
been dead these four years. How can I get money to
pay it? Why, I can only earn a bare living by my
needle; how can I pay it?” A tall man rose from his
seat and spoke to her in kind and soothing tones,
telling her not to grieve, that the Marshalsea was not
the bad place it had the name of being; it was better
than the King's Bench or any of the other places;
that it would only be a short time until the Insolvent
Court met, and then she would be free. “But it's a
prison,” she cried, “and it is most cruel to put me in
prison.” He guided her gently to the seat from which
he had risen, for she looked as if she would faint. At
this moment Jim appeared at the door and beckoned
me to follow him.
There was a paved passage-way on the south side of
the dwellings, against a high wall that separated the
prison enclosure from the churchyard. I saw things
but vaguely, for there was no other light than that
of the moon; but it appeared to me that this passage,
of some six or seven yards wide, ran all around a

[77]
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block of dwellings for the inmates. Entering about
the third door on the left, I was guided up a dark
stairway to what I think was the second landing.
Here Jim knocked, remarking that the door opposite
was Mr. Mortram's, but he was almost never there
in the evening. The door was opened by Mr. Mor-
tram himself, and we were admitted. He said, “Char-
lotte, will you please let these youngsters stay here a
little while? There's no fire in my room.” “Certainly,”
said she. “There, boys, sit on that box; you're not so
big but there's room for you both.” He then went
out to get what Jim had come for.
I was surprised at the snug comfort of the place, al-
though the room was small and the ceiling so low
that the four posts of the bedstead, which took up
most of the space, almost touched it. A small grate
with the fire, occupied the angle most remote from
the door, and there was a carpet on the floor. Char-
lotte, as they called her, was the hostess, and the fur-
niture was hers. The others were visitors, but pris-
oners. What I learned of them was gained not all at
once, of course. The only gentleman in the room, after
Mr. Mortram left, was Mr. Amherst, a dramatic
author, who was there on account of having been
surety for somebody in the Surrey Theatre who had
failed to pay and had skipped. Between the bedstead
and the fireplace there was just room for one chair, and
on that sat a lady, the most beautiful in face and fig-

[ 78 ]
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ure that I ever saw. She was a Mrs. Miller, widow of
an army officer, and the two girls present were her
daughters. The pension she received was insufficient
for their maintenance, and she was there for an unpaid
board bill. What was Charlotte's cause of detention
I do not know, but on both the occasions when I saw
her she seemed bright and cheerful. I heard her tell
that when she was young she was lady's maid to Lady
Hamilton, who was an excellent mistress, so kind,
considerate and affable. Lord Nelson was a frequent
visitor, and when there was no one else present she
would say, “Charlotte, I know you like to hear me
play; come in.” She knew there was a good deal of
scandal talked about her, but she did not care, and
only laughed. In one of the rooms there was a picture
of her by an artist named Romney, as a fairy or a
Bacchante or something of that sort, and very like her
when she was merry. Both Mr. Amherst and Mrs.
Miller I met with again years later, the former in
Philadelphia; but of this I will speak hereafter.
Mr. Mortram put his head in at the door and told
Jim he was ready, so we crossed the landing and fol-
lowed him into his room. He motioned us to seats
while he put up a package of papers, and said to me,
“Well, Johnny, what do you think of the inside of a
prison?” I answered that I did not know it was so
comfortable. He said, “Of course you have never seen
the inside of one before ?” I said that I had, the

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King's Bench Prison. He exclaimed, “The devil you
have! How did that come about? Did you get into
debt too? How old are you?” I said I was twelve.
“Well, tell me all about the King's Bench. I'm cu-
rious to know, for I never saw the inside.”
I told him that five or six years before, my father
went to visit a friend who was an official in the prison,
and took me with him. They were both born in
Trowbridge, Wiltshire, had been playmates, and went
to school together. It was a cold morning, and I was
taken into a large kitchen to get warm and was left
there. Great joints of meat were roasting before the
most enormous fire I had ever seen. There must have
been six or seven roasts on the two spits, which were
one above the other, and as they went round by them-
selves I was curious to find out what turned them.
An iron wheel was at one end of each spit, held up
by a chain which pulled it around, and they told me
that it was a smoke-jack in the chimney that supplied
the motive power. A large wooden screen was front
of the fire, lined with bright tin that reflected back the
heat and kept the cold air from the meat, and piles
of plates and dishes were on shelves getting warm.
On the back was a seat, for I remember being lifted
up to sit on it. I soon got tired of this and slid off to
inspect things out of doors. Next to the kitchen was
what I saw must be a public house. “Of course,” in-
terrupted Mr. Mortram. “We have one here too; we

[80]

del
THE OPENING OF NEW LONDON BRIDGE
After the Painting by Clarkson Stanfield, R. A.

ENGLAND
can't live without porter, you know.” I saw a very
high wall, with a railing on top made of spikes crossed
on each other, like that around the long cannon in
St. James' Park near Spring Garden. My father told
me it was called a chevaux-de-frise. Between the wall
and the prisoners' houses was a very wide open space
where men were playing ball, using long-handled bats
with open mesh-work for striking the ball. On the
wall, as high as most houses, were painted or chalked
enormous circles for the game.
Mr. Westbrook, a friend of my father's, joined him
here, either by chance or by appointment, and at dusk
we left, crossing the river by old London Bridge, be-
cause that was our friend's nearest way home to Step-
ney. At the city end of the bridge and in front of
Fishmongers' Hall, I was lifted up to look between
the stone balusters at the great water-wheels, that were
turned by the force of the river as it plunged through
the small arches like a waterfall. I felt a kind of terror
at the sight of the great, black, dripping, slow-moving
things in the darkness, and the groaning and splashing
of the struggling water. I heard them say that the
wheels went round only when the tide was rising.
When it was running out the waterfall was on the
other side of the bridge, and the submerged wheels
could not turn, the river was banked up so high
around them, waiting to get through the arches.
When I had finished my answers to the queries put
6
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REMINISCENCES
to me, Mr. Mortram handed Jim a package, telling
him to take it the first thing in the morning to Mr.
McCreery, Took's Court, Chancery Lane, and ask
him to please send proof as soon as he possibly could.
He looked at his watch and said, “Now be off, quick,
or you 'll be shut in here all night.”
I cannot remember how we passed through the locked
iron gate, but we were admitted to the lodge-room in
front by knocking with our knuckles. This was my
first visit to the Marshalsea, and I was in it but once
more, for Mr. Mortram was soon released as insolv-
ent.
In this connection I have a few words to say about
the singular and unlooked-for happenings, the chance
meetings, in times and places remote, with persons
whom it would seem most unlikely one could ever
again encounter. The Mr. Amherst, whom I have
mentioned as a prisoner in Marshalsea, inspired me
with a kind of veneration, because I had seen in shop
windows the open title-page of plays he had written,
bearing after his name the words, “Author of,” fol-
lowed by an inverted pyramid of titles of pieces, per-
haps ten or fifteen in number. Some twenty or more
years after, a circus, called Welsh's Olympic, was
built in Philadelphia, on the south side of Chestnut
Street, east of Ninth, where the Continental Hotel
now stands. I went with my family to one of the first
performances, and was fairly startled by the voice of

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the usher who politely showed us our seats. I did not
need to turn my eyes toward him to know that there
stood Amherst. He little thought the person he was
addressing in suave tones had been the small boy who
had seen him in quite other quarters. Some years after
this, I saw him again, seated near me in the old
Chestnut Street Theatre, above Sixth Street, and con-
versing with Mr. Davenport the actor, father of Fanny
Davenport. He seemed ageing fast, and his dress was
anything but new and fresh. The next thing I heard
was that he had died in the almshouse in West Phila-
delphia. What had made me so familiar with the sound
of his voice was that when I saw him for the second
time with Mr. Mortram, Mrs. Miller had insisted on
his reading something aloud, which he did in a man-
ner that I thought enchanting. I had never heard any-
thing to compare to it.
The changes that rapidly succeed one another as time
rolls on, are as unexpected as the sudden surprises of
the kaleidoscope. What could be more unlikely than
that I should ever again meet Mrs. Miller? Yet I did.
In the course of years I had become an artist,—or
thought I had, and others thought so too,—and I re-
ceived a commission to paint a lady's portrait in water-
colours, which if successful was to be engraved. For
this I was conducted to the residence of Lady Gresley,
a stone-fronted house on the south side of Conduit
Street, a few doors from Regent Street. Who should
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the sitter be but Mrs. Miller, her beauty not in the
least impaired! My astonishment may be imagined,
but I was careful to conceal it, and she of course could
not recognize in the young man commissioned to
paint her portrait the little boy she had seen in the
Marshalsea. She had appeared on the public stage in
the character of the “Irish Widow,” with the hope of
adopting the theatrical career as a profession. But she
had so much yet to learn that Mr. Elliston would
offer her no more than two pounds per week. This
came to the knowledge of Lady Gresley, who was
so indignant thereat that she forbade her acceptance
of the paltry salary, and declared that she would
rather take care of her herself. Thus it was that the
would-be actress and ex-inmate of the Marshalsea
came to be domiciled in Conduit Street.
Years after, while I was spending an evening with Mr.
Charles Toppan, the eminent bank-note engraver of
Philadelphia, the conversation drifted to his experi-
ences in London when he was young. Among other
things he mentioned having met there the most ex-
quisitely beautiful lady he had ever seen in all his life.
Before he had time to name her, I asked, “Was she
not a Mrs. Miller?” Amazed, he answered that she

was.
But I think the most remarkable coincidence of a
meeting after many years of time, and when thousands
of miles of space had intervened, was an experience
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.
told me by David Edwin, the distinguished stipple
engraver of Philadelphia. When he was a boy in Lon-
don he was in the Strand early one morning, standing
on the sidewalk in front of Northumberland House,
looking up St. Martin's Lane, which at that time
ended at the Strand instead of at St. Martin's-in-the-
Fields as now. It was about eight o'clock, the atmo-
sphere hazy but not dense enough for a fog, and ap-
parently nobody about yet, for London hours for ris-
ing are much later than in Philadelphia. To his great
wonder and astonishment he saw a young woman,
entirely nude, issue from one of the houses, cross the
street and enter a house on the opposite side. Long
years after, in Philadelphia, he was in company one
evening with a group of merry fellows who were en-
tertaining one another over their cups with gay anec-
dotes. “Now I will tell you something,” said one,
“that's quite out of common, and I know it to be a
fact, for I was a party to it and won a trifle of money
over it on a bet. A lively set of both sexes had been
to the Haymarket Theatre and afterwards to a supper
at a house in St. Martin's Lane. With songs and sto-
ries over the flowing bowl, we kept it up all night
until daylight surprised us. The frolic ended in a
wager that one of the women should cross the open
street divested of all clothing. She was dared into
doing it and was paid handsomely.” Edwin here in-
terposed and told them the year and month of the

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occurrence. The narrator was amazed, and exclaimed,
“That's a fact, it was then; but how in the world
could you learn it?” “Why, I saw it,” said Edwin. He
remembered the date with such exactitude because it
was just before his master, a Dutch engraver, took
him over to Amsterdam.

[86]
CHAPTER
VI
Turnpikes
HE number of hours demanded for duty
with Mr. Mortram would have been more
fatiguing but for the amusement inseparable
from the nature of the occupation, and I should have
been well content to continue. But I was taken from
it to be made useful where my hours of daily service
were still longer, and my occupation totally void of
entertainment. Mr. Goodland, a relative of ours, was
,
proprietor of the turnpike trust of the lower road
from Bermondsey to Deptford. It comprised seven
gates, one of which was named Gibraltar, probably
because it commanded all the rest, all vehicles from
either direction having to pass through it, there being
no by-road at this part. For this reason it was neces-
sary to have a trustworthy person there to check off
the name of the gate at which toll had previously
been paid. Mr. Goodland wanted me for this post,
and it was thus I came to be removed from my old
employment to the new. But I very soon grew tired
of my occupation, and no wonder, for my hard tasks
left me so little time for natural rest. I did not sleep
at Gibraltar, there being no accommodation for it, but
at the Butt Lane Gate, Deptford. I had to be off to

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my post before five o'clock in the morning, and my
attention must never flag all day, or my record against
the other gates would be imperfect. Any negligence
was apt to be discovered, as each gate was made a
check against the others. After having my mind on
the strain all day, when evening came I had to walk
from Deptford to Bermondsey, to submit my daily
record to a close scrutiny, and then walk back to
Deptford and get the little sleep the time left me.
The complaint of Faust's Margaret about fitted my
case:
I can scarce avail
To wake so early and to sleep so late,
And then, my mother is in each detail
So accurate.
My need of rest was so great that I must sometimes
have walked nearly the whole distance fast asleep,
for I would find myself at my destination unable to
recollect how I came there. Once I was awakened by
coming square up against a scaffold pole, and once
awoke by missing the accustomed level footing of the
raised sidewalk, cut down to the level of the road
where a gate gave entrance to a field. I tried all I could
to be relieved, but in vain, so, growing desperate, at
last I cut the knot that would not untie, by taking
what is called “French leave.” Early in the morning
the news was carried to headquarters at Dandy's Gate,
Bermondsey, that Gibraltar waś without a garrison,

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ENGLAND
and young Charles Goodland posted off at once to
my mother in the city, and there found the runaway.
When I had related my grievances and hardships, it
was seen that the attempt to force me back must be
abandoned.
There were seven gates in this trust of the lower
Deptford Road, which were named respectively Lilli-
put, Dandy's, Swan, St. Helena, Commercial, Gibral-
tar, and Butt Lane. The tolls levied were exorbitant,
being a shilling per horse attached to vehicles with
wheels of three inch tires, eightpence if the wheels
were of double that breadth, and so on. Lilliput, the
first gate on the Bermondsey end, was within a stone's
throw of a locality made famous by Dickens in Oliver
Twist, Jacob's Island, where Bill Sykes met his death
after the murder of Nancy. These turnpike trusts
were farmed out by the road commissioners to the
highest responsible bidder that could also be backed
up by acceptable sureties, and it was thus my cousin
Goodland became owner of the lower Deptford Road
trust. But so far as the region immediately around
London is concerned, they have long been a thing of

the past.
In connection with my sleep-walking, I had occasion
to mention the raised sidewalk for foot passengers on
that portion of the lower Deptford Road where it
crossed the fields. The land south of the river Thames
was generally low and inclined to be swampy, includ-
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ing the part opposite London, then known as St.
George's Fields. The turnpike gate on the West-
minster Road, not more than a quarter of a mile from
the bridge of that name, was known as the Marsh
gate, a significant indication of the marshy character
of the neighbourhood. Mr. Mortram, the pyrotech-
nist, lived almost opposite that gate, and I remember
that under the rotting floor of the back kitchen of his
house was discovered a large, square reservoir of wa-
ter, evidently framed for the drainage of the surround-
ing earth. I saw that the surface of the water was not
more than eight inches lower than the under side of
the joists, laid across it for the support of the new
floor. It was thus made clear why the sidewalk in
front of these houses was raised so much higher than
the roadway. The basements could not otherwise have
been made without going down into the water. This
house is next to the corner of what was known as the
New Cut, which ran from the Westminster Road to
the Blackfriars Road. Midway along this cut ends the
long line of brick arches built to support the sloping
road from the end of Waterloo Bridge down to the
natural level at the New Cut, a distance very little
short of half a mile.
One of my early memories, is of an old-time place of
amusement, near Westminster Bridge, Astley's Thea-
tre, noted for its equestrian exhibitions. Astley's begin-
ning before the public as a performer is noteworthy,

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ENGLAND
considering the development from it of the circus of
to-day, with its four rings and enormous tent. He had
been groom to a gentleman who was fond of horses,
and when they separated he received the present of
a fine horse from his patron. With this animal he
made daily displays, in an open field, of his remarkable
skill in horsemanship, performing many daring feats,
and at the close a hat was passed around for voluntary
contributions. His advertisements were very primitive,
consisting of written notices tacked on to the trunks
of trees here and there.
With such a beginning he could not be expected to
have acquired much knowledge of the arts of music
and painting, but both of these were necessary adjuncts
in the theatre he afterwards owned. It is told of him
that noticing one night that the brass wind instru-
ments in his orchestra were sometimes silent, he de-
manded the reason. He was told there was a rest,
which was pointed out on the written score. He
stormed at the musicians. “Rest! I don't pay you for
resting. I pay you for playing. Blow away!” In paint-
ing he evidently preferred the realistic school. His
artist was engaged in decorating the proscenium over
the front of the stage with a cluster of flags, drums,
trumpets, cannon, and I don't know what all, when
Astley called to the painter that he had shown but
one end of the drum. The artist explained that it was
not possible to represent it otherwise. “Nonsense!”

it
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exclaimed Astley. “Suppose a real drum was up there,
wouldn't the audience on this side see one end, and
would n't the audience on the other side of the theatre
see the other end ? Now I want it done as if there was
a real drum up there."

[ 92 ]
CHAPTER
VII
Apprenticeship_William Young Ottley, and his Friends,
Rogers, Leslie, Lawrence, Dihdin, Douce, and Roscoe
T had been necessary that I should be in
the
way
of earning money
after
my
father's
death and my mother's unsuccessful attempt
to carry on the business. But now my grandmother
at Trowbridge died, leaving us her estate, and this
put us on our feet again. It was time that I should
select some occupation for my life's career, and as I
was fond of drawing and devoted myself to it when-
ever I could find opportunity, I decided to learn the
art of engraving. I was therefore apprenticed to Mr.
John Swaine, and thus at the age of fourteen entered
upon the profession in which I have been actively and
incessantly at work during the last seventy-five years.
Mr. Swaine was a member of the Merchant Tailors'
Company in Threadneedle Street, and it was there
that I was indentured to him in February, 1823,
becoming by means of that process a "freeman of the
city.”. Now, under the system of negro slavery, when
a transfer of property in the person occurred, the
price was paid by the purchaser; but in the white
slavery termed apprenticeship the payment takes the
opposite direction, and not only was I to give seven


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REMINISCENCES
years of my time without compensation, but to make
a payment of seventy pounds sterling to boot. I was
to be taught a variety of branches in addition to pic-
torial work,—heraldry, letter engraving, and so forth.
My mother thought this a great advantage, and I
knew no better, but I soon learned that these varieties
involved a great deal of drudgery. Besides, under the
old régime, the duties of an apprentice included the
running of errands or any menial occupation the mas-
ter ordered.
Work in an engraver's jobbing office I found most
unfavourable for artistic progress. The apprentice's
chief occupation was cutting names on door-plates,
dog-collars, trunk-plates, and some still rougher work,
and my practice in drawing was only heraldry. This
training gave command of hand and rapid certainty of
execution, however, and between whiles I applied my-
self diligently to practice in pictorial work. I soon began
to repine, because I saw that it would be impossible for
me to acquire enough knowledge and experience to
follow the branch of regular pictorial engraving, and
that my seven years would be wasted, as well as the
seventy pounds premium that had been paid.
My case seemed a hopeless one, when Mr. William
Young Ottley happened to see one or two of my little
scraps of line practice, and commended them. The
idea occurred to him to use me to carry forward to
completion a work he had begun thirty years before

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in Rome, if he could arrive at a satisfactory arrange-
ment with Mr. Swaine for my time. This project was
an historical sketch of the early Florentine school, not
in words, but in examples of the compositions of the
best artists through two centuries and a half, from
Cimabue in 1360 down to Luca Signorelli in 1500,
arranged in chronological order. Terms were agreed
upon, and it was a splendid piece of good fortune for
me. Mr. Ottley was known in the literary world not
only as the most learned antiquary in all matters re-
lating to art, more especially Italian art, but also as an
accomplished artist himself, though amateur only. I
could not have fallen into better hands.
This work in folio, The Early Florentine School, pub-
lished complete in 1826, had been planned and act-
ually commenced in 1792; some of the plates after
Giotto having been then engraved by Tomaso Piroli.
They were done from drawings by Humbert, an artist
employed by Mr. Ottley to copy the pictures he had
selected, it being then long before photography was
even dreamed of. Progress ceased, however, very soon
after it had begun, and it might never have been re-
sumed but for the arrangement for utilizing my ser-
vices. I began work upon the plates in 1823, and con-
tinued at it twenty months. During that time, I en-
graved throughout eighteen of the plates, and worked
up to finish fourteen others left incomplete by Piroli.
Several of Piroli's plates I had to alter considerably,
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REMINISCENCES
scooping out parts and punching up from the back
on an anvil before proceeding to finish, so that I be-
came quite expert. A Nativity by Sandro Botticelli, I
engraved from the original picture, owned by Mr.
Ottley, and worked it up to its full effect. The others
were from Humbert's drawings.
Three of the plates I engraved throughout before I
was fifteen, two being after Benozzo Gozzoli: Abra-
ham entertaining the Angels, and a group from a wall in
the Campo Santo at Pisa. The third was after Giotto.
The last three I did were from Luca Signorelli, after
his frescoes in the Duomo at Orvieto: The Wicked de-
stroyed at the End of the World, a group of demons from
his Inferno, and a group of angels from his picture of
heaven. I also engraved from the facade of the same
cathedral a sculptured group by Niccola Pisano, and
I have since seen the originals at Orvieto. Masaccio,
Filippo Lippi, Donatello and others were among the
artists I copied.
This delightful work was performed amidst charming
surroundings, of themselves an education. My engrav-
ing table stood in the corner of a picture gallery, the
walls covered with admirable paintings by great' mas-
ters. If I raised my eyes from my work to the south
wall opposite, there was a first-class Rembrandt, a
nude woman seated, an old woman wiping her feet
after a bath. It is now in the La Caze Gallery of the
Louvre. To the left was a Domenichino of Cephalus

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ENGLAND
and Aurora, figures larger than life. To the right of the
Rembrandt a large picture of The Battle of the Angels, a
noble composition by Mr. Ottley himself, painted in
black and white, evidenced consummate mastery in
drawing the nude figure. It was his intention to paint
over it in solid colour, but whether he ever did I do
not know. A line of works of lesser dimensions occu-
pied the space beneath,
ace beneath, among them a Guido, a Sche-
done, a Correggio study in oils, a Giorgione, and in
the middle an antique torso of a Cupid, not unlike the
marble known as The Genius of the Vatican.
On the west wall, opposite the fireplace, and over the
Print Cabinets, was, among other large pictures, a very
large Titian, a Madonna and Child with landscape back-
ground. Just back of where I sat, was another Titian,
The Rape of Europa, a beautiful picture of captivating
colour, and lighter in general tone than any other work
of his I have seen. Below the Titian, and level with the
eye, was the Nativity of Sandro Botticelli. It was a tall
upright; in the sky over the straw-thatched stable was
a circle of rejoicing angels, and in the lower portion
groups of angels embracing men. I engraved a plate of
the middle portion only, that is, of the Nativity proper,
copying it just where it hung, and it is numbered the
fiftieth plate of the series in the completed folio work.
On the west side of the door of entrance was a large
Salvator Rosa, St. George, pouring upon the Dragon
some liquid from a bottle. Over these hung two large
7
[97]
REMINISCENCES
Bassanos that extended across the whole width of the
gallery, the subjects of course treated after his accus-
tomed manner, but the colouring very rich and fine,
although dark. Both recesses on each side of the fire-
place were filled with books. To reach this gallery
from the dwelling the way was through another smaller
gallery, also lighted from above, the walls of which
were covered from floor to ceiling with pictures by the
old pre-Raphaelite artists, which Mr. Ottley had col-
lected in Italy during the latter part of the last cen-
tury. Most of them were taken from churches during
the occupation by the French soldiery, and but for
Mr. Ottley's intervention might have been destroyed.
Now to spend twenty months in a room starred with
pictures such as I have attempted to describe, was a
great privilege which I did not fail to appreciate. But
in addition was the instruction I was constantly re-
ceiving from Mr. Ottley himself, in superintending
and directing my work, and last, not least, the conver-
sation of the eminent men who visited such a man as
Mr. Ottley. Among them were Sir Thomas Lawrence,
President of the Royal Academy, Samuel Rogers, the
poet-banker, Thomas Roscoe, Charles R. Leslie, R.
A., Thomas Frognall Dibdin, the
Dibdin, the bibliographer,
Francis Douce, the antiquary, Rev. William Long,
Frazer, Lloyd and others.
Samuel Rogers, the poet-banker, was one of Mr. Ott-
ley's most frequent visitors, and from his appearance

[98]
ENGLAND
I guessed him to be about sixty. He had not yet pub-
lished that superb volume illustrated by Stothard and
Turner, Italy, nor the companion volume, illustrated
by the same artists, his Miscellaneous Poems, which at
the sale of Mrs. Morgan's rich collection in New York
brought seventy dollars for each volume.
There was one peculiarity about his face that drew my
attention: the sockets of his eyes were rather deep-
sunk, so that the edges of the cheek-bones were very
definitely marked, and yet the eye in the centre was
itself prominent, forming altogether a sort of cone.
Under excitement the expression was peculiar, which
was rare, however, because ordinarily he was mild and
equable. But one day his host brought out for his de-
lectation a portfolio of choice mediæval paintings, col-
lected from richly illuminated missals and other simi-
larly decorated works. They were each mounted sep-
arately on very thick card-board and were rare, splen-
did and valuable, and made a heavy pile in a single
folio. Rogers’s fine taste was much gratified by such a
treat, and he gave frequent utterance to the pleasure
he experienced. All at once a vexatious surprise oc-
curred, startling those in the gallery by its sudden
noise. Owing to a thoughtless way of placing the folio,
it overbalanced and fell to the floor with a resounding
plunge, to the detriment of the corners of some of
the mountings, and possibly to some of the minia-
tures. Rogers had placed the folio flat on the table,

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but with the empty leaf projecting beyond its edge.
As he examined the pictures, one by one, he laid each
precious gem with tender care on the opposite side,
until the increasing weight brought about the catas-
trophe. The mortification seen in those curious goggle-
eyes of his could not be forgotten.
I have a good portrait of Rogers, copied from a deli-
cate drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence. It is an unmis-
takable likeness, but as the Academy President always
worked for beauty, not only in ladies' faces but also in
those of men, such a peculiarity as I have referred to
would be softened down to disappearance. The outline
etching of Rogers by Maclise, published in Fraser, is
like, though bordering on caricature. Rogers was re-
markable for his exquisitely refined taste, almost ap-
proaching fastidiousness, so that of the multitudinous
collection of art objects he possessed none were of
doubtful quality. I am told that in order to render
perfect the volume of his Italy, with its superb illus-
trations, he expended on it no less than £10,000, and
on the subsequent volume of his Poems, £5,000.
On one occasion I remember Charles R. Leslie, our
Philadelphia Royal Academician, standing before Mr.
Ottley's grand picture of The Battle of the Angels.
After commending the composition and effect, and
more particularly the masterly drawing of the individ-
ual nude figures, he remarked that it was a pity it was
not in colour. Mr. Ottley said that it had been his in-
[ 100 ]

WESTMINSTER, OLD PARLIAMENT HOUSES AND WESTMINSTER BRIDGE
ENGLAND
tention from the beginning to paint it in colour; this
was only the preparation. Leslie said it would not do
to work on that same canvas. “Why not?” was asked
in surprise. “Because it would be impossible to con-
quer that intensely cold black and white,” said Leslie.
Leslie as a boy started in Bradford's bookstore in
Philadelphia, but his predilection for art often found
vent in sketches, the most remarkable of these being
three coloured drawings of Cooke, the actor, that are
still preserved in the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts, one as Falstaff, one as Richard the Third,
and the other as Othello. A subscription was imme-
diately raised to enable him to go to London to study
regularly for the profession, and to receive advice
and guidance from such men as Benjamin West and
Washington Allston. He studied diligently and pro-
gressed rapidly. One of his first successes was the
charming picture of Sir Roger de Coverley and the Spec-
tator going to Church, the background to the figures be-
ing a view of Chingford Church, Essex, near Epping
Forest. I possess a facsimile of Leslie's sepia drawing
from nature of that ivy-covered building. In 1826 I
was one Sunday in this interesting church, then in fair
condition and used for weekly services. I went up into
the pulpit and saw on the cushionless pine desk a Bible
secured by a chain. I went to see the church again in
1888, but time had worn it into a ruin.
When Leslie was about to depart for London, Sully

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gave him some instructions and showed him how to
set a palette, for which the young student was very
thankful, and said he did not know how he could ever
repay such kindness. To this Sully answered, “When
you have attained that position in art which I predict
for you, I in turn will ask your instruction.” During
the first year of the reign of Victoria, Sully went to
London and painted the whole length portrait of the
Queen from life, for the St. George Society of Phila-
delphia, for which she had consented to sit. Sully then
reminded Leslie of the incident of the latter's boy-
hood, and asked him to say frankly how his pictures
struck him. “Frankly then,” said Leslie, “they look
too much as if one could blow them away.” This was
told me by Sully himself.
In 1841 Leslie painted for me a portrait of my
father-
in-law, Mr. Swaine, and it still hangs in my library as
fresh and as beautiful as the day on which it was fin-
ished. Henry C. Carey, the eminent writer on political
economy, married a sister of the artist, and there are
some of his pictures in the Carey collection of the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which came
through that connection.
Thomas Roscoe used to come to Ottley's gallery, and
frequently it was to ask assistance in his translation
from the Italian of Lanzi, on which he was then en-
gaged. He would be perplexed to find the exact mean-
ing of certain words or phrases that occurred in refer-

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ence to purely art matters, which Mr. Ottley under-
stood from having lived so long in Italian art circles,
himself a devoted student of art, though an amateur
only. Roscoe was a most agreeable man, and the con-
versations I frequently heard between the two con-
cerning Italian art were highly instructive as well as
entertaining, and it was evident the translation gained
much by Roscoe's application to Ottley. The latter
had himself, in former years, begun a translation of
Lanzi, but dropped it after making considerable pro-
gress.
Francis Douce, the antiquary, was another of the fre-
quent visitors. He had a loud voice and used it in a
dictatorial way, as if those he talked to were of small
account and hardly worth his notice. Mr. Ottley had
a large table in the middle of the gallery, on which
was an accumulation of all kinds of things, — books,
drawings, prints, and what not, -piled on one another
in a confused way as if valueless. One day Douce
noticed in the heap some very curious old ivory carv-
ings, flat plates like book covers, and after examining
one or two asked Mr. Ottley what he supposed they
were for. He replied that he did not know. Douce
pitched them from him as if scornfully, but after
awhile proposed to buy them. The owner, after a
minute's thought, said, “If they are worth ten gui-
neas to you, you can have them.” The purchaser
discovered a small vacant space on the table, and

1
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saw him count out ten shillings in addition to the ten
sovereigns, and he carried off the ivories. There ap-
peared to be eight or ten of them. On the occasion
of a subsequent visit he mentioned that he had dis-
covered their use. They were the ornamental backs
to ladies' hand mirrors. He possessed a large collec-
tion of valuable manuscripts and other objects that
are kept in a sealed box in the British Museum, not
to be opened until the first day of the next century.
At another time he was turning over the leaves of
Mr. Ottley's folio book, The Italian School of Design, an
admirable and costly work containing engraved fac-
similes of drawings by the most celebrated old masters.
After commenting on those by Raphael done with the
silver point (made of the pure metal without alloy, and
used before the introduction of lead pencils) and con-
trasting these, his early works, with the larger, bolder
drawings with pen or crayon, he was led to talk about
the large debt this artist owed to Michael Angelo.
Raphael had suddenly changed his style from what is
termed his second, to his last, broader and grander
manner, obviously the result of having seen the vault
of the Sistine Chapel while in progress. Mr. Ottley
had proved in the work referred to that the chapel
was opened one year earlier than all writers agree in
dating it. Douce exclaimed, “What the devil does it
matter whether it was opened a year earlier or a year
later, in 1511 or 1512 ? It was on All Saints' Day, and

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that's sufficient.” Mr. Ottley explained that it mat-
tered a great deal, as on that hinged the decision of
the question of how Raphael improved his manner
all at once, and proved that credit should be given
to his sight of his great rivals work. Vasari recorded
the day of the public opening of the chapel, but
neglected to state the year. This time Douce bought
the ok, paying down twelve guineas, the price of
it. Money was of small account with him, for he had
the heaped-up savings of the miserly sculptor Nol-
lekens, who bequeathed his fortune to him.
There was one visitor whose entrance always gave
me a thrill of pleasure, and that was Sir Thomas
Lawrence, the President of the Royal Academy, who
never came till late in the afternoon. When he first
took notice of me, he came around into my corner
and asked me what I was doing. I replied that it was
Donatello's bas-relief on the pulpit of the Church
of San Lorenzo at Florence, Christ taken down from the
Cross. He examined my plate attentively and exclaimed,
“Ha! I possess the artist's first sketch for this bronze,
but it's a good deal changed from his original design.”
He spoke some very kind and encouraging words
about
my
work. In conversation the tones of his voice
were very pleasant to the ear,—soft and low,—and
the language was marked by simplicity and directness.
I once heard him comment on the large Titian on
the east wall. Standing on the hearth with his back

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to the fire, his hands behind him, he analyzed its
various qualities, expressing admiration especially for
the breadth of treatment.
The Donatello drawing he referred to had been copied
in facsimile in Ottley's Italian School of Design, folio,
published complete in 1823. This is a splendid work
and contains as many as eighty-four exact repro-
ductions of original drawings by the best masters,
those by Raphael and Michael Angelo being the
most numerous. They formed a part, but a very small
part, of the great collection formerly owned by Mr.
Ottley, and purchased from him by Sir Thomas
Lawrence at a cost of £8,000. The combined accu-
mulation of works of this character, obtained by Law-
rence from various sources, surpassed in quantity and
quality the united collections of all the crowned heads
of Europe put together. It was the great ambition of
the artist's life to enrich the nation with this vast
collection of original works, unique, and beyond com-
parison, his own name as founder to be permanently
associated with it. This noble purpose failed of its
accomplishment because of the liberal and careless
way in which he spent his earnings, involving him
in debt beyond his ability to pay. Unable to realize
the project himself, he yet trusted to its being carried
out by others after his death, and with that hope he
devised that the king, George the Fourth, might have
the collection for a sum considerably below half what

| 1061
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it had cost, and if his Majesty declined it, Sir Robert
Peel might take it at a still less sum. Neither of them
being possessed of sufficient largeness of heart or
patriotism, there was nothing left but to let this won-
derful collection be again scattered, through the hands
of dealers, to the four quarters of the earth, beyond
the possibility of ever being reassembled.
I remember hearing Mr. Ottley once speak to Sir
Thomas Lawrence with an inflection of dissatisfaction.
At the annual dinner of the academicians, immedi-
ately following the death of Henry Fuseli, the presi-
dent made no allusion to the loss the Royal Academy
had sustained. Mr. Ottley expressed his surprise in
tones that sounded to me like a reproach, but Law-
rence excused his omission by saying that he had felt
afraid it might not be well received.
Dr. Thomas Frognall Dibdin, the bibliographer, I do
not remember much about, except that he was a lively
little man of fifty who spoke rapidly, laughed heartily,
and skipped about like a youth, although his face
indicated middle age at least.
When my labours on the plates for The Early Flor-
entine School were finished, I obtained permission to
draw from the antique marbles in the British Mu-
seum four hours each week, and it was then that I
lunch sitting on the large black stone now so
carefully guarded, that then lay on the floor of the
Egyptian department, the Rosetta Stone.

ate my
[107]
CHAPTER
VIII
M
William Blake and John Varley
Y first knowledge of the works of William
Blake and my admiration of certain qualities
in them came through an introduction to
Mr. John Varley, the eminent painter in water colours.
In his gallery and studio I saw the entire series of the
illustrations of The Book of Joh each framed sepa-
rately and hanging side by side in one continuous line
on the north wall of the room. They were suspended
level with the eye, a great comfort on account of the
minute character of the engraving, which was done
with a knife-like tool, not with the ordinary graver or
burin, and was entirely devoid of the customary pre-
paration of etching. Blake engraved all the text of the
book in the same way when he published it, for he
could not afford to pay a compositor to set it up in
type.
Mr. Varley was a remarkably frank and pleasant gen-
tleman, an enthusiast in whatever subjects interested
him, and the three most prominent of these were his
landscape-art, astrology, and the works of Blake. His
conversation was always interesting and instructive; he
talked rapidly and never ceased washing-in on his pic-
ture the while. When I first saw him, he welcomed me

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in the warmest manner, and after a brief conversation
invited me to look around at the works on the walls.
He occupied a long room lighted from above without
windows on the sides, which was reached through a
long passage, the entrance door being on Tichfield
Street. Over the Blake prints hung large pictures in
water colours by himself, just returned from exhibi-
tions. The subjects were The Bride of Abydos, The
Destruction of Tyre, and The Grave of Thomson. This
last, a most beautiful view, illustrated the lines by
Collins,
In yonder grave a Druid lies,
Where slowly winds the stealing wave,
The year's hest sweets shall duteous rise
To deck its poets sylvan grave.”
Besides these water-colours, there was on another wall
a large picture in oils by him, of a scene extremely
solemn and grand, a funeral procession. It was either
The Burial of Saul or a subject suggested by the music
of a dirge bearing that title.
I was deeply impressed with the prints by Blake, and
having examined the whole twenty-one most carefully,
I raised my eyes to an unframed canvas on the wall
above, at the end of the line of prints. It appeared to
be a regular 25x 30 portrait size, turned horizontal,
giving space for two life-size heads painted side by
side. One was of a man of a clear, pinkish complexion,
with short red hair in crisp curls, negro-like in charac-

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ter but not in colour, the entire head as round as a ball.
The other, to the right of the first, was of a totally
different type. The large portion of the face was in
deep shadow from the raised visor of the helmet that
encased the head, and from out of this shadow the
eyes glared unpleasantly. The canvas was bare except
where the heads were painted, and these looked as if
done in oil, but were not so, for Blake, like Michael
Angelo, despised that medium. He preferred to use
glue-water as a vehicle for his pigments. Under the
heads was written in lead-pencil two lines, as follows,
as near as I can recollect: “William Wallace appeared
and stayed long enough for me to paint this portrait
of him, when King Edward the First took his place
and I painted him also. He promised to come again
and bring his wife and children. W. Blake.” I read
this to myself once or twice and was puzzled, when
Varley, perceiving my perplexity, said: "I see you
don't understand that writing, but it is true. Wallace
did really appear to Blake, and that portrait was
painted from him, and the other also is a faithful por-
trait of King Edward painted as he saw him. Come
this way and look at this little picture on the mantel-
piece.” I did as I was bid and took it in my hand, for
it stood loose and appeared to be painted on a kind
of cardboard. Varley said it represented the spirit of a
flea. It was a profile view of a finely drawn human
figure in all but the head, which was that of a flea; in

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his left hand, the one toward the spectator, was a small
bowl filled to the brim with blood, which he held for-
ward as if showing it to some one not within the field
of the picture. The entire painting was dark, but the
background became less so near the figure, so that the
form, still darker, had relief. The strongly-developed
muscles were partially covered with bronze-like scales,
that had a dim gloss in the lights, and in some parts
bristling hairs grew out between them.
Blake made the illustrations for a folio edition of
Young's Night Thoughts, and engraved them also.
Afterwards, for Cromek, he illustrated Blair's Grave,
and was greatly disappointed when the engraving was
confided to the Italian Schiavonetti, an excellent artist
whose modern style of work was more acceptable to
the public than that of Blake. He had received but
twenty guineas for his thirteen designs, and reckoned
upon his earnings on the engraving to make the com-
mission more profitable. His ill-will toward Cromek
was greatly increased by the publisher's having broken
an alleged engagement in connection with the picture,
illustrating Chaucer, The Pilgrimage to Canterbury. He
claimed that he had made considerable progress on
the painting of that subject when Cromek saw it and
proposed to publish an engraving of it, using language
that Blake interpreted as equivalent to an order. But
Cromek instead used his idea and gave a commission
for the picture to Stothard, whose style of art was

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more captivating than Blake's. He afterwards engaged
Schiavonetti to engrave it, but the latter died just as
he had completed the superb preparatory etching (of
which I possess a proof), and the plate was finished
by James Heath.
Various statements have been published as to this
transfer of the order from Blake to Stothard, Cromek
denying that he had ever led the former to expect an
order of the kind. I chance to know the cause, which
has never appeared till now. I had it from the lips
of Henry Richter, whose pupil I was for eight months
in 1827–28, and whose father was really at the bottom
of the affair. Richter, the worker in scagliola, and
Stothard and Cromek were all neighbours in Newman
Street, Oxford Street. Richter wanted to get his son
Henry into Stothard's studio as a pupil, and in order
to lay the latter under an obligation, he induced
Cromek to give the commission as he did. Stothard,
however, declined to receive the son, and when the
elder Richter reproached him for being ungrateful,
Stothard replied that teaching was not in his line, or
words to that effect.
The fact is, Stothard had little enough to be grateful
for, beyond the opportunity of increasing his artistic
reputation. For this beautiful picture he received only
sixty guineas. Cromek agreed to augment that sum
to a hundred if the artist would work on it another
month and carry it on to finer finish. The time and

[ 112 ]

ZEBED
λίστα, Ιτα-
art
St. Paul's CATHEDRAL, LORD Mayor's Day
After the Painting by David Roherts, R. A.
ENGLAND
make game
finish were given, but the additional pay never came.
The publisher subsequently sold the picture, it is said,
for three hundred guineas, but the younger Stothard
told his wife, afterwards Mrs. Bray, that he knew
positively that the sum was five hundred.
The irritated Blake went on with his picture of the
Pilgrimage and when finished exhibited it along with
other of his works, and printed a descriptive catalogue
which I have read in a copy Richter had preserved.
Some passages in it are provocative of laughter; wit-
ness the following in reference to his rival's picture.
“That painter has represented Chaucer himself as a
knave who thrusts himself among honest people to
of and laugh at them, though I must do
justice to the painter and say that he has made him
look more like a fool than a knave.”... “The
scene of Mr. S—'s picture is by Dulwich Hills,
which was not the way to Canterbury; but perhaps
the painter thought he would give them a ride round
about, because they were a burlesque set of scare-
crows, not worth any man's respect or care.”
Stothard's portrait of Chaucer in the group is anything
but what Blake's spite represents, and was copied from
authentic material in the British Museum. The land-
scape background which Blake terms the Dulwich
Hills was sketched by Stothard from nature some-
where on the road near Peckham, which is on the way
to Canterbury.

7
8
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I never saw Blake, but I did see his widow. My friend
Tatham, the sculptor, in the kindness of his heart took
her for his housekeeper, and on my visiting him she
opened the street door to me. I don't know what would
have become of her in her age and poverty but for this
timely refuge offered after the death of her husband.
It has been asserted of John Varley that he accepted
money for the casting of horoscopes. I do not believe
it from what I know in connection with his astrologi-
cal diversions. Mine he cast, and I have it in his own
writing, still preserved. One of his studies was what he
termed zodiacal physiognomy, which was perfected
into a complete system; the theory being that not
only was a person's career in life influenced and in
large measure controlled by the position of the stars
at the hour of his birth, but also that the character
of his face, figure, and temperament was stamped and
fixed at the same instant. For example, the circle of
the twelve signs of the zodiac, allowing thirty degrees
to each, is divided into four trigons of three signs
each; the earthy, aerial, fiery, and watery, correspond-
ing to the temperaments. Aries the ram, formerly the
first month of the year, March, is the first sign of the
aerial trigon; to find the other two signs thereunto
belonging, place the angle of an equilateral triangle at
Aries, and the touching points of the other two angles
show the other two signs that belong in that trigon.
The same applies to the other three trigons or tem-

[114]
ENGLAND
peraments. Varley illustrated the subject by the fol-
lowing example: Lord Byron was born under the in-
tellectual sign Aries, and his style of face exhibited
the characteristics proper to that sign, but the slight
thickening at the end of the nose, and the other well-
known personal deformity, resulted from a reflection
from the sign directly opposite in the zodiacal circle,
which is opposite not only in position, but also in
character and temperament. Persons born when the
sign Gemini is ascending above the eastern horizon
should be of an elegant style of figure, agile, dexter-
ous at sleight-of-hand, graceful in the dance, in sword
fence, skating, and so forth, but these characteristics
are liable to be impaired by reflection from the sign
opposite in the zodiacal circle.
Gilchrist in his Life of Blake says that many of Var-
ley's horoscopes came true. The artist Collins died on
the day the stars foretold, and a man who tried to
profit by Varley's warning by lying in bed the whole
of the day upon which a fatal accident was to occur,
came down-stairs in the evening in the belief that the
dangerous time was past, stumbled over a coal-scuttle,
and fulfilled the prediction.
Two of my earliest friends, students of art with whom
I was most intimate, I came to know through John
Varley. These were George Richmond and Theodore
von Holst. The former, one year my junior, after-
wards became a Royal Academician through the excel-

[ 115 ]
REMINISCENCES
lence of his portraits, and was married to a daughter
of Tatham the architect. His son, also a Royal Aca-
demician, has recently received the commission to dec-
orate St. Paul's in mosaic. Holst never condescended
to portraiture, but devoted himself chiefly to painting
scenes from Faust and other German works in a
broad, Fuseli-like manner. He was two years my
junior, and died in 1844 at the age of thirty-four. A
fair example of his style may be seen in the engraving
in the second volume of the Book of Gems (middle
period) at page 43, the subject being entitled Too Late.
It was used by the editor, S. C. Hall, to illustrate a
passage in Young's Night Thoughts, “Procrastination
is the thief of time.” He was an intimate acquaintance
of Wainwright the poisoner, who was a skilful amateur
artist, and in appearance and manners an elegant gen-
tleman. Holst admired him and desired that I should
now him, for his true character and heartless crimes
had not then, in 1827, been discovered. Holst had
always a large quantity of unfinished work on hand,
but one thing which he did finish was the Drinking
Scene in Faust, and this was purchased from him by
Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer. I have always felt that
Bulwer was drawn to Holst all the more because of
the known intimacy of the latter with the wretch
Wainwright, and much of the information Bulwer
thus obtained seems to have been worked up in his
novel Lucretia, or the Children of the Night.

[ 116 ]
VB volume published in 1826, I had to return,
CHAPTER IX
Studio Work—Henry Richter—Emancipation
Y work on the plates for The Early Florentine
School being done, and the completed folio
of course, to my old occupation of cutting names on
trunk-labels, door-plates, and the like, not so contin-
uously, however, but that there were intervals when I
could practise picture-work in the line manner. In this
way I engraved a plate, quarto-size, of Northcote's
Hubert and Prince Arthur, also a small group of Charity
after Henry Corbould. These being viewed with fa-
vour by some connoisseurs in art, my acquaintance
was soon extended among a class of people who could
control commissions for picture plates. Mr. Swaine
then proposed to me that I should execute any orders
for such work that I could procure, and receive a por-
tion of the profit, an offer that might be called liberal,
since by the terms of my indenture all my earnings
during my apprenticeship belonged to him. Under
this arrangement it was agreed that I should engrave
a series of twelve illustrations of Goethe's Faust, from
designs by Theodore von Holst, the art student I
have mentioned as introduced to me by John Varley.
The style of Holst's drawing of the human figure


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REMINISCENCES
was most masterly, firm and grand in outline and
free from littleness and triviality of detail, like the
contours of Fuseli, whose manner he followed. The
proposed series was to be published in quarto form,
and to be composed chiefly of etchings imitating his
drawings, none of which were wrought up to a fin-
ished effect. Only six of the proposed set were ever
done, because Holst made no more, but began to in-
troduce other subjects to complete the number. The
Wild Huntsman was one of these, and the only one
engraved, and the Faust series came to a stand for
lack of material. The subjects finished were Faust in
his Study, Mephistopheles and the Student, Faust and Mar-
garet, Margaret in Despair, The Witches departing for
the Hartz Mountains, and Walpurgis Night.
It was hurtful to the credit of Holst that figures he
drew and claimed as original were plagiarized. His
principal figure in The Curse of the Wild Huntsman is
Fuseli's King Lear cursing Cordelia. At the request
of John Varley I introduced Holst to Mr. Ottley,
who, looking over the drawings shown, remarked of
one of them, “That's copied.” “No,” said Holst,
“it's original.” “Oh, but, my dear sir, I 'll show you.”
He then brought out a print of Michael Angelo's
Creation of Eve from the Sistine Chapel, and sure
enough the sleeping figure of Adam was so exactly
the same that it could not have resulted from accident
or unconscious memory.

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While waiting for additional designs for the Faust
series, Mr. Henry Richter proposed to Mr. Swaine a
commission for me to engrave for him a copy of his
picture, The Tight Shoe. I was to do it in stipple on
steel, neither of which I had attempted as yet, but
as he had seen what I had accomplished in the line
manner on copper he accepted it as assurance of suc-
cess in dotted work, which is so much easier. It was
deemed advisable that I should experimentally engrave
a small plate on steel, Omphale, after an antique gem,
using a study from nature he had made with the same
movement, the figure turned to a front view instead
of profile. After I had completed the etching and was
about to carry it on with the graver, he changed his
mind and decided to have me do it in mezzotinto.
So a ground was rocked over the etching, and I
scraped it up successfully to a satisfactory finish.
I was glad of this change, for it would have been very
tedious to engrave in stipple so large a plate as The
Tight Shoe, containing several figures. I had suggested
it to him before, but he objected that “mezzotint is
such a black style.” I had told him that I intended to
try it for myself at all events. I had made the ac-
quaintance of a young man named James Eagan, who
used to lay the mezzotinto grounds for Samuel W.
Reynolds, the famous engraver after Sir Joshua, and
as he had offered to lay a ground for me I meant
to avail myself of the opportunity. The end was

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that The Tight Shoe was engraved in mezzotinto, the
small plate having turned out so well. Omphale was my
first attempt in a style new to me, which I continued
to practise ever after, only occasionally executing com-
missions in the pure line manner. I sold the steel plate
to Mr. Littell in Philadelphia in 1830.
It was quite natural and proper that Mr. Richter
should desire to keep a close watch over the progress
of his plate, but that was seen to be difficult, since he
lived at Brook Green, Hammersmith, three or four
miles from Queen Street, Golden Square, where Mr.
Swaine's office was located. Another disadvantage was
that the rude and coarse jobs I was frequently obliged
to do made my hand tremulous, spoiling it for deli-
cate art work; for example, the cutting of names and
addresses of dealers deep into circular brass registers
to be set in floors to be walked over; or, worse yet,
lettering large brass dog-collars, the zigzag edges of
which were bent up at a right angle into spiked bor-
ders. This kind of rolled brass is so exceedingly tough
that no graver could stand the strain, and when the
point broke, down would go the knuckles on the
spikes, and the bleeding was evidence that more than
the brass had been cut.
This induced Mr. Richter to try to make some such
arrangement for my services as had previously been
made with Mr. Ottley, but nothing resulted from
the conference. I was now much older and more ex-

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perienced, and I suppose the price asked was too high.
I, of course, was not present at the conference, being
only an apprentice, whose condition, even in an ar-
tistic craft, was in all respects the same as that of a
slave, expected to obey uncomplainingly and do what-
ever was ordered, down to the most menial service.
I was growing more and more anxious for emancipa-
tion from my thrall. If no simpler way offered I was
ready to join a Scotch friend of mine, named Cameron,
who, heart-broken over a love disappointment, had
determined to join the Greeks in their struggle for
freedom against the Turks. Indeed, it looked very
much as if it would be for him either Greece or sui-
cide. It was agreed between us that he should go
first
to the committee in London who were collecting help
of all kinds to aid the Greek revolt. Sir Francis
Burdett was a member of the committee, but I forget
the names of the others. They discharged their trust
to “help, aid, and assist,” by discouraging those who
offered themselves for military service. They told Cam-
eron that the Greeks were a set of scamps, and that it
would be well to have nothing to do with them. Lord
Cochrane, who was admiral of a fleet acting in behalf
of the Greeks, is represented as saying something
similar.
I finally succeeded in arranging to buy off the remain-
der of my time, agreeing to pay two hundred pounds
as soon as I of age, when I would come into

was
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REMINISCENCES
possession of a bequest from my grandmother. The
next thing was to decide upon the course best calcu-
lated to advance me in the knowledge and practice of
art. Richter urged me to come to him and engrave
The Tight Shoe. So sure had he been of my acquies-
cence, he said, that he had made arrangements which
would be very inconvenient to alter. This representa-
tion inclined me to do as he wished, but I was warned
by the experience of others who had worked for him,
that he would make it very difficult for me to break
away so long as he found it to his profit to keep me.
Influenced by what he said I felt it incumbent upon
me to go to him, although unwillingly, stipulating,
however, that I was to engrave the one plate only,
and no more. I engraved The Tight Shoe as agreed,
and was then induced to do another for him also,
The Tempest with the words of Ariel quoted beneath
the title, “Pardon, master, I will be correspondent to
command, and do my spiriting gently.” The picture
represented a group of three figures down to the
knees, the Pope, the Church and the Devil, the words
of Ariel being supposed to be the utterance of the
last of the three personages. It was a political satire,
born of the ferment and agitation over Catholic
Emancipation, which was then nearing its consumma-
tion. The print was displayed in the window of a
print shop in Gracechurch Street, and attracted such a
crowd of excited persons who angrily inquired what

.
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ENGLAND
was meant by it, that it had to be removed from the
window for fear of trouble. The plate had really been
engraved with a view to its being bought up to be
suppressed, and the result was not a disappointment.
The final passage of the Emancipation Act by the
British Parliament is linked to a bit of Philadelphia
history. On receipt of the news in Philadelphia the
Liberty Bell in the tower of the State House was rung,
and cracked in the ringing. When I was up in the
tower in 1830, two years after, viewing the cracked
bell for the first time, Downing, who was then the
custodian of Independence Hall, told me of it and
remarked to me that “the bell refused to ring for a
British Act, even when the Act was a good one.”
When the two plates were nearly finished, Mr. Rich-
ter, ignoring the engagement that I was to do only
one, began preparations for a third, after his painting,
The Brute of a Hushand. But I considered that it
was time I should be earning money, and objected to
be condemned to work for board and lodging as my
sole recompense. In our talk over a new arrangement,
Richter lost his temper and used language so offensive
that I refused to engrave the plate for him on any
terms whatever. We parted in anger, and from that
time on he did all he could to hinder my success.
When I went to Mr. Richter I reckoned on giving
all my leisure to the undivided study of art and its
history, but I found that my valuable evenings were

A
[123]
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frittered away unprofitably. Richter was fanatical on
the subject of Immanuel Kant, and pressed on me the
reading of translations of his transcendental philosophy
that he and Wergmann, the watchmaker, had made.
These two claimed to be the first to introduce to the
English mind the Kantian doctrines. They prepared
for the Encyclopedia Londinensis the articles on logic,
metaphysics, and some other subjects that served their
purpose, and tried to have religion confided to them,
but the editor was obliged to assign that subject to a
bishop of the Church of England. Beside this unprofit-
able reading, I was often asked to make the fourth in
a quadrille in the evening dancing lesson, to take the
place of Mrs. Richter, who was a large, fat, heavy
woman, and often I must wind up the night with a
game of chess with Mr. Richter, who was an enthu-
siast, and who surprised me by being strangely ruffled
on the rare occasions when I beat him.
I remember a conference between Wergmann and
Richter over the practicability of getting the transcen-
dental philosophy of Kant introduced into the course
of instruction of the London University, which they
agreed would be dependent upon the approval of Sir
James Mackintosh. The establishment of the London
University, besides adding to the metropolis a fine
example of classic architecture in itself, was indirectly
the cause of completing the noble river front of Som-
erset House, which up to that time had been wanting .

[ 124 ]

pl
Whold
SOS
REMAINS OF WINCHESTER PALACE, SOUTHWARK
From an
Engraving by George Cooke
ENGLAND
a
The Conservatives established King's College as
counterpoise to the London University, and built for
its accommodation the eastern wing of Sir William
Chambers’s masterpiece of architectural design.
It is interesting to get a glimpse of the appearance
of the old Somerset House, which stood on the spot
now occupied by so beautiful a structure. I have prints
in my collection, one of the garden upon the Thames
including the river front of the palace, another repre-
senting the demolition of the old building and a por-
tion of the new already erected, and a third showing
the architecture of the Strand front. This is introduced
incidentally as background to a burlesque caricature
of a procession of freemasons. The top of the church
tower seen over the roof of the old mansion is that of
St. Mary-le-Strand. The front of this church viewed
from the west presents a pleasing architectural compo-
sition, but the steeple as seen from the south, edge-
wise as one might say, is so narrow in diameter that
it would hardly be a surprise to see it blown over by
a strong wind from either the east or the west. But it
is not the architect who was to blame for this singular
defect, because as originally designed the tower was not
to be on the roof of the church at all. It was to rest on
the ground a short distance in front, and serve at the
same time as a memorial or monument to Queen Anne,
for St. Mary-le-Strand was one of her fifty churches.
In this, Gibbs followed the plan of some of the famous

[125]
REMINISCENCES
builders of Italy; the celebrated Giotto Tower at Flor-
ence and the Leaning Tower of Pisa stand apart from
their cathedrals, and the great Campanile at Venice is
separated from San Marco by the entire breadth of the
wide Piazzetta. But the London architect was forced to
abandon this part of his design, and erect the steeple on
the roof in conformity with English usage, although the
foundations were inadequate. The effort to diminish the
weight of the superstructure resulted in the remarkable
form we see.
The prevalence of this architectural fashion so offen-
sive in its bad taste is much to be regretted. Witness
the spoiling of that other fine church by Gibbs, St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields, which fronts the end of the
National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. Behind that
noble portico, a stone steeple rides a-cock-horse, as it
were, on the ridge of the roof. Better that the church
should have no steeple at all than thus be disfigured.
But architects are not always accountable for incongrui-
ties that invite criticism, because these are often perpe-
trated by order of those for whom the designs are
made. I myself must confess a fault of that kind or
worse, —for the steeple I built at the entrance to
Monument Cemetery in Philadelphia stands not only
over the ridge of a roof, but over an entrance-arch
gateway. The board of directors would have it and
refused the ground to place it otherwise,
While working for Mr. Richter I did not sleep in the

So,
[ 126 ]
ENGLAND
а.
house, as there was no bedroom for my accommoda-
tion. He engaged lodging for me at the extreme end
of Brook Green most remote from the Hammersmith
Road. It was in a wide house reduced at that time to
half its original size; other buildings were few and
scattering, and the whole neighbourhood was forlorn
and lonely. Eventually a comfortable room was fitted
up for me in the upper part of this house, but until
it was ready I slept in a long, desolate apartment with
very scant old-fashioned furniture, and three curtain-
less windows overlooking the Green. There was
small worn-out lock, but no key, and below a feeble
little bolt that when pushed home scarcely caught in
the box staple. My whole surroundings impressed me
as altogether grim and ghostly. Brickmaking seemed
to be the only business that flourished in the vicinity,
and the workmen from the brick-yards used to assemble
in the room beneath mine, and roar out narrative songs
with no end to the number of verses, for the monot-
onous drone sent me to sleep before I could finish
my attempt to count them. They may have been
good honest men enough, but their appearance cer-
tainly was not prepossessing.
One night I lay trying to recollect whether I had
bolted the fragile fastening, without summoning reso-
lution to get out of my warm bed to solve the doubt.
Presently I thought I heard a slight noise in the
room. All my faculties became centred in the sense of

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REMINISCENCES
hearing, for the sound was so faint and fine, “there's
nothing lives ’twixt it and silence.” After a while I be-
came conscious of a gentle touch on the bed-covering
near my feet, and then again distinctly felt it higher up.
I could not see, for my head was under the sheet. I
kept still, pretending to be asleep until the slight pres-
sure reached my shoulder, when I jumped up with a
sudden spring, and caught in my arms—empty space
only. The intruder was a kitten. I took the innocent
little creature to my warm bosom and stroked her, and
with her happy purring she lulled me to sleep.
Brook Green got its name from a small stream of
water that flowed through the middle of it, crossed
here and there by small bridges, guarded by a hori-
zontal rail which was supported by a post at each end.
One of these bridges with its protecting rail is shown
in the engraving of The Tight Shoe as seen through the
open door. This I copied on to the steel plate direct
from nature, at Mr. Richter's desire.
I remember attending one of the fairs that used to be
held periodically on this Green. Others that I also
well remember were Bartholomew's Fair at Smithfield,
one at Stepney, one at Greenwich, and one at Tot-
hill's Fields, a little way south of Queen Anne's Gate,
St. James's Park. In primitive times, when these fairs
had their origin, they were no doubt innocent enough,
but at last they drifted into such demoralizing nui-
sances that they had to be abolished.

[ 128 ]
ENGLAND
Being now extricated from the Richter entanglement I
commenced business for myself, and engaged apart-
ments in Howland Street, Fitzroy Square. I met with
fair encouragement after I had engraved a portrait of
Sir Charles Wilkins of the East India Company.
Ackermann, the noted German publisher, then of the
Strand, having been shown some of my work, com-
missioned me to engrave a plate in line after a picture
by Mr. Richard Barrett Davis, for his annual entitled
The Forget-Me-Not. It was he who first introduced into
England this class of publications, that had already
become popular in Germany. Ackermann also put into
my hands the revision and improvement of a plate he
had had done for the same book by Agar after Single-
ton. I engraved some fancy subjects in mezzotint for
different publishers, but the best paying work was
portraits for private parties.
One day, being at the printer's for a proof of a plate
I had in progress, I met a young man named Stork, a
stipple-engraver who was there on a like errand. He
remarked to me that he wished he were an engraver
in mezzotint like myself, instead of in his own style,
for in that case he would go right off to America. He
had been informed that there was not only a first-rate
opening, but that some institution interested in art
had offered substantial inducements for a
tint engraver of fair abilities to come over and settle.
This set me to wondering whether it would not be to
mezzo-

9
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REMINISCENCES
my advantage to act on his suggestion, for notwith-
standing that I was constantly engaged on commis-
sions, my means were not perceptibly increasing. Fi-
nally, after my marriage with the daughter of my pre-
ceptor, Mr. John Swaine, I made up my mind to take
the step. After I began to speak of it openly, one and
another brought me letters of introduction to persons
in New York and Philadelphia, chiefly the former.
So absorbed was I in study and the pursuit of my art,
and so little did I know of maritime matters, that I
inquired at a shipping agency for information about
steamships, and yet it was only the year 1830! I was
heartily laughed at, and was told that steamers were for
river navigation only, and that if I were to live to the
age
of Methuselah I should never hear of such a thing
as a steamer crossing the ocean.
At the London docks I chose a ship that sailed for
Philadelphia, although my destination was New York,
for I found the cabins preferable to those on the
packets for the other port; and besides, I thought I
might as well deliver my Philadelphia letters of intro-
duction on the way through instead of travelling there
for the purpose.
At that time the American vessels were readily dis-
tinguishable from those of other nations in port by a
beautiful feature. A broad band of unpainted wood,
varnished to a rich colour, ran in a graceful sweep from
stem to stern just below the bulwarks.

[ 130
]
ENGLAND
The date appointed for sailing, Saturday, the twenty-
eighth of June, was postponed for some reason or
other, and as I passed the Mansion House on my way
back from the dock that day, I noticed a small piece
of paper attached to the pier of masonry under a col-
umn of the portico. It was the official notification, from
Sir Robert Peel to the Lord Mayor, of the death of
the King, George the Fourth. The language used
struck me as peculiar, for he said that “he regretted
that it had pleased the Almighty to relieve his Ma-
jesty of his sufferings.” One would expect that such a
notice would attract a crowd, but of the multitude
about I was the only reader. Nine years earlier I had
helped in preparing a part of the display of fireworks
in Hyde Park on the evening of his coronation day.
So my wife and I left London on Sunday the fourth
of July, 1830, and in a little over eight weeks were
landed in Philadelphia.

[ 131 ]
Reminiscences of America


CHAPTER
X
Philadelphia and New York in 1830— National Academy
of Design— Philadelphia Artists — Letter from · Charles
Wilson Peale to his Son, Remhrandt Peale
N Monday of the ninth week after the ship
left London, we were sailing up the placid
waters of the river Delaware with a fair
breeze, just strong enough to give satisfactory pro-
gress. In the afternoon the steamboat Robert Morris
came in sight on her way to Philadelphia, carrying
passengers from Baltimore. She was a beautiful vessel
for that day, and the hull was distinguished by the
same long stripe of unpainted varnished wood that I
had admired in the American liners in London. One
of the quarantine physicians suggested that if there
were any of us who would prefer to reach the city
quickly, instead of remaining on board until the mor-
row, now was our opportunity, for we could signal
the steamer to stop alongside. Mr. Dallett (afterwards
president of the Penn Township Bank), my wife and
myself were the only ones who decided to leave the
ship in which we had been imprisoned so long, and
we rejoiced to be free.
We two then first trod American soil at the Chest-
nut Street wharf. Having already selected the letter


[ 135 )
REMINISCENCES
of introduction to be delivered immediately on land-
ing, we inquired the way to Centre Square. Strolling
up
Chestnut Street we noticed on Third Street to our
left a white marble building of fine architecture, with
a projecting portico of six Corinthian columns, and
turned out of our way to admire it. We asked a passer-
by what it was, and he answered, “It's Stephen Gi-
rard's banking-house. Are you strangers?” Resuming
our walk, we were directed at Fourth Street to go north
till we came to a wide avenue with a market extend-
ing through the middle of the road from the river-
bank to Eighth Street, and there to turn westward
again to Broad.
When we delivered our note of introduction to Mr.
and Mrs. Ferguson, they received us with the utmost
cordiality, and before the day was done had settled
us comfortably in a boarding-house on the north side
of Market Street, near Twelfth. The view from our
window was charming; a beautiful grove of fine trees
covered the whole block from Eleventh to Twelfth
Streets and from Market to Chestnut. One house
only had been built on it, that stood on the corner
of Twelfth and Market Streets. In it Robert Morris
had died. The entire square of ground was owned by
Stephen Girard, and he intended it to be the site of
his projected college for orphan boys.
The next day I went to the wharf to look after our
belongings on the ship, which had arrived, and I saw

[ 136 ]

DS
www
WASHINGTON's Mock-FUNERAL CROSSING MARKET STREET, PHILADELPHIA
Centre Square Water-Works in the Distance on the Site of the Present City Hall
From an Etching after W. Birch
AMERICA
the captain at the landing in conversation with a gen-
tleman. He beckoned me to him and introduced me
to Mr. Ralston, an eminent merchant of Philadelphia,
and he in turn gave me later an introduction to Mr.
John Vaughn. When Mr. Vaughn had seen the prints
I had engraved, he urged and insisted that they should
appear in the exhibition of the Franklin Institute
which happened to be open at the time, and this re-
sulted greatly to my advantage. A youngish gentle-
man, Mr. Frederick Fraley, seemed to be a leading
spirit in the institute, which I was told had been
founded about six years before.
After I had satisfied myself as to what might appear
to be my prospects of business success in Philadel-
phia, I went to New York, my original destination,
and delivered my letters there. The means and amount
of travel between the two cities were then so different
from the present facilities that it may interest many
to read of the primitive methods of that time. There
were but two trips a day, at six in the morning and at
both starting from Arch Street wharf by
steamboat to Bordentown, and on my first journey
to New York I took the early boat. Upon sighting the
landing at Bordentown, flags were displayed signalling
the number of passengers to be provided for, so that by
the time the boat arrived the requisite number of four-
horse stages were ranged side by side on the sloping
shore, with their wheels securely blocked to prevent

twelve noon,
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REMINISCENCES
their backing into the river. Usually about six or seven
sufficed. Very soon after starting, we ascended a steep,
narrow lane, shaded on both sides by over-arching
branches of fine old trees, and then drove along a road
a short distance from Joseph Bonaparte's extensive
park, and running parallel with its southern boundary.
On the arrival of our stage at a small stream called,
if I remember aright, South River,—yet how such an
insignificant creek came to be dignified by the name of
river I do not know,—we embarked on a steamboat,
which though of small dimensions seemed as broad as
the water it was to navigate. It was propelled by side
paddles, of course, and had to plough its way through
mud and water and make such sudden turns that the
bow often seemed on the point of running into a bank
directly in front. The boat was not much in length
from stem to stern, otherwise it would have been im-
possible for it to navigate a stream that made so many
sharp curves in its crooked, meandering course through
the wide, dreary flat to join the Raritan River. At one
place I saw a straight canal cut to evade a long reach
of the natural channel, but I suppose it was unfinished,
for there was a vessel in it laid crosswise from shore to
shore. Shortly before entering Staten Island Sound
from the Raritan, we passed a few stakes driven close to
the bank, which were said to be the beginning of a wharf
for the South Amboy terminal of the projected railroad
to New York from Camden, opposite Philadelphia.

[ 138 ]
AMERICA
Although we had started at six in the morning it was
the dusk of evening when we arrived in New York.
The gas was lit, but all the brightness and life were
below Fulton Street. Everywhere northward was gloom
and quiet unrelieved by any business places or shops.
The population, I was told, was in the neighbourhood
of two hundred thousand, about the same as that of
Philadelphia at the time, or perhaps a little more.
Trinity Church, on Broadway opposite Wall Street,
was a wretched piece of architecture pretending to be
Gothic, a striking contrast to the splendid structure
that now occupies the same spot. On Wall Street, only
a few steps from Broadway, was another church, stand-
ing back with an open grassy plot in front, and in an
out-of-town place away up Broadway they were insert-
ing in the city plan an open space to be called Union
Square.
Having delivered my introductions, I found reason to
conclude that my original purpose of settling in New
York was the right thing to do, and I returned to
Philadelphia with the intention of carrying it out. But
before narrating what changed this determination and
kept me in Philadelphia, I will give the itinerary of
my second trip to New York, by the midday line. We
were taken as before by steamboat to Bordentown, but
the stages to which we were transferred carried us to
New Brunswick on the Raritan. At the extreme lower
end of the town, and I think the very last house, was

[ 139
REMINISCENCES
9
a hotel in which we were to pass the night. The trav-
ellers were fewer in number than by the earlier line,
for we could all sit without crowding around one fire
of blazing logs. An attendant brought in a supply of
slippers, and placing a pair for each person took away
in exchange the boots to clean and polish. Early next
morning we boarded a steamboat that lay, with steam
up ready to start, at the wharf alongside the hotel,
and on this by way of Staten Island Sound we arrived
at the foot of Courtlandt Street, New York, during
the forenoon. Such was the amount of intercourse be-
tween the two cities in 1830, and such the means of
conveyance.
Among my letters to persons resident in New York
was one to Mr. Creighton, curator of the galleries of
the old American Academy of Arts, an institution
chartered in 1808, two years later than that of Phila-
delphia. I found him in his rooms at the Academy
building, which stood on the south side of Barclay
Street, a very short distance from Broadway, on
ground now occupied by the granite structure known
as the Astor House. He was the son of the Rev. J.
Creighton of England, who was prominent as asso-
ciate and helper of John Wesley, preaching zealously
the doctrines and reform principles of his leader. His
portrait is introduced in Claxton's well-known picture
of the Death-bed of Wesley, of which, by the way, I
made a large engraving.

[ 140 ]
AMERICA
The handsome main gallery of the Academy, of a pro-
portion rather too narrow for its length, was well filled
with pictures respectable in quality. A prominent can-
vas, which occupied the end of the long room and
formed the most striking feature of the collection, was
a beautiful work by Sir Thomas Lawrence, a whole-
length portrait of Benjamin West, for which I was
told the Academy had paid two thousand dollars. A
door on one side opened into another smaller gallery,
piled with pictures of various sizes all painted by John
Trumbull, who was vice-president of the institution.
I remember being surprised at the great difference be-
tween the large and the small works in their style of
execution, the latter being beautiful in spirit and touch,
while the former were deficient in these qualities. In
addition to these two galleries were the apartments
of the curator and his wife, and there on the kind
invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Creighton I dined with
them.
Now all the foregoing could not have been only a
mere dream of mine, yet Daniel Huntington, Presi-
dent of the National Academy of Design, in his his-
tory of the old American Academy makes no mention
whatever that it had ever been located as I have de-
scribed it. The Academy possessed, I understood, a
fine collection of casts which I did not see. They were
probably stored away somewhere, most likely in its
previous quarters on Chambers Street.

[ 141 ]
REMINISCENCES
Near the time fixed for my permanent departure for
New York, I was introduced to Mr. Sully and other
artists. Mr. Sully was warm in his commendation of
Philadelphia as a place of residence, and advised me
by all means to settle in it. He backed
up
his persua-
sion by giving me an order to engrave for him a por-
trait of Bishop White that he had painted from life.
The husband of one of his step-daughters, John Nea-
gle the artist, commissioned me to engrave a plate
from a picture of his that he called Patriotism and
Age, of which he had painted duplicates, one being
in the possession of William Strickland, the architect,
while the other was owned by Dr. Dewees, professor
in the University of Pennsylvania. He left to me the
choice of which to copy, and as I thought Mr. Strick-
land's the best I secured it of course. Mr. Kennett,
the American bookseller in London, had given me a
letter to Mr. Henry C. Carey, the publisher, and
from him I received an order to engrave a picture of
a Miss Jackson, painted by Sully in 1.808, the year I
was born. It was said at that time that she had been
considered the belle of Philadelphia. Mr. Thomas
T. Ash, the publisher, and Mr. Thomas Doughty
ordered a plate to be done, in the pure line manner,
of a deer in the foreground of a landscape.
It is no wonder that with such encouragement I settled
down permanently, as Mr. Sully advised. I took a
house on South Ninth Street, and the first Sunday I

[ 142 ]

uit
PATRIOTISM AND AGE
Engraving hy John Sartain
after the Painting by John Neagle
From an
AMERICA
was installed I was visited by so many artists that it
looked as if they had come by pre-arrangement, but
they said it was not so. The group included Sully,
Neagle, Eicholtz, Doughty the landscapist, Cephas
G. Childs, Joshua Shaw, and a portrait painter on silk
in oils whose name I have forgotten. Mr. Eicholtz
was so much pleased with the specimens of my work
that he proposed that I should engrave for him a pic-
ture he had lately painted, the portrait of a bishop.
This he afterwards dropped, substituting for it his
portrait of Nicholas Biddle, president of the United
States Bank.
Other artists resident in Philadelphia at that time were
Bass Otis, A. B. Rockey and Robert Street, portrait
painters, Dickinson the miniature painter, Thomas
Birch the marine artist, and his father, William Birch,
who painted in enamel and engraved, his subjects being
mostly views in Philadelphia. Street was an artist of
so eccentric a character as to be regarded by many as
of unsound mind. Manuel J. de França, a Portuguese
artist from Funchal in the Island of Madeira, was in
the city, I believe, but not yet known, and there was
a young man of excellent talents named Hubbard,
who never appeared in artistic circles and remained, I
think, but a very short time in Philadelphia. He
painted a small whole-length sitting portrait of Presi-
dent Andrew Jackson, from which I engraved a plate
in 1832. I never made Hubbard's acquaintance, but

مم
[ 143 ]
REMINISCENCES
he boarded with a neighbour of mine, and I saw him
on the steps of his house in the fall of 1830. In the
earlier part of his career, before he became a painter, he
was a skilful artist in quite another line, that of cutting
profile likenesses with scissors out of paper. My friend
Cameron told me that for some time he and Hubbard
and a friend had led a sort of vagabond life on the
highways and byways of northern France. Occasion-
ally, when their funds became low, Hubbard would
enter the inn of a village and soon interest the wo-
men of the household by his winning ways and his
skill in cutting silhouettes. In this manner he replen-
ished their exchequer and they would go on their way
rejoicing. His style of dress seemed to be studied to
make him appear younger than he really was, and
from stray words dropped now and then they guessed
that he had escaped from the thrall of some travelling
showman.
Henry Inman cannot be included in this list, because
he had not yet removed his studio from New York,
as he did very soon after, nor had Rembrandt Peale
arrived from Europe, where he was occupied in mak-
ing copies from celebrated masterpieces.
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was at
this time in anything but a prosperous condition. Lo-
cated as it was far out on Chestnut Street, beyond
Tenth, it stood in a kind of solitude, and paying vis-
itors were few and far between. The building was

[ 144 ]
AMERICA
some distance back from the street, with a circular
grass-plot in front, in the centre of which rose the
mutilated antique marble statue of Ceres, brought by
Commodore Patterson from Megara, one of the isles
of Greece. On the pavement near the curb were two
grand old Lombardy poplars, whose roots had so
destroyed the level of the brick sidewalk as to force
pedestrians to be careful of their steps.
The original structure, erected before the stockholders
applied for a charter, was a dome-roofed rotunda, fifty
feet in diameter, with light in the centre, but the outer
covering of shingles was so decayed as to leak like a
sieve. It was an amusing sight on a rainy day to see
the floor spotted over with tubs, buckets, basins and
other vessels that Mrs. Scarlet, the janitress, would
stand about to catch the drippings, which in many
places had already rotted the floor.
Apropos of this list of artists resident in Philadelphia
in 1830 I think it well to insert just here a copy of an
interesting letter as yet unpublished, showing who
were the artists practising their profession in this
country during the last century. It was written by
Charles Wilson Peale in 1812 to his son Rembrandt,
and is dated from Bellafield, October 28. It was given
to me by the president of the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts, Mr. Caleb Cope, who told me that
it had been found among the papers of Rembrandt
Peale after his death.

IO
( 145 )
REMINISCENCES
HA
DEAR REMBRANDT:
AVING promised you an account of the paint-
ers that came within my knowledge in the com-
mencement of the arts in America I now commence
it, with a regret that I have neglected it so long as to
have let slip in memory the names of some of them,
but by leaving a blank it may be filled up by inquiry
amongst some of my antient friends. Among the first
pictures said to be painted in America I have seen a
few portraits done by Kain, they were stiff and formal
and in the dresses of the time, the drawing tolerably
good and I think were like. Some of these are in Mr.
Hopkinson's family.
“In 1768-9 I visited Boston in the commencement
of my painting and hunting for colours I found a
colour-shop which had some figures with ornamental
signs about it, these I suspect was painted by a Mr.
Smibert. Becoming a little acquainted with the owner
of the shop he told me that a relation of his had
been a painter, and he said he would give me a feast.
Leading me upstairs he introduced me into a painter's
room, an appropriate apartment lined with green
cloth or baise, where there were a number of pictures
unfinished. He had begun a picture, several heads
painted, of the antient philosophers, and some groups
of figures, these were the last works of Smibert. He
had been in Italy and spent a fortune in travelling to
gain knowledge in the art. Mr. Copley very probably

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can give a full account of him. It was at his shop I
heard of Mr. Copley and taking directions I went and
introduced myself to him as a person just beginning
to paint portraits. He received me very politely. I
found in his room a considerable number of portraits,
many of them highly finished. He lent me a head
done by and representing candle light which I copied.
But where am I rambling? this is giving a part
of
my
history instead of the first known artists in America.
“I must go back to about the year 1755, sometime
near that period Wollaston visited Annapolis and
painted a number of portraits of the first families in
that city. He had some instructions from a noted
drapery painter in London, and soon after took his
passage to New York, from thence he visited all the
principal towns painting, to Charlestown, S. Carolina,
and from thence he returned to England. I was in Lon-
don when he returned from the East Indies very rich.
He carried to the East Indies two daughters, one or
both of them married and thus acquired great fortunes.
They died, and the father, soon after he arrived in Lon-
don, went to Bath where I believe he died.
“The elder Hesselius, a German, was a portrait
painter that lived in Market Street between the years
1750 to 1760. He went into Maryland and painted
some pictures at Annapolis, his son John, after Wol-
laston also went to Annapolis and painted a consider-
able number of portraits in oil.

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“About this time West must have made his begin-
ning, his first essays at portraits were perhaps done
at Lancaster and I believe encouraged by the Shippen
family. About the same period or a little later young
Claypole attempted portrait painting, his father was
a house painter and glazer. In 1762 on a visit to
Philadelphia, I went to see the paintings of Mr. James
Claypole. He was not at home. I saw his pictures and
among them one done by Miss Rench, whom, if I
mistake not, he married. After her death he intended
to go to London to visit Mr. West with whom he
had been intimate, but meeting with a storm was
drove into the West Indies. In the Island of Jamaica
he married, and settled there.
“In 1769 I went to London with a recommendation
of Mr. Allan the elder, who had been a patron of
Mr. West, and with Mr. Allan's family. Mr. West
took his passage to Italy. Mr. Pratt had been with
Mr. West about two years and had just left London,
and Mr. West supposed he had returned to Philadel-
phia, but he had been to Bristol sometime painting
portraits, imagining himself much improved in his
mode of colouring, so related to Mr. West by Mr.
Hambleton, the uncle of William Hambleton. Mr.
West told me that the letters from Mr. Allan was the
best I could bring, yet as an American he should
cheerfully assist me. He was so polite as to interest
himself in assisting to get me lodgings near to him,

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and as I was a stranger I might find difficulties. He
went with me to a house which a pupil of his had
lately occupied, here he found that pupil whom he
had thought was returned to his native place, New
York. Mr. Delanoy told Mr. West that some circum-
stances had occurred which had detained him longer
in London than he expected, but that now he was on
the point of taking his passage. Mr. West, in the most
friendly manner advised Mr. Delanoy to come to his
house and coppy one or two pictures to carry with him
to America that his friends would expect to see some
of his work and it would be an advantage to him in
many respects. This treatment to a young man who
certainly ought to have seen Mr. West daily when
his lodging was scarcely a stone's throw distant, in my
opinion savoured of a want of respect at least. The
circumstance made me to admire Mr. West's temper as
forgiving and friendly, and it is not the only instance
which came within my knowledge of the goodness of
his heart in the time of my residence in London. I shall
ever remember his kindness to me with gratitude.
“Some few years before I went to England, on a visit
to Philadelphia to purchase some colours, Mr. James
Tilghman, who then resided there, told me of a painter
who he thought could give me some information about
colours, that he was a man of considerable talent, but
rather of an eccentric turn of mind. I waited on Mr.
Steele who received me politely in his painting room,


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the floor was covered with drawings, prints, colours,
and paintings on scraps of canvas in every direction,
he then had on hand his own portrait on a half length
canvas; a full face, very like, but of too purple red
colour, his right leg across his knee, therefore it was
in part a whole-length picture. I intended to keep up
an acquaintance with him. Rivington, who then kept
a book-store at the corner of Market and Front Street
in who's store Mr. Steele was often seated, at this
store I bought the Handmaid to the Arts, it was the
only book he had on colours or painting. This I be-
gan to study at my lodgings in order to enable me to
form some judgment on what colours I ought to pur-
chase, also the quantity. Mr. Marshall, in Chestnut
Street, the only colour shop in the city, obligingly
gave me a list of what colours he had and the prices
annexed. Going again to see Mr. Steele I was a short
time in his painting room when there came a rap at
the door. He very cautiously opened it, when a per-
son touched him and said, You are to go with me!'
“At who's suit is this?' I understood it was his wash-
erwoman. Finding Mr. Steele in such a disagreeable
situation I took my leave of him. He apologized for
being obliged to go out. This was the last time I saw
him, he was of a respectable and wealthy family on
the eastern shore of Maryland, had a fondness for
painting, I believe went to Italy and spent his for-
tune, and it was said was somewhat deranged in his

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2
mind. Some pieces I have seen of his pencil seemed
to confirm my opinion that such was his misfor-
tune.
“Mr. Pratt returned to Philadelphia after I was in
England, and sometime after my return to Annapolis
I went to Philadelphia in 1772 to paint a portrait of
John Dickinson, Esq. for Mr. Jennings, who was my
friend and patron while in London. Mr. Dickinson
was much celebrated as being the author of the Far-
mer's letters. Mr. Pratt had a considerable number
of portraits on hand and had painted a whole-length
of Mr. Dickinson. At this time I became acquainted
with Mr. Semitore, a miniature painter, he was fond
of collecting subjects of natural history, his painting
room was ornamented with frames of butterflies, and
he had a considerable number of snakes, etc. in spirits,
he also collected medals and coins. He was a bachelor
and such was his chief amusement, however in his
latter time he made a sort of museum, displayed in
one or two rooms, chiefly consisting of the above and
of antic dresses, arms, etc. he received a small sum for
admission, and also taught some young ladies draw-
ing.
“About the year 1773 or 4 a Swedish gentleman
named Greath visited Philadelphia. It was said that
he only painted for his amusement and it was a favour
to get him to paint a portrait in miniature. He sold
a head of Christ, perhaps copied from a good picture,

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for a good price, his stay was short in the city. I was
not acquainted with him.
“Some years afterwards another Swede came to the
city he brought with him a number of miniature pic-
tures, among them some historical pieces and whole
figures. He painted portraits in miniature and by
many persons he was esteemed an excellent painter,
several persons that employed him found that his
painting was not so handsome as his other pictures,
the fact was that he made his pictures too much of
brickdust colouring, his drawing was however good, a
very considerable recommendation of him. He told
me that he thought he could make a fortune in a
short time in South America and I believe he went
there, and since I have not heard of him.
“Mr. Bembridge was born in Philadelphia, his mother
lived in a house in Lodge Alley the walls of which
Mr. Bembridge covered with paintings as large as life
coppied chiefly from Raffaelle's paints, this work was
accomplished before he was more than seventeen years
of
age. Much was expected from such talents and he
was sent to Italy where he spent many years, he re-
turned to Philadelphia and after a short stay he mar-
ried Miss Hetty Sage, then went to Charlestown, S.
Carolina. The climate perhaps made him indolent for
it is certain he did not acquire much celebrity, which
the opportunities he had enjoyed of improvement and
his early love of the art, promised.

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“Miss Polly Rench, sister to Mrs. James Claypole,
painted in miniature and had the merit of maintaining
her mother and a young brother by the work of her
pencil. She was a native of Maryland and probably
first embraced the idea of painting from the connection
of her sister, but of this I want information. She mar-
ried Mr. Rush, then a young practitioner of the law,
since a judge. After her marriage she never could be
prevailed on to paint a single picture; she often told
me that she only followed the profession of painting
to obtain a living, that it was very disagreeable to her
to stare in the face of gentlemen as she thought it
savoured of impudence, to paint ladies portraits was
more agreeable to her feelings.
“Several inquiries may enable me to correct many par-
ticulars of the different artists contained in the fore-
going sketch, for that purpose I wish to write to Mr.
West, Copley and others intimate with the arts prac-
tised in America.
“Mr. Stuart who showed talent for painting in his
native place, went to London to study under Mr.
West, he stayed a number of years in London and
practised portrait painting with success, but was negli-
gent to finish what he began or he might very prob-
ably have made a fortune by his pencil. Being a man
of wit and humour perhaps these qualities might lead
him into company and be a cause of neglect of his
pencil. He went to Dublin where he also met with

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success for a time, returning to America he has met
with great encouragement. I might say much more of
him but his merit is well known.
“A few years after our peace with England numbers
of painters have come to reside amongst us, and many
young men of our country have shown their talents
for the fine arts, and indeed the artists have become
so numerous that I cannot undertake to make any
account of them.”

Bellafield, O Etober 28, 1812.
The signature was not appended to this letter for the
obvious reason that Charles Wilson Peale had yet a
few words to add.
To conclude my memories of Philadelphia as it was
when I arrived in 1830: there was but one solitary
structure on Smith’s Island, the large island opposite
the city in the channel of the Delaware River, which
has recently been removed as an obstruction and whose
existence will soon be forgotten. A vessel had been
run up on the sloping bank and stranded, and had
been converted into a tavern. The principal attrac-
tion was that this vessel had brought over the news
of the conclusion of peace with England, after the
war of 1812. A doorway had been cut in its side,
through which the curious and thirsty passed in and
out. The native whiskey of the day, which I tasted
there for the first time, was clear and limpid as
3
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spring water; they had not yet begun to colour it
as they now do.
The island with its grand old trees exists no more.
Where it stood is now a depth of water twenty-six
feet at low tide, thanks to an enormous expenditure
of human labour and of money for the sake of the im-
provement of the commercial facilities of Philadelphia.
We now have a clear, unobstructed view of the city of
Camden across the mile-wide waters of the River Del-
aware, except for the transient sails of moving craft.
The river in some places was in very close proximity
to the city houses fronting on it. I remember that near
the foot of Walnut Street, the south-east corner of
one building rose sheer out of the water, so that there
had been constructed around it an L-shaped wooden
causeway supported by sloping struts secured to the
walls below. I have often passed over it, but always
somewhat timorously, for it had a very decayed and
unsafe appearance.
The climate of Philadelphia must have been much
colder formerly, for the River Delaware used to be
frozen over regularly every winter, and I have fre-
quently driven across with my wife to New Jersey in a
sleigh. I had one dangerous experience in the early
thirties. I took my two little boys with me to walk
across to Smith's Island. Half-way over, to our dis-
may we found the ice broken into pieces, floating loose
in the water, and turning saw men on the city wharves

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gesticulating wildly and shouting, though we could
scarcely hear them because of the distance. I then saw
that the plank by which we had descended from the
wharf was being constantly straightened, and realized
that the whole mass of ice upon which we were stand-
ing had broken loose and that we were floating down
stream with the tide. We ran as fast as we could, but
on such a slippery surface, dragging a little one by
each hand, I could not progress as rapidly as the emer-
gency demanded. Finally, when we were near the shore,
and just before it would have been too late, a man ran
down the plank on to the ice and took the youngest
under his arm. But for this timely assistance our situa-
tion would have been one of great peril.
Safe on the wharf I asked which of the men had come
to the rescue, and emptied my pocket into his hand.
On a signal from him the whole cluster disappeared
into a tavern close by. A few hours later I went back
to look at the place, and found the river entirely free
from ice. What we had walked on in the morning was
only a temporary ice jam between the island and the
city.

[156]
CHAPTER
XI
Early Art Work in Philadelphia — Penn Treaty Monument
-Henry Inman— Picture Galleries — Academy of the Fine
Arts Fire
WAS hardly through with my first commis-
sion when a friend of mine named Cameron,
—the same London comrade who made an
unsuccessful attempt to volunteer in the Greek cause,
and who had found consolation in marriage with a
sympathizing widow,—urged me to join him in a resi-
dence just outside the city limits. The house, or rather
mansion, we took was a little beyond Fairmount, in
what is now the East Park, and was surrounded by a
square plot of four acres taken out of Pratt's grounds,
and bounded on the east by the deep cut made by
Robert Morris for the projected canal that was never
completed
The place was owned by a city alderman, who had
bought it for the sake of the fine red gravel that com-
posed the hill, paying for it the low price of three
thousand dollars, although the house alone must have
cost at least five or six thousand dollars to build. All
the beautiful places along both sides of the River
Schuylkill were at that time deserted, on account of
the prevalence of fever and ague caused by the build-


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ing of the dam at Fairmount by the Schuylkill Nav-
igation Company. The backing up of the water over
ground previously exposed to light and air generated
malaria. Breck's Island, so-called from Mr. Samuel
Breck, whose mansion and grounds were just opposite
on the west bank, had been covered with a fine growth
of trees, and the stumps of these remained above the
shallow water for years, until they slowly decayed.
The old Breck mansion, Sweethriar, has been retained
as a place of refreshment and shelter in what is now
the West Park. After some seventy years, the original
healthy condition of all this smiling country is restored,
and it is included in the extensive Fairmount Park.
Before leaving the subject of Schuylkill navigation, it
may be well to refer to certain by-gone landmarks that
were familiar to my sight. The broad and deep cut
made through the gravel hill alongside of Pratt's
Garden, which has since been utilized for the Reading
Railway, was intended, as I have said, for the Robert
Morris canal, the precursor of the subsequently per-
fected work on the other side of the river. Well do I
remember the continuous course dug for it, reaching
eastward half-way through the block to Thirteenth
Street a little south of Willow, which latter street
followed the former course of Peg's Run to the Dela-
ware River.
Our mansion had been erected for the father of Charles
R. Leslie, the Royal Academician. He was a maker

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of and dealer in clocks, and many are the fine old-
fashioned upright clocks still to be seen in Philadel-
phia with the name Leslie engraved on the gray steel
face. The contractor who built the house was the
grandfather of another Philadelphia artist, Daniel
Ridgway Knight, now resident in Paris.
We moved out on the first of April, 1831, a day most
appropriate for a move so foolish. We had been
warned that ague would be a certain result, but those
in perfect health are apt to regard themselves as proof
against sickness. It seems that the experience of each
of us has to be purchased at our own cost. By the
month of August we were all attacked as had been
predicted, and we were obliged to return to town.
The malady which I thus contracted remained incur-
able for several months, reducing my good working
time to every other day. Before my recovery I had en-
graved three portraits for Boston, the Rev. Dr. Sharp,
Professor Ware, and the Rev. Dr. Charles Lowell.
Philadelphia portraits done at the same time were one
of Mr. Nicholas Biddle for himself, after a painting by
Sully, and one of the Rev. Dr. Furness, also after
Sully. I engraved in addition all the illustrations for
an annual published by Thomas T. Ash, and numer-
ous plates after Stothard and Turner for an edition
of Rogers's Italy.
The most serious difficulty with which I had to con-
tend at the beginning was the inferior quality of the

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plate-printing. Frankfort black was an article unknown,
and yet it is the one sole material suitable for the pro-
duction of first-class mezzotint work. Accordingly I
took steps to import from Paris a barrel of the proper
black, and also waited on Mr. Matthias Baldwin with
a drawing of a press to ascertain the cost. It may sur-
prise many who now see the enormous extent of the
Baldwin Locomotive Works, to learn that at that
time the whole of the establishment was comprised
in the back-buildings of the house still standing on the
southwest corner of Sixth and Minor Streets. On a
large sign between the first and second stories were
the words, “M. W. Baldwin, Engraver.”
There existed at this time in Philadelphia an associa-
tion known as the Penn Society, and one of its objects
was to erect some substantial and lasting memorial to
the founder of the state and city. It took shape in a
design ordered from Haviland, the architect, a monu-
mental obelisk mounted on a pedestal, upon which
appropriate inscriptions were to be carved. I saw the
model for it in the possession of Mr. Roberts Vaux,
father of ex-mayor Vaux, who has since presented it
to the society. It was to have been erected on the
spot where the Treaty Tree had stood at Shacka-
maxon, but to raise sufficient funds for a work of such
magnitude was at that time by no means easy, so the
commemoration was embodied in a less costly shape,
and in the meantime the spot was marked by a mon-
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ument of quite modest pretensions. A faithful portrait
of the tree itself had been carefully drawn by Thomas
Birch, the marine painter, for his father, William Birch,
who published an engraving from it in 1800. Thomas
could not have been more than fourteen years old at
that time, but he assured me in 1830 that he had
drawn it with the utmost exactness and in every par-
ticular precisely as he saw it. Ten years later it was
blown down.
The Penn Society, having decided to relinquish the
hopeless project of the Haviland monument, con-
cluded to have a picture painted with the money at
command. It was quite natural that this commission
should go to the leading artist of the city, who of
course could be no other than Sully. He showed me
the colour study he had prepared for the composition,
which represented Penn holding in his hand the
charter he had received from the king, an open door
in the background disclosing the brilliant court circle
which he had just left. The formal contract for the
picture had not been consummated, but what could
seem more sure ?
Cephas G. Childs, known as Colonel Childs, had a
lithographic establishment. To elevate its character
and credit he induced Henry Inman to remove from
New York to Philadelphia and join him in his enter-
prise, the firm being known as Childs and Inman,
Lithographers. The real inducement to Inman was the

II
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promise of numerous commissions for portraits in oil,
which Childs knew he could procure through his ex-
tensive acquaintance. The most important one in view
was the order for the picture for the Penn Society, and
this Colonel Childs succeeded in diverting from Sully
to Inman. It was painted in his studio in the second
story of the building at the southeast corner of Fifth
and Walnut Streets, and now hangs in the State
House.
As soon as Inman had completed the painting of
William Penn, the society determined to commission
me to engrave a large plate from it, and opened a sub-
scription list for the impressions. But they failed to
obtain enough to pay for it, so I volunteered to as-
sume the risk and publish the engraving myself, but
it was never remunerative. Afterwards the plate was
purchased from me by Mr. James S. Earle.
When this picture was finished, Inman left the city
and went to reside in New Jersey, on a place he had
bought near Mount Holly. It was here that he painted
the small portrait of himself, half his face shaded by
the brim of a straw hat, which is now the property of
the Pennsylvania Academy. It was done at one brief
sitting, to show three young artists how he worked.
Two of them, Debeaugh and another whose name I
fail to recall, had received an invitation to visit the
artist. On their way to the Camden ferry, whom
should they meet but Matthew Parker, who hailed
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them with “Whither away, boys?” They told him,
when he promptly said he would go too. He was not
of the kind to inquire if his company were agreeable,
and neither of the two had the courage to try to shake
him off.
When the lesson was over Inman gave them the pic-
ture, and it was decided by lot which of the three
should possess it. To the vexation and mortification
of the others, it was the interloper, Matthew Parker,
who drew the prize.
The chief inheritance Parker had received from his
father was consumption of the lungs. When he was in
his last illness the family sent for me, and he told me
they would be grateful to me if I would find a pur-
chaser for the little painting by Inman. I took it to
Mr. John Towne, who bought it at once, and the fifty
dollars he paid for it I carried that same evening to
the Parkers. I had supposed that the Academy re-
ceived the picture direct from Mr. Towne, but Mr.
Bonfield
says
he knows for certain that Colonel Childs
owned it after Mr. Towne.
Those who enjoyed viewing works of art were not
obliged to go so far west as Tenth Street, to the Acad-
emy of the Fine Arts. They could gratify their taste in
Sully and Earle's Gallery on Chestnut Street next to
the corner of Fifth, opposite the east wing of the
State House. It was filled with pictures of fairly good
quality, but the north wall held a large painting, the

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finest that up to that time had ever been brought to
this country. It was by James Ward of London, a
Royal Academician. The artist had sent it as his con-
tribution to the annual spring exhibition of the Royal
Academy at Somerset House, and the committee had
rejected it. The motive for such an act seems inscruta-
ble, unless they thought the subject too horrible for
exhibition before a promiscuous public, for it is doubt-
ful whether any other of the forty Academicians could
have produced so powerful a work. It represented a
man on horseback in the coils of an anaconda, of full
life-size, a piece of terrific realism and unsurpassed
mastery of execution.
Mr. Earle met the painter in London while he was
smarting under the humiliation of this action of the
hanging committee, and he gladly sold the picture for
exportation to America, saying that Mr. West had
sent a large canvas to Philadelphia and he should like
to have one there too. Before the ship which bore it
reached its destination, it encountered a violent storm
that drove it so far out of its course that it sought
refuge in the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina.
During the detention there for repairs, Mr. Earle
opened an exhibition of his painting, and the success
and profit of the display proved equally remarkable.
Arrived at length in Philadelphia, Mr. Earle secured
an exhibition room in Cook's building at the south-
east corner of Third and Market Streets, commonly
1
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known as Cook's Folly, a sneer usually bestowed
upon men at all in advance of their time. I remember
it well, my attention having been drawn to it by the
novel and pretentious features of its architecture.
In addition to the various paintings Mr. Earle had
collected, his gallery contained a number of framed
prints from Boydell's folio edition of Shakespeare,
which he had purchased in London. Business pros-
pered so well that he built the fine gallery on Chest-
nut Street in partnership with Mr. Sully, and here ex-
hibited advantageously, under perfect lighting, his great
picture by Ward, and a collection of paintings by
Sully, Shaw, Birch, Doughty and others. Among them
were two by Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of which, a
man's portrait, belonged to Mr. Sully. It had been
purchased for him in London by Charles R. Leslie,
and disappointed him greatly when it reached him,
for it was an early work, painted in a hard, laboured,
spiritless manner. The other was also early work, and
was chiefly interesting as showing what unpromising
beginnings may sometimes have been developed by
intelligent study and practice into remarkable talent.
It was a family group, painted to below the knee only,
although on a large canvas. A little girl on the right
stood in a ridiculous attitude, her left hand on her
hip as if mimicking some military hero, instead of rest-
ing in the natural ease of childhood, a pose the more
surprising in view of Reynolds's exquisite rendering of

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children in his maturer years. The picture was a poor
affair, yet its authenticity is beyond question, for it has
never been out of the possession of the George M.
Dallas family, for whom it was painted.
The location of the Academy on Chestnut Street be-
yond Tenth was so far west, as I have said, as to be
virtually a solitude. Seldom were visitors seen to pass
up the wooden steps of the porch to enliven the lone-
liness. The entire structure consisted of the original
rotunda, built in 1805, of a gallery fifty feet long to
the north of it, and of another, sixty feet long, to
the east of it, filled with casts from the antique. This
fine collection of casts was a donation from the first
Napoleon, obtained through the influence of Mr.
Nicholas Biddle. They were all destroyed by the fire
of 1844, and many valuable and important ones have
never been replaced, among them the beautiful Venus
of the Capitol, the original model of Mephistopheles by
Petrick, and a cast of the colossal statue of Milo by
Lough, the English sculptor who modelled the group
of the Centaurs and Lapithæ now in the Academy.
When the decayed, leaky roof of shingles was replaced
by one of slate, the old stuff was stacked as kindling
wood under the gallery of casts. And excellent kin-
dling it proved later on, when the lunatic brother of
Mrs. Suis, the janitress, stole over to it in the night
time from the west side of the building, where he slept,
and set it aflame. The fire destroyed the gallery above

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with all its contents, and extended its havoc into the
north gallery, among valuable pictures. On the east
wall hung Benjamin R. Haydon's enormous canvas,
Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, which had to be cut from
its frame by men mounted on ladders, who were del-
uged meanwhile from the firemen's hose to enable
them to stand the heat. It was dragged out of the
building like an old blanket, as was also West's big
picture of Death on the Pale Horse, which hung on the
north wall and was rescued in the same manner. The
latter only was the property of the Academy. The
Entry into Jerusalem, which had been deposited by the
owner, now adorns the art museum of Cincinnati.
The circular wall of the rotunda was varied above for
architectural effect by eight sunken panels, one of
which was pierced through to the eastern gallery for
ventilation. In front of this opening hung a valuable
picture by Murillo, which was quickly and irretriev-
ably destroyed by the fierce flame that poured through
from the room behind it. The other paintings in the
rotunda were only temporarily damaged by smoke.
The Murillo had belonged to Charles the Fourth,
king of Spain, and represented the Roman daughter
nourishing her father in the Tullian prison, where he
had been condemned to die by starvation. The king
presented it to Godoy, “Prince of the Peace,” who re-
garded it as the finest ornament of one of his palaces.
At the time of his downfall and the looting of his

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houses by the mob, it came into the hands of an en-
graver named Enguidarrus, who, when the French in
Madrid were sending everything valuable in art to
Paris, rolled it up inside another inferior picture, a
Virgin destined for the altar of a church of a neigh-
bouring village, succeeded in evading the vigilance of
the authorities at the city gate, and got the picture
safely to Cadiz. Here it came into the possession of
Mr. Meade, and from him it was bought by the
academy.
The purchase of West's Death on the Pale Horse, by the
Pennsylvania Academy, was effected in 1835 through
the agency of Cephas G. Childs, who confided the
negotiation to Mr. Bacon of London. I have in my
possession Mr. Bacon's letters, to Colonel Childs, ob-
tained from the colonel's estate after his death, detail-
ing his progress in the transaction, and also the formal
bill of items. At the time of the purchase the canvas
had been removed from the stretcher and was rolled
up, and appeared to belong to Raffaelle West, but was
not in his possession. Mr. Bacon surmised that it was
held for a loan. Bell's Weekly Messenger had stated in
its account of the sale of Benjamin West's pictures for
settling up his estate, that Death on the Pale Horse had
been purchased by Mr. Kirshaw, but he may have
been bidding as agent only. I saw it at that time in
Newman Street, when exhibited for the West sale.
It hung on the south wall, and directly opposite was
[ 168 ]

lo
3 }
Emmy
-
BIRTHPLACE OF BENJAMIN WEST, P. R. A.
From a Drawing made by John Sartain in 1837
C.
AMERICA
1
Christ Rejeted, now also in the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts, a present from Mrs. Joseph Harri-
son. These works were seen to great advantage in the
Newman Street gallery, from the manner in which
they were lighted. A canopy resting on slender pillars
stood in the middle of the room, its
opaque roof con-
cealing the skylight from the spectator, who stood
thus in a sort of half-obscure dimness, while both pic-
tures received the full flood of light. The effect was
very fine and at that time novel.
When the new acquisition of the Academy arrived in
Philadelphia it was opened on exhibition to the pub-
lic; not in the academy building, but by permission
of city councils in Independence Hall, in the ground
floor room to the east of the central entrance of the
State House. It was a great success, and whenever I
went there I found a crowd of paying visitors viewing
the picture. This was West's last great work, for he
died within two years after its completion. It was
painted in his eightieth year.
In 1837 I went in search of the farm-house near
Darby, Pennsylvania, in which the artist was born. I
was directed thither by Mr. Sully, who had gone on a
similar pilgrimage many years before, to gratify a wish
of West himself, who desired to have a representation
of the house and explained to Sully how he might
find it. The cut here inserted is a copy of the sketch
I then made. The other sketch made at the same time

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represents the Friends' Meeting House in which the
congregation discussed the question whether they could
conscientiously countenance the boy Benjamin's enter-
ing upon so frivolous an occupation as picture-making.
The building remains the same to this day, but the tree,
a New England elm, has died of old age.
[ 170 ]
CHAPTER XII
Thomas Bishop and Dr. Abercrombie — Joshua Shaw,
Artists' Fund Society and Academy of the Fine Arts —
Ivanhoe's Rebecca—John Neagle and David Edwin
SN 1833 I became acquainted with Thomas
Bishop, the painter in enamel, who at that
time resided but a short distance from where
I lived. He was very old, a good deal past eighty, but
was yet singularly robust. One day I saw him in the
street walking towards me, and felt surprised at his
firm steps, almost strides, and his large figure filling
the eye as he approached. Yet when sitting in conver-
sation he looked aged, almost feeble; his thin, delicate
features, aquiline nose, gray and sparkling eye are so
distinctly impressed on my memory that it seems but
as yesterday. I was with him a good deal of an even-
ing, because he pressed me so earnestly to come, and
when I failed he complained almost reproachfully, so
that I felt constrained to go, whether I ought to have
been elsewhere or not.
Thus I came to learn much of his eventful history,
for he had lived in France, England, and Portugal
as well as America, and during stirring times. He re-
sided in Paris at the breaking out of the first French
Revolution in 1789. He had studied medicine, and


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had also learned the art of painting in enamel while
there. But the turmoil of the struggle in Paris drove
him away and he returned to London, the place of
his birth.
Had I asked questions or shown curiosity he would
have told me everything unreservedly about his life in
London, but my habit was to sit quiet and simply
listen to whatever he chose to say. One very serious
story he told me. An acquaintance of his, a frequent
visitor at his house, induced him to undertake the
collection of money due him in distant parts of Eng-
land. On Bishop's return he found his home desolate,
his wife, his friend, and most of what he possessed
were gone, he knew not whither. The moneys he had
collected about balanced his pecuniary losses, but what
on earth could console him for the other void ? Many
years afterwards he heard of his wife again and learned
that she had died miserably.
As his life in Paris had been broken up by the rising
of the French people against their oppressors, so after-
wards in Portugal his peace was again disturbed by the
inroad of the all-conquering armies of the Emperor
Napoleon. This time he did not return to London,
but availed himself of an opportunity that presented
of sailing to America, landed at Philadelphia, and made
his home in Germantown. I think it was while there
that he was received into the Society of Friends, with
whom he remained associated until his death.
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AMERICA
During my intimacy with him a most remarkable in-
cident occurred. Thomas Bishop painted in enamel,
as I have already said, and I frequently saw many of
his productions in this line. Among them were two
of such exquisite beauty that I always doubted that
they were, as he claimed, his own work, the rest were
all so far inferior to them. One was a copy
after
Boucher of two children, boy and girl, playing shep-
herd and shepherdess. The other was an upright oval
of a female figure seated by a fountain, the body nude,
with a reddish-brown drapery thrown across the lap.
This Venus, as it was called, was of such striking and
wonderful beauty that no one who had once seen it
could ever forget it. Mr. James McMurtrie wanted
to buy it, but the hundred dollars he offered was only
one-fifth the price asked.
An American in Paris remarked to a Mr. Bishop liv-
ing there that he knew a namesake of his in Phila-
delphia, a very old man, who possessed an enamel of
a Venus, the most beautiful thing of the kind he had
ever seen in the course of his life. This was startling
information, for Mr. Bishop remembered such an
enamel in the possession of his father, of whom he
had heard nothing for half a century. A few questions
fixed the identity beyond the shadow of a doubt. He
hastened across the ocean in search of his long-lost
parent, and the artist embraced as a white-haired man
the lamented son who had disappeared as a child in

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the flight from the Reign of Terror; and this glad-
some reunion was brought about by a little painting
only two inches long.
Mr. Bishop's circle of acquaintance was rather limited,
but it included old Dr. Abercrombie, whom I knew
before I met Bishop. He lived at that time in a
brick house dark with age, of a most singular style
of architecture, situated on the south side of Union
Street, a few doors east of Fourth, which has long since
disappeared. During a severe illness of Mr. Bishop,
Dr. Abercrombie and I each called every morning to
inquire after his condition, and as regularly expected
to hear that all was over. I of course discreetly sup-
pressed the surprise I felt at his lingering so long,
but it seems Dr. Abercrombie was not always so care-
ful. Mrs. Bishop told me one day that he had hurt
her feelings very much. On hearing the usual report
he had exclaimed, “What! not dead yet?” He con-
tinued, “Well, I am not able to come any more, but
I shall be glad if you will let me know when he dies.
He and I are old friends, and I should like to attend
his funeral.” It turned out very curiously that he
never had the opportunity to follow him to his grave.
Bishop revived and got well, and it was he who at-
tended Abercrombie's funeral.
Mr. Smith, the librarian of the Philadelphia Library,
insisted one day when I was talking of some incidents
of my acquaintance with Dr. Abercrombie, that it was
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AMERICA
impossible that I could have known him, "for,” said
he, “the doctor corresponded with Boswell, Dr. John-
son's biographer, and he died some five years before
the close of the last century.” When convinced of the
fact, Smith assured me I was “no chicken.”
Among the odd and quaint anecdotes of his experi-
ences with which old Mr. James Steel, the engraver,
often amused me, he related one in connection with
Dr. Abercrombie. When he and his brother were boys
they agreed that it would be a good thing for them to
study grammar, so they went to the doctor to ask his
terms for giving them lessons. He resided then on
Lombard Street opposite the Universalist church, at
number 119 old style. They were shown into the
back parlour, where they found the doctor seated at a
table piled high with papers. The boys stood silent
for some time, feeling shy in the august presence of
the great dominie, but at last one of them plucked up
courage to say in timid accents, “If you please, sir, do
you learn people grammar?” “No,” thundered the
doctor; then, after a pause, “but I teach it to them.
"Oh, thank you, sir,” said one, and thoroughly
abashed they got themselves out of the house as best
they could, and never returned there.
Manuel de França was a good artist with whom I was
very intimate in the early days. I gave him a commis-
sion to paint my wife's portrait, and afterwards took
lessons from him in figure painting in oil. He was a

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Portuguese, and when he first came to Philadelphia,
he had difficulty in obtaining orders, as was natural,
for he had yet to acquire facility in the English lan-
guage. He was a native of Funchal in the island of Ma-
deira, and when the liberals revolted against the Don
Miguel government, he joined the popular movement.
When the insurrection was suppressed he, with a large
number of compatriots, was imprisoned and con-
demned to be shot. Sympathizing friends contrived
their escape and smuggled them on board a vessel
which landed them in due course safe in Philadelphia.
Intimately associated with de França was Joshua
Shaw, a landscape painter of excellent talents, who was
also the inventor of the percussion cap, wafer priming
for cannon, etc. During the first twenty-five years of
his career in this country he was the best artist in his
branch in the United States. His style was somewhat
formal and mechanical, but his touch was firm, his
tints pure, and the composition of his larger pictures
noble and effective. Those well acquainted with the
work of his predecessors saw, however, that he did not
scruple to make use of what pleased him. His fine pic-
ture of The Dry Arch was a free repetition of a painting
by Loutherburg, and a large canvas exhibited at the
Pennsylvania Academy in 1832, representing the chase
of a stag, was after Rubens, but the public of that day
was none the wiser. In England he had lived in the
city of Bath. He came over in 1816, in the same ship
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AMERICA
that brought Benjamin West's Christ Healing the Sick
in the Temple, presented by the painter to the Pennsyl-
vania Hospital, and West confided to him the unpack-
ing of his picture when it should arrive at its destina-
tion, and the placing it in a proper light. Shaw formed
his style on that of Ibbetson, a Royal Academician
whose freedom and crispness of touch led West to call
him the Berghem of England. Some artists asked Ibbet-
son what was his secret by which he imparted such a
peculiar quality to his paint, and he answered, “Oh,
that 's my gumption.” He finally agreed to teach it to
a very limited number for a certain sum of money,
which was subscribed among them. He prepared the
vehicle before them, and it came to be called in a
jocular way by the word he had used, “gumption.”
Shaw told me he was one of the group, and he in
turn, for a consideration, taught me Ibbetson's secret,
which was as follows: Sugar of lead, i part; gum mas-
tic (excluding all discoloured grains), 2 parts, in bulk.
Mix dry and crush extremely fine with a glass muller
on a glass slab. Then grind exceedingly fine in raw
linseed and poppy oil. After repeated additions of
oil during grinding it will solidify and become like
hard white soap. Keep it in a vessel under water, and
cut off a small portion to mix with every colour you

use.
I have good reason to believe that Thomas Stothard
must have been one of the same group of disciples,
I2
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for here is Stothard's palette as written out by him-
self for a friend:
Sugar of lead) Ground dry together, afterwards ground in
Mastic gum Soil.
Linseed oil.
Water as much as it will take.
1. F. White.
2. r. Ochre.
3. Vermillion.
4. L. Red Ochre.
5. Lake with a very little Indian Red.
6. Dark Ochre.
7. Bone Brown.
8. Ivory Black.
9. Raw Terra di Sienna.
10. Antwerp Blue.
It is my belief that when Stothard used the word
water he meant saliva, the effect of which on the
artist's palette was taught to John Neagle by Gilbert
Stuart. While Neagle was painting Stuart's portrait in
Boston in 1824, the weather was very hot and drying,
and his colours became ropy and unmanageable. Stuart
as he posed saw the trouble the artist was having with
his paint, and asked him if he did not know how to
remedy it. Neagle acknowledged he did not. “Well,
hand me your palette and knife and I will show you.”
He then spat in the colour and with rapid motion of
[ 178]
AMERICA
the knife mixed it in thoroughly, treating each pig-
ment in succession in the same way. Neagle told me
the effect was magical, the paint afterwards so readily
obeyed every touch.
Joshua Shaw was very apt to get into quarrels, and it
was this contentious spirit which made him take so
prominent a part in organizing the Artists’ Fund So-
ciety in 1835, in order to antagonize the Pennsylvania
Academy. Less than two years after, he quarrelled bit-
terly with the president of the Artists' Fund Society,
John Neagle, and then gathered about him enough
of the artistic element to antagonize that body in turn
by establishing the Artists' and Amateurs' Association.
He succeeded in this by incorporating into it the lot-
tery feature of an art-union. The prospect of dispos-
ing of pictures by this means was so attractive that he
won over Leutze and de França to his scheme, with a
number of others whom he was accustomed to term
“small fry." Their exhibition was held in the hall over
the Chestnut Street Arcade, where Peale’s Museum
had previously been. In the second year he started a
violent quarrel with the management of his last-formed
society, contending with the amateur division over the
custody of the funds, which he claimed belonged with
the artists' branch, since the money was produced by
the display of their works. Shaw, though an excellent
artist and inventor, was so disputatious that it seemed
impossible to get along with him harmoniously. His

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character and career may be summed up in words ap-
plied by Byron to another uneasy spirit:
His life was one long war with self-sought foes
Or friends by him self-hanished.
In founding the Artists' Fund Society, Shaw's argu-
ment against the Academy of the Fine Arts was that
it was organized on the basis of a joint-stock concern
managed by a board of directors chosen from among
the stockholders, most of whom were not in sympathy
with artists and knew little or nothing about art; that
it was called an academy and yet gave no instruction;
that it depended for support mainly on the profits
from annual exhibitions of the works of artists, who
yet had no voice in the management. The inaugural
meeting of professionals was presided over by Thomas
U. Walter, the architect then just appointed to plan
the buildings for Girard College; John Neagle was
elected president and Thomas Birch vice-president.
Annual exhibitions being at once started, those at the
Academy necessarily ceased. After the third successful
display a fund was raised, chiefly by subscription of
friends, for the construction of a properly lighted gal-
lery with a skylight. The Academy solved the diffi-
culty as to location by granting permission to erect it
over the two shops already standing in front of their
own lot, on the house-line of Chestnut Street; the
Academy itself to be reached through a wide passage
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AMERICA
under the Artists' Fund Society Gallery and between
the two shops. A ten years' lease was given, at a rental
of three hundred and twenty dollars per annum, the
equivalent of the ground rent paid for the entire lot.
The first exhibition in the new gallery was held in the
spring of 1841, and proved a success, for the location
was no longer the solitude it had been eleven years
before, the tide of business and popularity having
taken a decided trend westward along Chestnut Street.
All attempts to draw Sully into these associations
failed. He had grown too wise by experience to part
with the peace and tranquillity he so prized, and which
he well knew must be the cost of such a step. An
amiable and genial gentleman, he shunned the contro-
versy and contention inseparable from active member-
ship in Societies. He had been a director in the Acad-
emy, but his views of the best way to create a public
interest in the institution were not shared by his col-
leagues, and seeing no good in prospect he retired.
John Neagle, who had been a director, also withdrew.
The disastrous fire in the Academy occurred after the
fourth annual exhibition held by the Artists' Fund
Society in its new hall, and led to the termination of
the lease, under a clause in the
agreement which
gave
the Academy power to remove the building at any
time upon payment of one-half the cost of construc-
tion. In rebuilding, the directors adopted a plan which
increased the old accommodations extensively, adding

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five new galleries to the east, west and north of the
rotunda, which had not suffered materially in the con-
flagration. A substantial front from a design by Hav-
iland was built, and the gallery over the shops was
demolished, that the new edifice might be better seen
from the street.
The completion of the new additions around the
Academy rotunda made such a great improvement
that the institution was now better housed than it
had ever been before, or had hoped to be. The funds
necessary for so large an expenditure were raised in
part by subscription and partly from the proceeds of
a successfully conducted fair, organized and managed
throughout by a committee of ladies. It was held in
a large room at the corner of Ninth and Sansom
Streets known as the Chinese Museum, which was
under the great gallery of the Peale Museum. The
ground is now occupied by the Continental Hotel.
From this time on the artists, having no place of their
own in which to continue their exhibitions, sent their
works to the annual displays of the Academy. But the
organization of the Artists' Fund Society has survived
to the present day, with its beneficiary features now
alone preserved. The artists were represented in the
Academy direction, however, by P. F. Rothermel, J.
R. Lambdin and myself.
During many years I was secretary of the board of
directors of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
[ 182 ]

Miss REBECCA GRATZ
From a Drawing by John Sartain
after the Painting by Thomas Sully
AMERICA
Arts. One of my colleagues was Mr. Hyman Gratz,
with whom I was necessarily much thrown in the
transaction of business, he being treasurer and I chair-
man of the three most important committees. Towards
the close of his life he became very feeble, and he
would often ask me to come to confer with him at his
residence, No. 2 Boston Row, Chestnut Street above
Twelfth, to save him the effort of going to the Acad-
emy. There I had the great pleasure of meeting his
sister, Miss Rebecca Gratz, who was the managing
head of his household. She, as is well known, was the
prototype of the Rebecca of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.
With the same vividness with which I recall William
Blake's widow as she opened to me the street door
when I visited my friend, Tatham, the sculptor, in
London, I have retained the startling impression made
upon me by this celebrated Jewish lady when she per-
formed for me the same service in Philadelphia. I rec-
ognized her instantly as the original of the portrait
painted by Sully many years before. Her eyes struck
me as piercingly dark, yet of mild expression, in a face
tenderly pale.
The personal beauty, the noble qualities of character,
and some incidents of her history were described to
Scott one day by her intimate friend, Washington
Irving. Two years later, in 1819, the great novelist
sent to Irving a first copy of the story into which he
had introduced her as heroine, and wrote to him,

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1
“How do you like your Rebecca ? Does the Rebecca
I have pictured compare well with the pattern given?”
The portrait Sully painted of her must have been a
remarkable likeness, that so many years after I should
recognize her instantly by my remembrance of it. The
artist was introduced to her by Washington Irving by
means of the following letter:-
HARDLY need introduce the bearer, Mr. Sully,
to you, as I trust you recollect him perfectly. He
purposes passing the winter in your city, and as he
will be “a mere stranger and sojourner in the land,”
I would solicit for him your good graces. He is a
gentleman for whom I have a great regard, not merely
on account of his professional abilities, which are
highly promising, but for his amiable character and
engaging manners. I think I cannot render him a
favour for which he ought to be more grateful than in
introducing him to the notice of yourself and your
connections.
Mr. Hoffman's family are all well, and you are often
the subject of their conversation. Remember me affec-
tionately to all the family. Excuse the liberty I have
taken, and believe me with the warmest friendship,

Ever yours,
WASHINGTON IRVING.
New York, Nov. 4th, 1807.
Miss Rebecca Gratz was on intimate terms with the
[ 184 ]
AMERICA
Hoffmans and other old families of New York.
Matilda Hoffman, Irving's first, last, and only love,
was her dearest friend. When she faded away in 1809
at the early age of eighteen, she died in the tender
arms of Rebecca. Irving was then twenty-six years
old, and for half a century he cherished her memory
faithfully. In his private note-book he wrote, “She
died in the beauty of her youth, and in my memory
she will ever be young and beautiful.” It was in the
fall of 1817, eight years later, that Irving met Scott
for the first time, through an introductory letter from
the poet Campbell, who knew Scott's high estimate
of Irving's genius.
I myself met Irving in 1858, when I spent a most
delightful afternoon with him in his library at Sunny-
side on the Hudson. I went with Mr. W. H. Bidwell
of New York, proprietor and editor of The Eclectic
Magazine. He wanted Irving to sit for a portrait to be
engraved for his periodical, but Irving said that he
had so often declined to pose that he feared he would
give too much offence by consenting now. However,
he seemed to divine my purpose of attempting a por-
trait from memory. I observed him closely as I sat in
a favourable point of view, studying his habitual posi-
tion and characteristic expressions, and as we left he
gave me a note to a relative in Lafayette Place, New
York, requesting him to lend me a small portrait of
him painted in his youth. It was of no use, however,

( 185 )
REMINISCENCES
years had wrought too great a change. I made a draw-
ing entirely from memory which was pronounced so
good a likeness that it was ordered to be engraved,
and was published in The Eclectic in the number for
October, 1858.
To return to Ivanhoe's Rebecca: I have learned much
that is exceedingly interesting about Rebecca Gratz
from her grand-nieces, the Misses Mordecai, who
have honoured me with their friendship. “She was
born on the fourth of March, 1789, and was the
daughter of Michael Gratz, a native of Langendorf,
Upper Silesia, who emigrated to America in 1758 and
settled in Philadelphia. He came well provided with
this world's goods, which he greatly increased by trad-
ing with the Indians. In 1769 he married Miriam
Symon of Lancaster, then a remote settlement in the
far wilds of Pennsylvania, and eleven children were
born to them. During the closing years of the last
century and the early part of this, Rebecca and her
two beautiful sisters were the toast of the clubs of the
day as the three Graces, a slight twist of their name
the three Gratzes. They were as good as they were
beautiful. There had been a story in our Aunt Re-
becca's life, a struggle between love and religion, in
which duty conquered as it always did with her.
Walter Scott could not have chosen a nobler type of
Jewish maiden.”
Another relative writes: “Her eyes were of exquisite

[ 186 ]
AMERICA
shape, large, black, and lustrous; her form was grace-
ful and her carriage was marked by great dignity,
attractions which were heightened by elegant and win-
ning manners. Gentle, benevolent, and with instinctive
refinement and innate purity, she inspired affection in
all who knew her. She received the best instruction
those early days afforded, and was well fitted for prac-
tical and social duties.”
Miss Mordecai relates an anecdote she used to hear
her grand-aunt tell of her primitive school-days. “I
have forgotten the name of her schoolmistress, but
it was a large school with rows of pupils sitting on
benches the whole length of the room. She told us
that each day as the clock struck twelve a short recess
would be proclaimed, the door would open and a gen-
tleman would appear. It was the brother of the school-
mistress, dressed in the height of the fashion of the
day, cocked hat, powdered hair, queue, blue coat with
metal buttons, knee breeches and shoe buckles, white
stockings and ruffled shirt. He would walk up between
the rows of girls to the platform where his sister stood,
take off his hat, bow over her hand and say ‘Good-
morning.' He would then with great deliberation take
out his snuff-box, open it, invite her to take a pinch,
close it, and walk back again between the girls to the
door, pass through and vanish. This happened every
day regularly. She would add, 'I think I can see the
old gentleman now.' 'And did he never say anything

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more?' 'No, never; he disappeared just as he came,
and never spoke to any one but his sister.””
During the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia at
the beginning of this century, the Gratz family took
refuge in the country house of the Binghams on the
Lansdowne plateau, in what is now West Fairmount
Park. Rebecca Gratz writes to a New York friend
under date of August 8, 1802: “We came to Lans-
downe on Wednesday afternoon, and the situation
and the house surpass the great expectations I had
been taught to form of it. We are delightfully situ-
ated. . The reports are so various concerning the
fever, that I must refer you to the papers for true
accounts. Great numbers of the citizens have removed,
and I hope the fatal disorder will soon be checked.”
Interest will be felt in this facsimile of her autograph
from a letter addressed to Mrs. Ogden Hoffman, No.
39 Wall Street, New York, step-mother of Irving's
fiancée.
O

on whom
may
heuvens Choices bleping
flow horl endently prays her most
affectionate Rebecca Gratis
Near neighbours to the Gratzes on Chestnut Street,
in a retired house deeply shaded with large trees at
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AMERICA
the south-west corner of Tenth, lived Mr. William
Meredith and his charming wife, who was niece of
Gouverneur Morris of Revolutionary fame. William
Morris Meredith, their son, was afterwards Secretary
of the Treasury in General Taylor's Cabinet, and I
place great value upon two volumes in my library,
as memorials of the friendship of that eminent and
accomplished gentleman. The Meredith mansion was
the centre of all the culture of the day, and distin-
guished visitors to the city 'sought admission to its
literary gatherings. We have record of a ceremonious
call of a Southerner, who had been invited by Mrs.
Meredith for a special evening, in response to his de-
sire to be present at one of these intellectual symposia.
The hostess had forgotten the engagement and was
alone. With quick expedient she exclaimed, “Oh, I
forgot all about it; but remain and I will send for
Miss Rebecca Gratz, and you will forgive me.” Miss
Gratz was luckily disengaged, and the untimely guest
declared it was the most enjoyable evening he had
ever spent.
Miss Gratz's noble and lovable character gave her
great personal influence, and one of the happy mem-
ories she treasured was that she had been the means of
effecting a death-bed reconciliation between an obdurate
father and his daughter, Rebecca's grandfather and her
aunt, Mrs. Nicholas Schuyler of Albany. Estrangement
had ensued after her marriage with a Christian.

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years. She
“She whom all honoured in life was full of
lived to the blessed age of eighty-eight, and as we are
taught that length of days is an heritage from the
Lord, we believe He blessed his handmaiden, and
gave her many years to be as a beacon and light to
her generation. As Abraham was a prince among his
people, so was Rebecca Gratz a princess among her
own people, who looked up to her with pride in her
position among them and
them and among the strangers with
whom she sojourned.”
Hyman Gratz, by the way, owned property on Mar-
ket Street at the south-west corner of Seventh, where
Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. The
two corner houses were demolished to give place to
the new Penn Bank building, on the façade of which
is attached a bronze tablet commemorative of the in-
teresting spot on which the preseni building stands.
The arm-chair in which Jefferson sat while writing the
Declaration is preserved in the collection of the Amer-
ican Philosophical Society.
I have been drawn into a long digression from my
subject of the artists whom I knew in Philadelphia in
the second quarter of the century; but to conclude:
During the heat of the summer of 1842, there came
to Philadelphia a Monsieur Vatimaire, who brought
with him a small collection of very excellent drawings
in water colours by the best artists of the British school,
such as DeWint, Richardson, and others equally emi-

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nent at that time. Among them was one by Sir Edwin
Landseer, of the head of a stag, which Vatimaire
claimed to be an original drawn from nature after
death. Landseer used this study over and over again
in successive pictures, as we see in his Bolton Abhey,
The Stag at Bay, and others. We observe the same re-
peated use of one study from nature by Sir David
Wilkie. The dog scratching his ear reappears in sev-
eral of his pictures.
Vatimaire had obtained these drawings from the artists,
not by purchase, but on a plea the nature of which
has escaped my memory, and he endeavoured to obtain
contributions here by the same method, but without
much success. F. 0. C. Darley was one of the few
who
gave
Vatimaire had been famous in England and France as
a most accomplished ventriloquist and mimic. His
performances given under the name of Alexandre were
similar in character to those of Charles Matthews, whom
he is reputed to have equalled or perhaps even sur-
passed. His celerity in change of character, rapidity in
altering costume, voice and face, were said to be won-
derful. At one time he would be the handsome, modest
Sister Celestine, and the next moment, as by magic, a
fat, gouty old alderman.
He became quite prominent in Philadelphia, so that
the academy directors tendered him a sort of reception
in their rotunda, to which only a very few were in-
him one.

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vited, —Sully, Fenimore Cooper, Hyman Gratz, and
others whose names I cannot now recall, a party of
perhaps a dozen in all. After awhile we adjourned, on
the invitation of the guest, to his apartment on South
Sixth Street, opposite Washington Square. Here he
entertained us by showing us curiosities of one kind
or another, including various decorations that had
been bestowed upon him. Fenimore Cooper made
some remark which he answered in so rude and scorn-
ful a manner that I was surprised at such unseemly
behaviour. Cooper was roughly clad, and I suppose he
mistook him for some tiller of the soil.
The last I knew of Vatimaire, he was busying himself
in attempting to establish a system for the interna-
tional exchange of books and so forth, which are many
times duplicated in some libraries and museums, and
are yet totally wanting in others. How he may have
succeeded in accomplishing this desirable purpose I
never knew.
With my friend and for many years near neighbour,
John Neagle, I was of course on intimate terms. The
two most important pictures he ever painted were the
whole-length of Pat Lyon, the blacksmith, and that
of Henry Clay. The latter was painted at Ashland,
the old homestead in Kentucky. Mr. Neagle told me
a history of his painting of the former, which I think
worthy of being recorded. Pat Lyon, having been
awarded a handsome sum of money from a bank as
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186
PAT LYON
From the Painting by John Neagle in the Possession of
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia
AMERICA
damages for what was proved to be a false accusation
and imprisonment, decided on having a whole-length
portrait of himself painted, with a view in the back-
ground of the Walnut Street prison in which he had
been confined. John Neagle received the commission
for the work.
So much time elapsed before a sitting could be ar-
ranged that the artist suspected that Lyon was pur-
posely evading it. He told Lyon what he thought,
and asked that if he doubted his ability to produce a
creditable picture, he would say so frankly. “Well
then,” said Lyon, “frankly, that is it. You know, Mr.
Neagle, you are still a very young man, and it has
been shown me that it takes a long experience to pro-
duce such a picture as is proposed, and you might not
succeed.” Neagle contrived to learn from him at
length that it was Bass Otis, whose pupil he had
been, who had suggested the doubt.
Neagle was stung to exasperation at this check, and
appealed earnestly to Lyon to trust him and not to
withdraw from him this opportunity for distinguishing
himself. Lyon was impressed favourably with the con-
fidence and enthusiasm of the artist, and told him to
go on. The result was a success beyond what might
have been expected. Neagle told me that his anxiety
made him imitate closely all the objects in the smithy
that
appear
in the picture, even measuring them, as
well as carefully drawing them. When the work was

13
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finished it was sent to Boston as a contribution to
the annual exhibition of the Athenæum, and it was so
much liked that it was purchased for their permanent
collection, with Mr. Lyon's consent. Neagle painted
for him the duplicate now seen in the gallery of the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, but it is not
equal to the Boston picture in firmness, decision, and
sharp squareness of touch.
In 1825 Neagle painted in Boston a portrait of Gil-
bert Stuart, who was then in his seventy-second year.
An engraving from this was made by my friend David
Edwin, who told me of an incident that illustrates
Stuart's method of painting. He called at his studio
one day on business, and Stuart said, “Well arrived,
sit you there,” pointing to a chair near him. He then
leaned over and pinned to Edwin's coat a decoration
that he was about to paint in a picture that was before
him on the easel; if I remember aright, a portrait of
Governor McKean. Edwin was in a position that en-
abled him to see every touch that the artist succes-
sively made. He deliberated every time before the
well-charged brush went down upon the canvas with
an action like cutting into it with a knife. He lifted
the brush from the surface at a right angle, carefully
avoiding a sliding motion. He seems always to have
avoided vexing or tormenting the paint when once
laid on, and this partly accounts for the purity and
freshness that still remains a characteristic of his work.

1
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One principle which he invariably observed was to
keep the lips tender in their tints, so as never to con-
tend with the eyes in strength, nor even with the sha-
dows from the nose, depending for character on a few
decisive, expressive, but not dark touches. I once
heard Sir Thomas Lawrence lay down this as a rule,
although in his own practice he did not carry it so far
as Stuart did.
Edwin's engraving after the Stuart portrait was not
completed in a manner satisfactory to Neagle, and he
employed Thomas Kelly to work upon the plate to
add smoothness and finish. Probably Edwin's sight
was already too much impaired, but he felt bitterly
indignant, and a violent quarrel took place between
him and Neagle. When the failure of his eyes finally
barred him from the practice of his profession, he
opened a grocery store in the neighbourhood of the
new settlement in Christian Street, but it was closed
through bad debts. It was then that he took the posi-
tion with Mr. Warren, manager of the Chestnut Street
Theatre.

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CHAPTER
XIII
Graham's Magazine — Edgar Allan Poe Thomas Cottrell
Clarke

210
N January, 1841, George R. Graham pub-
lished the first number of his monthly called
Graham's Magazine. It was based on the sub-
scription lists of three other periodicals, namely, The
Casket, published by Atkinson, another published in
New York with Dr. Robert M. Bird of Philadelphia
as editor, the title of which was, I think, The Atlantic
Magazine, and third and most important, The Gentle-
) man's Magazine, published by William E. Burton, the
actor. The united lists of all three amounted to only
five thousand, five hundred.
The reason Burton parted with The Gentleman's Mag-
azine to Graham was that he was about to engage in
a new enterprise, which would tax all his energies to
the utmost. It was no less a project than the establish-
ment of a new theatre on Chestnut Street, where the
Continental Hotel now stands. Burton had been for
à long time a member of the stock company of the
old Chestnut Street Theatre, next to the corner of
Sixth Street, of which Maywood was lessee and man-
ager. Burton often complained to me in doleful tones
of repeated studied annoyances and even humiliating
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insults which he was made to suffer. At last, exasper-
ated beyond endurance, he determined to establish a
rival theatre of his own, and accomplished his purpose
by remodelling Cook's Olympic Circus. I remember
this ground before it was built upon, while still a
vacant lot utilized as a marble-yard. Cook, the eques-
trian from London, erected his circus upon it, but a
fire in Baltimore, which destroyed his superb stud of
beautifully trained horses, ruined him. This created
Burton's opportunity. With $25,000 advanced by the
owner of the ground, he turned it into a handsome
theatre, and here Charlotte Cushman, Wheatley, and
Richings made their first appearances before a Phila-
delphia audience, quitting for the purpose the Park
Theatre, New York, where I had often seen them as
members of the stock company.
Up to the time of Graham's new publication it had
been an unusual thing for the monthlies to have new
plates engraved expressly for them; they were content,
when they had pictorial embellishments at all, to use
old worn-out plates picked up at a trifling cost. For
Dr. Bird, however, I had engraved a view of the en-
trance to the Mammoth Cave, from a drawing by
himself, and for Burton three plates, The April Fool,
The Musical Bore, and The Pets, the latter after Edwin
Landseer.
Graham decided to have a new plate engraved ex-
pressly for every number, and engaged me to execute

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the work. The boldness of the enterprise astonished
me, yet I did not give expression to my surprise, or
thought I did not, but after two or three months of
extraordinary success Graham told me that he could
see that I had wondered, and he explained what led
him to adopt such a measure. He said that before
deciding on the details of his plans he consulted all
he could reach whose experience with periodical litera-
ture might assist his judgment. Principal among these
was Israel Post, of New York. Post's advice was, “Go
to John Sartain and get a new plate for every number,
and I guarantee success. I sold three thousand extra
of that number of Burton's that had his plate of The
Pets in it.”
The success of the magazine was immense and a sur-
prise to Graham himself. Beginning with five thousand
five hundred, as I know because I furnished the im-
pressions of the plates I engraved, the edition by the
end of the second year had reached forty thousand,
and I had to engrave four steel plates of each subject
to keep pace in the printing of them with the increased
demand. But the very excess of success led to disaster.
Graham was solicited on all sides to join in enterprises,
and he embarked in some of these. He bought Fry's
National Gazette and also, in association with Robert M.
Bird and Morton McMichael, paid forty-five thousand
dollars for Chandler's United States Gazette, incorpora-
ting the two journals into one, The North American.

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The result of all these and other non-literary specu-
lations, such as copper-mining, etc., was failure, for
liberty is not the only thing that demands incessant
vigilance. Graham's attention thus divided left the
magazine to run itself, if it could, without commander
or helmsman. Finally in 1848, all had to be sold to
satisfy creditors,—magazine, newspaper, shares and
everything. It was not until after Graham himself had
disappeared from the field that Sartain's Magazine be-
gan, and it never would have begun but for Graham's
misfortune. After a time, however, he resumed his for-
mer position with the magazine, but could not revive
its prosperity.
It was in connection with Graham's enterprise that I
made the acquaintance of Edgar Allan Poe. Burton's
time had been so much occupied by his duties at the
theatre that he associated Poe with himself as assist-
ant editor, and when the transfer was made to Gra-
ham, the editor naturally went over with it. Besides
the ordinary duties incident to the position, Poe con-
tributed articles to its pages. Of the stories, The Mur-
ders in the Rue Morgue, named in his original manu-
script The Murders in the Rue Trianon-Bas, appeared in
the April number of the first year. In May of the
second year came the Descent into the Maelstrom. Then,
after one or two poetical trifles, the numbers for No-
vember and December contained his chapters on Au-
tography, in which he presented fac-similes of no less

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than one hundred and nine signatures of popular and
distinguished authors, added to which were nineteen
others in what he termed an appendix, that appeared
in the January number of the year following, 1843.
Poe continued with Graham in the capacity of editor
for about eighteen months, on a salary of $800 a year.
He then had to withdraw on account of a quarrel with
Graham's old friend and associate, Charles J. Peterson,
from whom Graham could not part, but Poe contin-
ued to write for him occasionally as before.
The article that interested me most of all among his
contributions to Graham's was that entitled “The Phi-
losophy of Composition,” published in the number
for April, 1846. In it he says, “Most writers—poets
in especial —prefer having it understood that they
compose by a species of fine frenzy—an ecstatic in-
tuition—and would positively shudder at letting the
public take a peep behind the scenes at the elaborate
and vacillating crudities of thought—at the true pur-
poses seized only at the last moment—at the innu-
merable glimpses of ideas that arrived not at the ma-
turity of full view—at the fully matured fancies dis-
carded in despair as unmanageable—at the cautious
selections and rejections—at the painful erasures and
interpolations—in a word, at the wheels and pinions
-the tackle for scene-shifting—the step-ladders and
demon-traps—the cock's feathers, the red paint and
black patches, which in ninety-nine cases out of a hun-

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dred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio.”
He then goes on to describe even to the utmost detail
the methods by which he proceeded to "build the
lofty rhyme” of his poem entitled The Raven.
I have always taken a deep interest in tracing the
gradual progressive development of noteworthy pic-
tures by eminent artists from the first crude general
plan of the composition to the completed work and
the intervening studies from nature for the several
parts. These latter, however, were almost always vastly
superior to the finished pictures painted from them.
Witness, for example, Andrea del Sarto's drawing from
nature of Joseph, for his famous fresco known as the
Madonna del Sacco, in the cloister of the Annunciata at
Florence. How poor and tame is this figure in com-
parison with the preparatory study! The same is
equally true of Michael Angelo's studies for the vault
of the Sistine Chapel. His figure of Adam as drawn
from nature in red chalk is superb, but lost in its copy
on the ceiling. Then again, Raffaelle's exquisite draw-
ing from nature for the group of women in the fore-
ground of the Heliodorus in the Vatican, how much of
the charm is gone in its transfer to the fresco! It is also
true of his studies from life for his School of Athens,
in which his uncle Bramante, the Pope's architect, fig-
ures frequently. The great gain is between the first
jotting down of the composition as a whole, which is
generally poor, and the matured work, which is noble.

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I have an instance of remarkable improvement in pro-
gressive development and elaboration of the original
thought in Edgar Allan Poe's poem of The Bells, which
he wrote for me in 1849. In its original form it was
the merest trifle compared with what he made of it
afterwards. It was in all eighteen lines divided into
two stanzas, of which this is the first stanza:
THE BELLS— A SONG.
The hells ! — hear the hells!
The merry wedding bells !
The little silver hells !!
How fairy-like a melody there swells
From the silver tinkling cells
Of the hells, hells, hells !
Of the hells !
It is interesting to compare these lines with what he
made of this first stanza in the form it afterwards as-
sumed and as we published it in the November num-
ber of Sartain's Magazine for 1849.
Hear the sledges with their bells
Silver hells !
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;

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.
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the tintinnahulation that so musically wells
From the hells, hells, hells,
Bells, hells, hells
From the jingling and the tinkling of the hells.
Let us now compare the first draft of the last stanza
with the subsequent improvement.
1
The bells -ah, the hells !
The heavy iron hells!
Hear the tolling of the hells !
Hear the knells!
How horrible a monody there floats
From their throats
From their deep-toned throats !
How I shudder at the notes
From the melancholy throats
Of the hells, hells, hells !
Of the hells !
These lines are but eleven in number, yet in his re-
cast of this closing stanza there are as many as forty-
four. In thus prolonging it he was enabled to produce
an impression on the mind of that monotonous repe-
tition of a peal of heavy bells, an echo, as it were, of
the reality he describes. The following form is that in
which he finally let it remain:

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Hear the tolling of the hells —
Iron hells !
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels !
In the silence of the night
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone !
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
+
Is a groan.
And the people—ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone —
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls ; —
And their king it is who tolls; -
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A pean from the hells!
And his merry hosom swells
With the pean of the hells!
And he dances and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,

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AMERICA
-
To the pæan of the hells,
Of the hells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the throhhing of the hells
Of the hells, hells, hells
To the throhhing of the hells;-
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme
To the tolling of the hells-
Of the hells, hells, hells,
To the tolling of the hells-
Of the hells, hells, hells, hells,
Bells, hells, hells
To the moaning and the groaning of the hells.
About six months after we received this poem in its
primitive form Poe sent it greatly enlarged and al-
tered, but not yet in the final state in which we pub-
lished it; the latest improvement came a month or so
later. It appears that the very last poem he ever wrote
was the one entitled Annabel Lee. We purchased it
from him, but before we were ready to issue it we
found that he had also sold it to three other publishers.
The last time I saw Mr. Poe was late in that same
year, 1849, and then under such peculiar and almost
fearful conditions that the experience can never fade

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from my memory. Early one Monday afternoon he
suddenly entered my engraving room, looking pale
and haggard, with a wild and frightened expression
in his eyes. I did not let him see that I noticed it,
and shaking him cordially by the hand invited him to
be seated, when he began, “Mr. Sartain, I have come
to you for a refuge and protection; will you let me
stay with you ? It is necessary to my safety that I lie
concealed for a time.” I assured him that he was wel-
come, that in my house he would be perfectly safe,
and he could stay as long as he liked, but I asked
him what was the matter. He said it would be diffi-
cult for me to believe what he had to tell, or that
such things were possible in this nineteenth century.
I made him as comfortable as I could, and then pro-
ceeded with my work, which was pressing. After he
had had time to calm down a little, he told me that he
had been on his way to New York, but he had over-
heard some men who sat a few seats back of him plot-
ting how they should kill him and then throw him off
from the platform of the car. He said they spoke so
low that it would have been impossible for him to
hear and understand the meaning of their words, had
it not been that his sense of hearing was so wonder-
fully acute. They could not guess that he heard them,
as he sat so quiet and apparently indifferent to what
was going on, but when the train arrived at the Bor-
dentown station he gave them the slip and remained

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concealed until the cars moved on again. He had re-
turned to Philadelphia by the first train back, and
hurried to me for refuge.
I told him that it was my belief the whole scare was
the creation of his own fancy, for what interest could
those people have in taking his life, and at such risk
to themselves ? He said, “It was for revenge.” “Re-
venge for what?” said I. He answered, “Well, a
woman trouble.”
Now and then some fragmentary conversation passed
between us as I engraved, and shortly I began to per-
ceive a singular change in the current of his thoughts.
From such fear of assassination his mind gradually
veered round to an idea of self-destruction, and his
words clearly indicated this tendency. After a long
silence he said suddenly, “If this mustache of mine
were removed I should not be so readily recognized;
will you lend me a razor, that I may shave it off?”
I told him that as I never shaved I had no razor, but
if he wanted it removed I could readily do it for him
with scissors. Accordingly I took him to the bath-
room and performed the operation successfully.
After tea, it being now dark, I saw him preparing to
go out; and on my asking him where he was going,
he said, “To the Schuylkill.” I told him I would go
too, it would be pleasant in the moonlight later, and
he offered no objection. He complained that his feet
hurt him, being chafed by his shoes, which were worn

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down on the outer side of the heel. So for ease and
comfort he wore my slippers, which he preferred to
my shoes as less ill-fitting. When we had reached the
corner of Ninth and Chestnut Streets we waited for
an omnibus some minutes, which were passed in con-
versation, and among the many things he said was that
he wished I would see to it after his death that the
portrait Osgood had painted of him should go to his
mother (meaning Mrs. Clemm). I promised that as
far as I could control it that should be done. After
getting the omnibus we rode to its stopping-place, a
little short of Fairmount, opposite a tavern on the
north side of Callowhill Street, at the bend it makes to
the northwest to reach the bridge over the river. At
that spot a bright light shone out through the open
door of the tavern, but beyond all was pitchy dark.
However, forward into the darkness we walked. I kept
on his left side, and on approaching the foot of the
bridge guided him off to the right by a gentle pressure,
until we reached the lofty flight of steep wooden steps
which ascended almost to the top of the reservoir.
There was a landing with seats, and we sat down to
rest. All this time I had contrived to hold him in con-
versation, except while we were labouring breathless
up that long, breakneck flight of stairs.
There he told me his late experiences, or what he be-
lieved to be such, and the succession of images that
his imagination created he expressed in a calm, delib-
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erate, measured utterance as facts. These were as weird
and fantastic as anything to be met with in his pub-
lished writings. Of course it is altogether beyond me
to convey even a faint idea of his wild descriptions.
“I was confined in a cell in Moyamensing Prison,”
said he, “and through my grated window was visible
the battlemented granite tower. On the topmost stone
of the parapet, between the embrasures, stood perched
against the dark sky a young female brightly radiant,
like silver dipped in light, either in herself or in her
environment, so that the cross-bar shadows thrown
from my window were distinct on the opposite wall.
From this position, remote as it was, she addressed to
me a series of questions in words not loud but dis-
tinct, and I dared not fail to hear and make apt re-
sponse. Had I failed once either to hear or to make
pertinent answer, the consequences to me would have
been something fearful; but my sense of hearing is
wonderfully acute, so that I passed safely through this
ordeal, which was a snare to catch me. But another
was in store.
“An attendant asked me if I would like to take a
stroll about the place, I might see something interest-
ing, and I agreed. In the course of our rounds on the
ramparts we came to a cauldron of boiling spirits. He
asked me if I would not like to take a drink. I de-
clined, but had I said yes, what do you suppose would
have happened?” I said I could not guess. “Why, I

14
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should have been lifted over the brim and dipped into
the hot liquid up to the lip, like Tantalus.” “Yes,”
said I, “but that would have killed you.” “Of course
it would,” said he, “that's what they wanted; but,
you see, again I escaped the snare. So at last, as a
means to torture me and wring my heart, they brought
out my mother, Mrs. Clemm, to blast my sight by
seeing them first saw off her feet at the ankles, then
her legs to the knees, her thighs at the hips, and so
on.” The horror of the imagined scene threw him into
a sort of convulsion. This is but a very faint sample
of the talk I listened to up there in the darkness. I
had been all along expecting the moon to rise, forget-
ting how much it retarded every evening, and the
clouds hid the light of the stars. It came into
that Poe might possibly in a sudden fit of frenzy leap
freely forth with me in his arms into the black depth
below, so I was watchful and kept on my guard. I
asked him how he came to be in Moyamensing Prison.
He answered that he had been suspected of trying
to pass a fifty-dollar counterfeit note. The truth is, he
was there for what takes so many there for a few hours
only—the drop too much. I learned later that when
his turn came in the motley group before Mayor Gil-
pin, some one said, “Why, this is Poe, the poet,”
and he was dismissed without the customary fine.
When he alluded to his mother, which was always
with feelings of affectionate devotion, it was not his
my mind
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AMERICA
own natural mother, who died when he was in his in-
fancy, but Mrs. Clemm, his mother-in-law. To both
he referred in the following lines:
Because I feel that in the Heavens ahove,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of “mother,"
Therefore hy that dear name I long have called you,
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where death installed you
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.
My mother— my own mother, who died early,
Was hut the mother of myself; hut you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
By that infinity with which my wife
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.
I suggested at last that as it appeared we were not to
have the moon we might as well go down again. He
agreed, and we descended the steep stairway slowly
and cautiously, holding well to the hand-rails. Being
down I kept this time, on our return walk, on his right
side, and did not suffer the conversation to flag. On
arriving at the omnibus waiting for passengers at the
tavern door I pressed gently against him and he
raised his foot to the step, but instantly recollecting
himself drew back. I urged him in, and being seated

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beside him said, “You were saying?” The conversa-
tion was resumed, I got him safe home, and gave him
a bed on a sofa in the dining-room, while I slept along-
side him on three chairs, without undressing.
On the second morning he appeared to have become
so much like his old self that I trusted him to go out
alone. Rest and regular meals had had a good effect,
although his mind was not yet entirely free from the
nightmare. After an hour or two he returned, and then
told me he had come to the conclusion that what I
said was true, that the whole thing had been a delusion
and a scare created by his own excited imagination.
He said his mind began to clear as he lay on the
grass, his face buried in it and his nostrils inhaling
the sweet fragrance mingled with the odour of the
earth. While he lay thus, the words he had heard
kept running in his thoughts, but he tried in vain to
connect them with the speaker, and so the light grad-
ually broke in upon his dazed mind and he saw that
he had come out of a dream. Being now all right
again he was ready to depart for New York. He bor-
rowed what was needful, and I never saw him again.
In about a month from this, as near as I can make
out, Poe lay dead in a Baltimore hospital. In those
few weeks how much had happened, and how hopeful
seemed the prospects for his future. He had joined a
temperance society, delivered lectures, resumed friendly
relations with an early flame of his, Mrs. Sarah E.
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Shelton, and become engaged to her. Dr. John J.
Moran, who attended the poet in his last moments,
says that Poe parted from her at her residence in
Richmond at four in the afternoon of October 4,
1849, to go north. She states that when he said
"good-bye” he paused a moment as if reflecting, and
then said to her, “I have a singular feeling, amounting
to a presentiment, that this will be our last meeting
until we meet to part no more," and then walked
slowly and sadly away. Reaching the Susquehanna,
he refused to venture across because of the wildness
of the storm-driven water, and he returned to Balti-
more. Alighting from the cars he was seen to turn
down Pratt Street on the south side, followed by two
suspicious looking characters as far as the south-west
corner of Pratt and Light Streets. A fair presump-
tion is that they got him into one of the abominable
places that lined the wharf, drugged him, and robbed
him of everything. After daybreak, on the morning
of the sixth, a gentleman found him stretched uncon-
scious upon a broad plank across some barrels on the
sidewalk. Recognizing him he obtained a hack and
gave the driver a card, with Mr. Moran's address on
it and on the lower right-hand corner the name of
“ Poe.'
At the hospital he was disrobed of the wretched ap-
parel which had been exchanged for his good clothing
of the day before, and he was put comfortably to bed.
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REMINISCENCES
After consciousness returned the doctor said to him,
“Mr. Poe, you are extremely weak; pulse very low; I
will give you a glass of toddy.” He answered, “Sir,
if I thought its potency would transport me to the
Elysian bowers of the undiscovered spirit world, I
would not take it.” “Then I will give you an opiate
to ensure you sleep and rest.” He replied, “Twin sis-
ter-spectre to the doomed and crazed mortals of earth
and perdition.” The doctor records he found no tre-
mor of his person, no unsteadiness of his nerves,
no fidgetting with his hands, and not the slightest
odour of liquor on his breath or person. Poe said
after a sip or two of cold water, “Doctor, it's all over.”
Dr. Moran confirmed his belief that his end was near,
and asked if he had any word or wish for friends. He
answered, “Nevermore," and continued, “He who
arched the heavens and upholds the universe has His
decrees legibly written upon the frontlet of
the frontlet of every hu-
man being and upon demons incarnate.” These were
his last words, his glassy eyes rolled back, a slight
tremor, and the immortal soul of Edgar Allan Poe
passed into the spirit world, October 7, 1849, aged
thirty-eight. The accepted statement that Poe died
in a drunken debauch is attested by Dr. Moran to be
a calumny. He died from a chill caused by exposure
during the night under a cold October sky, clad only
in the old thin bombazine coat and trousers which
had been substituted for his own warm clothing.
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Poe's face was handsome. Although his forehead when
seen in profile showed a receding line from the brow
up, viewed from the front it presented a broad and
noble expanse, very large at and above the temples.
His lips were thin and very delicately modelled.
Speaking of Poe recalls to me an amusing scene I
witnessed in my office between two of the literary
fraternity, Rufus W. Griswold and the well-known
author of Ben Bolt. The latter was chatting delightfully
with me when in walked Griswold. I knew of course
that they must be acquainted, and yet noticing after
awhile that they behaved like strangers I apologized
for neglecting to introduce them and for assuming
that they knew each other. “Oh yes,” said one grimly,
“we know one another.” So I saw there was bad
blood between them. A cheerless talk ensued for a
time, when a name was spoken by chance that had
a magical effect. It was Poe, and they fraternized at
once, giving it to him right and left, agreeing that he
was a most unjust critic and a bad fellow every way.
The fact is, Poe made himself enemies all around by
the cutting severity of his criticisms. Mr. Thomas
Cottrell Clarke told me that he started the Stylus with
Poe as its literary conductor, and the project was
ruined by this intensity of his in reviewing the writ-
ings of others. He abstained equally, as a general rule,
from speaking well of his own work, but on one occa-
sion he said to my friend and neighbour, Thomas

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REMINISCENCES
Buchanan Read, “Anyway, I have written one thing
that will live—The Raven.”
Mr. Clarke's daughter, Miss Anne E. C. Clarke,
quotes her father as saying that “it took less liquor
to make a maniac of Poe than of any one he had ever
known, and that Mrs. Clemm in search of Eddie at
all hours of the night was as sad as death.” She says,
“My first recollection of the Poes is of one of us little
children singing the old song of Gaffer Poe to pretty
Mrs. Poe. When her husband came home at night
and found the little tot in his bed, storm-stayed after
a day spent with Mrs. Poe and her flowers, she made
the child repeat to him in her baby speech the only
verse she knew:

Mr. Poe was a man of great riches and fame,
And I loved him, I'm sure, though I liked not his name.
He asked me to wed. In a rage I said, No,
I'll never marry you and he called Mrs. Poe.
(Spoken) I think I can hear the little children in the
village singing,
That's Mistress Poe, Goody Poe, Gaffer Poe,
Oh, I'll never marry you and he called Mrs. Poe.
Mr. Poe's delight was infinite, and he gave her a
pretty box, which his wife filled with trinkets, and it
is one of her chief treasures to this day.”
Mr. Clarke was always engaged as editor upon some
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daily paper or other, and in those days editing meant
something different from what it does now, when the
duties are cut up and divided like our grandmothers'
patchwork quilts. Then it was real solid, all-day work,
with sometimes half the night added, for one man-
the editor.
Miss Clarke says of her father, “Writing into the wee
hours, he worked in the basement dining-room of his
house at Twelfth and Walnut Streets, where he wrote
from preference because more accessible to “the boys,'
as he called them, for it could be entered through an
area in front. Coming late from their wild evenings
down town, they would find this busy worker, who,
though he never drank liquor nor used tobacco in any
way himself, gladly welcomed them here, where they
disturbed his household little with their noise and
their smoke. Tapping on the window pane, they
would be let in laden like bees with news to be re-
hashed and delivered to the printer's devil. And often
would Poe drop in on his way home, -he then lived
near Locust Street on Sixteenth, at that time named
Schuylkili Seventh Street,—and Mrs. Clarke would
send him coffee to clear his head before going home
to pretty Virginia and his patient mother-in-law, Mrs.
Clemm.”

[ 217 )
CHAPTER
XIV
Sartain's Magazine — Henry B. Hirst, Thomas Dunn
English, R. H. Stoddard, John Howard Payne— Aholi-
tion Society — Christ Rejected, King Solomon and the Iron
Worker, Battle of Gettyshurg, and other Large Plates
American Gallery of Art— Year in Europe — Larkin G.
Mead

,
CERTAIN William Sloanaker had been
book-
lished The Casket, and afterwards held the
same position under Graham and Peterson when that
publication was transferred to them. He became busi-
ness manager and book-keeper on the new venture of
Mr. Graham also, and continued on it until Graham's
failure in 1848. He then proposed to me to join him
on equal shares in the purchase of the subscription
list of a New York periodical called The Union Maga-
zine, which could be had for five thousand dollars. I
was not inclined to agree to it, having a few years
before lost several thousand dollars in Camphell's For-
eign Semi-Monthly. But Sloanaker made such alluring
representations, and urged the project so forcibly, that
I committed the mistake of embarking on that “fool's
errand.” It was indeed a disastrous venture to me and
to all fish that were caught in my partner's net. He
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ana I owned the magazine in equal shares, as we pro-
vided the purchase money equally for the Union Mag-
azine list, and our duties were also divided. I was to
conduct the art department and he the business man-
agement, each with a salary. For editor-in-chief we
engaged Professor John S. Hart, associated with Mrs.
Caroline M. Kirkland, who had been editor of the
work we had purchased. The first number was launched
January 1, 1849, under the title of Sartain's Union
Magazine.
The literary friend at whose instance this book of my
reminiscences is written insists that I insert in this
connection a list of our writers and the prices paid for
their articles, as an indication of the change in current
rates between now and half a century ago. I should
never have thought of doing this but for his urgent
insistence, and at best I can only touch upon it in the
briefest possible way. To spread out in full all that
Mr. Janvier desires would fill a volume and is there-
fore impossible. Even a mere list of all our contribu-
tors would reach a tedious length, and effort to give
the prices paid would require much time spent in
singling out each particular article from a number by
the same author. The whole expenses for the literary
department for 1849 were $7,174, including editors'
salaries, and the total cost of everything for that year
was $34,592.75. Among our contributors were Henry
W. Longfellow, J. Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor,

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Harriet Martineau, W. Gilmore Simms, Frederika
Bremer, Lydia Maria Child, Edgar Allan Poe, John
Neal, Nathaniel P. Willis, Joseph R. Chandler, George
H. Boker, Charles G. Leland, George W. Bethune,
D. D., Horace Binney Wallace, Thomas Buchanan
Read, Prof. Joseph Alden, Henry Tuckerman, Park
Benjamin, Henry B. Hirst, Mrs. Sigourney, Dr. Wil-
liam Elder, William H. Furness, D. D., R. H. Stod-
dard, Fan Featherby, Francis de H. Janvier, Francis
J. Grund, Thoreau, John S. Dwight, Fanny Forester,
Miss Brown, Silver Pen, Eliza L. Sproat, Edith and
Caroline May, Mary Howitt, Thomas Dunn English,
Alice and Phæbe Cary, Frances S. Osgood, Miss E.
A. Starr, Henry W. Herbert, Mrs. Annie H. Stevens,
Mrs. Sedgwick, Ignatius L. Donnelly, Mrs. C. H.
Esling, Anna Lynch, Grace Greenwood and others
too numerous to mention. As to the prices paid I can
mention only a few. Longfellow never received less
than fifty dollars each for his numerous articles. Hor-
ace Binney Wallace was paid forty dollars for his arti-
cle on Washington Irving, and Poe received forty-five
dollars for The Bells. In the form he first submitted
it, consisting of eighteen lines of small merit, he re-
ceived fifteen dollars, but after he had rewritten and
improved it to a hundred and thirteen lines he was
paid thirty dollars more. Poe received thirty dollars
for his article on The Poetic Principle.
Dr. Bethune's four-page articles on Aunt Betsy brought

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him fifty dollars each. Nathaniel P. Willis and Joseph
R. Chandler received fifty dollars each for their five
or six page articles, and Francis J. Grund sixty-five
dollars for his paper on Kossuth. John Neal was paid
twenty-five dollars for What is Poetry? and Prof. Jo-
seph Alden averaged thirty-five dollars for each of his
contributions. Miss Brown and Edith and Caroline
May averaged about ten or twelve dollars per poem,
and William Dowe was content to receive four dollars
per page for his prose, a page holding nearly nine
hundred words. Many poems of merit were printed
that cost only five dollars each, it being well under-
stood that the name is valued as well as the writing.
In connection with this subject of prices paid to au-
thors, the following note from Poe to his publishers,
Carey & Lea, is not without interest.
I
AM anxious that your firm should continue to be
my publishers, and if you would be willing to bring
out the book I should be glad to accept the terms
you allowed me before—that is—you receive all
profits and allow me twenty copies for distribution to
friends.
Will you be kind enough to give me an early reply
to this letter, and believe me
Yours very respectfully,
EDGAR ALLAN POE.

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Ge
I am ancious that your firme should continue to
my publishus, and, of you would be willing to bring
the book, I should be glad to accept the terms which you
allowed me before that as - you receive all profit, and allow
twenty copies for distribution a friends
be kind crough to give
me an early
seply to this letter, and believe me
Fourtveryreos
Apoc
will
bitzaritze
This is in remarkable contrast with the terms he could
have secured at the present time, although it must be
remembered that the above note relates to the repro-
duction of matter that had already been published.
The sharp competition among the very numerous
periodicals of the present day has increased the de-
mand for manuscripts and consequently their money
value, while at the same time the greatly enlarged
circulation of late years enables publishers to pay more
liberally than was possible with the small issues of
nearly half a century ago. Gerald Griffin, author of
Colleen Bawn, was elated at being offered so much as
five dollars per page for sketches for the Literary Ga-
zette, the pages being quarto and the type small.
Late in the year 1852 it suited the personal and pri-
vate interests of my partner, who had the business
management in his hands, to bring the affairs of the
Magazine to a close. The last four numbers of that

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year were supplied to our subscribers by a New York
magazine. This set me free once more to give my un-
divided attention to my proper business of engraving.
The consequences of the transaction, however, re-
mained long a heavy burden on me. I was determined
to pay in full and with interest all paper that bore my
signature, and it was more than seven years and a half
before I had paid off the last of my endorsements.
Although my labours connected with the Magazine
were often of a vexatious nature and cost me the
sacrifice of money and valuable time, and were a hin-
drance in my proper field of art work, yet they were
not without counterbalancing pleasures in the personal
acquaintance and friendship of professional writers.
My own profession has brought me in contact with
the leading men of the country throughout my long
career. There are few distinguished men, especially
before the day of photography, whose portraits I have
not engraved, from the presidents down through all
branches of statesmanship, finance, art, and literature.
From many I had personal sittings, which often re-
sulted in delightful friendships. I recall one amusing
episode in connection with the engraving I made of
Charles Sumner. I had received a note which I thought
was written by Prescott, making an appointment for
Sumner and Prescott to call at my office. When I
learned that it was in Sumner's hand he thought my
face expressed disappointment, and, long after, he

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REMINISCENCES
spoke of it to me again, showing what a deep impres-
sion such a trivial occurrence had made upon him.
As literary men are always of interest to the public, I
will devote a few pages to the recollections of my in-
tercourse with some of the contributors to Sartain's
Magazine. Henry B. Hirst, a rollicking companion
of Poe's, to whom recently there has been an effort
made to ascribe some of Poe's best poems, wrote for
the magazine every month during 1852. In May he
began a series called Rhein Wein, Flagon First, and so
on. The poems were brilliant till the fourth, which
showed a sudden breaking down, and he soon gave
marked signs of a complete decay of his faculties.
Hirst's office was within a stone's throw of my house
in Sansom Street, and he would come in on me two
or three times every day. Sometimes he would insist
on dragging me off to drink absinthe with him, but
he succeeded twice only. I then resolutely stopped,
for I knew the evil of it. He did not stop, and the
end is well known. Every time he left my office he
said, “Eau reservoir,” with a wave of his hand, and
seemed proud of the witticism.
Miss Clarke speaks of him as one of the nightly vis-
itors in her father's editorial sanctum. She says,
“Henry B. Hirst would come swaggering in, making
rings of cigar smoke and telling yarns galore. “The
most accomplished liar of his day' they used to call
him. Among his highly figurative accounts of his own

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AMERICA
talents was one, that it was a common thing for him
when a school-boy to commit to memory ten pages
or three hundred lines of a Greek or Latin poem
while walking up three flights of stairs. He was always
falling in love with one or other of the girl visitors at
our house, and would spout extempore verses by the
yard. Some impromptu verses of his in an album are
still preserved. A very pretty girl, now Mrs. Robert
Mustin, had begged him to write something for her.
He asked her what he should write on. She quickly
answered, ‘On paper.' Without hesitation he indited
the following:
Fair sheet, whose spotless face I stain,
Forgive my sinless crime;
At woman's call I weave my chain
In very sorry rhyme.
In very sorry rhyme I weave
A strain which staggers me,
And—for the last much more I grieve-
Somewhat disfigures thee.
H. B. H.
Another day for the same lady he wrote,
Cold be my heart when the light of thy beauty
Departs, and my brow he in sorrow laid low,
For to love thee, dear maiden, is nought but a duty,
A duty which brings me more pleasure than woe.
15
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REMINISCENCES
Then how should it hring me, ah, never the glances
That leap from thine eyes so delightful with light,
'Twould gladden my soul like the brooklet that dances
The brighter when warmed by the kisses of night.”
Miss Clarke continues, “Among the callers or stop-
pers-in would be ‘Tom' as he was called, Dr. Thomas
Dunn English, who, after being hon camarade with
Hirst and Poe, quarrelled with one or both. All three
of them happening in early one evening, they had to
be kept apart lest they come to deadly strife. English
was put in the parlour, Hirst in the library, where he
was in the habit of lying prone on a lounge by the
hour, dreaming dreams and seeing visions, and Poe
was shown as usual into the dining-room.”
In his broken-down condition, result doubtless of the
absinthe habit, Hirst would come to see me often and
stay until late in the night. Seated beside me he would
attempt to write poetry. Purring like a cat and sway-
ing his body to and fro to the rhythm he was trying,
he would jot down words here and there with intervals
left to be filled up. Sometimes I would suggest an ap-
propriate word, when down it would go with “That's
it, that's just it.” He was in such a dilapidated state
physically and mentally that I continued in dread that
he might die on my hands then and there.
But before he fell into this sad condition, and while he
was still in his prime, we had some pleasant times. I

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well remember a day when my valued friend, R. H.
Stoddard, the poet, spent an afternoon in my office
with Hirst and me. It was a genuine feast of reason
and flow of soul, but Bacchus was not of the company.
Mr. Stoddard was always from the first a welcome con-
tributor to the magazine, and continued so to the end.
His Carmen Nature Triumphale, published in the num-
ber for May, 1852, was an admirable production, and
I had engraved for it a heading after Retsch, as fine a
work of art as I esteemed the poem to be. About the
same time he read to us some exquisitely beautiful pas-
sages from an unfinished poem, The Search for Persephone.
I do not know whether he ever completed it.
One day I received a visit from John Howard Payne
at my home in Sansom Street. After conversing some
time on literary subjects, he said that he had received
a government appointment as consul at Tunis, Africa,
and that it had occurred to him that possibly I might
like to have an occasional article from that interesting
locality. I said I thought it would be very desirable
and wished he would take the trouble to call upon
Professor Hart, our editor, who had entire control of
his department. With him suitable arrangements could
be made if he took the same view of the matter as I
did. I knew that he was already overloaded with mate-
rial, and it was my rule to abstain from interfering
with his business. Whether the interview took place I
never knew, but certainly nothing ever came of it.

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REMINISCENCES
Before Payne left I asked him to oblige me by accom-
panying me to Marcus Root's gallery to sit for his
portrait. To this he cheerfully consented. The picture
was a daguerreotype, for it was before the days of pho-
tographs on paper. After it was done he remarked,
“This is the last portrait I shall ever sit for.” Some
years later I lent this picture in New York, and it was
never returned to me.
While I was in London as chief of the art department
of the American exhibition at Earl's Court in 1887, a
portrait of Payne was brought me by its owner, and I
hung it on the wall of one of the six picture galleries.
It was painted by Charles R. Leslie at a time when
both the artist and his subject were young. It repre-
sented Payne in the character of Hamlet, and was life-
size on a 25x30 canvas. The owner was anxious to
dispose of it, and I wrote to my friend, Mr. W. W.
Corcoran of Washington. As he had taken so much
interest in Payne as to cause his remains to be brought
from Africa to the land of his birth and to defray all
the expenses attending it, I supposed he would be
glad to secure the portrait, but it was declined.
Apropos of literary men I may mention that I have
in my collection of autographs a letter from Bayard
Taylor written to me when he was a boy of seventeen,
asking me to train him to be an engraver. The corre-
spondence ended with my answer that I never took
pupils, but his letter chanced to be preserved, and it

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came again under my notice when he had risen into
prominence in the world of letters.
It would hardly do to pass over in total silence a con-
dition of affairs that during many years seriously af-
fected my personal interests through my affiliation
with the anti-slavery party. The organization of the
society that advocated the right of the slave to imme-
diate emancipation occurred on the first day of Au-
gust, 1835, the date being chosen because it was the
first anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the
West Indian dependencies of the British Empire.
This sudden change had passed off peaceably, not-
withstanding the predictions of scenes of violence by
those who favoured the continuance in bondage of all
people of African descent.
The consequences to all known to belong to that
hated and despised association were in various ways
extremely damaging. All kinds of obloquy were heaped
upon them, and most absurd falsehoods were invented
to render them odious. So many people had profitable
business relations with the South that they banded
together as one man to stamp out an alleged heresy
that threatened harm to the pocket, and the large
number of southern youths studying in our northern
colleges enjoyed the fomenting of riotous tumults
whenever opportunity offered. Those were indeed
“times that tried men's souls.”
Slavery, however, continued to grow in power, and the
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moral suasion principles of the abolitionists looked
ridiculous, but still the party did not disband, although
they felt the case was hopeless. Little did they think
that the very strengthening of slavery was to hasten
its destruction. It was said of old, “Whom the gods
would destroy they first make mad,” and the over-
bearing insolence of the slave-power reached a pitch
that passed the bounds of northern endurance. Penn-
sylvania law made slaves free as soon as they touched
her soil, provided they had been brought there by
their owners, and cases occurred in which personal
slave-servants availed themselves of their right as soon
as they were informed of it. Pennsylvanians were not
a little proud of this statute, and the new law passed
by the United States Congress, by which every one
could be converted into a slave-catcher on demand,
was the last straw that broke the camel's back. The
North was aroused and elected Lincoln president, with
the result we know.
One fact stands out prominently in this struggle be-
tween right and wrong, and I, as an Englishman and
as a sufferer for conscience' sake, have a claim to
speak. It is highly discreditable to human nature that
as the North for years sided generally with the slave-
power, all for the greed of gain, so for the same mo-
tive England, after goading America incessantly with
irritating sneers about the disgrace of slavery, sided
with slavery against freedom as soon as the conflict
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AMERICA
began. During the war I went to Europe with my
daughter Emily, and can speak of the feeling in Great
Britain from personal knowledge and experience.
The last plate I engraved before leaving in 1862 was
from West's large picture known as Christ Rejected,
which had been brought to this country by Mr. Joseph
Harrison, who gave me the commission. The work on
the steel was thirty-six inches in length and twenty-
five in height, and there were more than seventy
heads in the composition. This painting is now in the
possession of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts, having been presented to it by Mr. Harrison's
widow.
A few years later Mr. Harrison gave me a commis-
sion to engrave another plate of the same size, as com-
panion to Christ Rejected. It was from a picture painted
for him by Christian Schussele, entitled King Solomon
and the Iron Worker, illustrating a rabbinical legend that
at the dedication of Solomon's Temple a blacksmith
occupied the seat of honour at the right of the king.
While a boy, working in a machine shop, Harrison
had come across this legend, and it appealed strongly
to him as upholding and typifying the dignity of man-
ual labour. After the successful completion of his con-
tracts with the Russian government for building rail-
ways, he realized a lifelong project in giving the order
for this picture, and the commission for the engraving
followed.
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I engraved two other unusually large plates soon
after, Men of Progress, a group of American inventors
after a painting by Schussele, and the Battle of Gettys-
hurg after Rothermel's big canvas painted for the
state of Pennsylvania. The Men of Progress steel finally
came into the possession of the Scientific American, and
disappeared in the disastrous fire which destroyed
their property.
The story of the way the Christ Rejected picture came
to be brought to this country is worth relating. Rich-
ardson, the Philadelphia picture-restorer, was in Lon-
don, and strolling one day up Rathbone Place, he saw
a small written placard in a shop window on the oppo-
site side of that narrow way. He crossed to read it and
found that it was a notice that West's great picture of
Christ Rejezted was within and for sale. He went in to
see it and make inquiries, but was told that to unroll
it and show it would be a work of so much time and
labour they would have to charge for it. Asking how
much it would cost, the answer was eight pounds, so he
went no further in the matter.
After his return to Philadelphia he casually alluded
to the incident one day in Mr. Harrison's company,
and said to him, “That 's a picture you ought to get,”
but elicited no rejoinder. Many months later, he
asked Mr. Harrison if he had ever given a thought
to the West painting, and to his surprise and gratifica-
tion received the answer, “What if it is already on its
[ 232 ]

Milice
J.S. 1837
EDO-
FRIENDS' MEETING-HOUSE AT SPRINGFIELD (NOW SWARTHMORE), DELAWARE Co., Penn.
Where Benjamin West received Permission to become a Painter

AMERICA
way here?” My plate from it was executed under
great difficulties, for the picture hung on the end wall
of a long room in Handel and Haydn Hall, which
belonged to Mr. Harrison, imperfectly lighted at one
side only by a small, double window, while the rest
of the canvas, the larger part, was in obscurity.
I have accomplished two other commissions under
still greater difficulties, and both resulted successfully.
The first was a whole-length portrait of Martin Van
Buren, engraved from the painting by Henry Inman
that hung in the Governor's Room in the City Hall,
New York. The city authorities refused to lend the
picture, so I made a sketch by the eye alone, without
the aid of any of the usual appliances. After engrav-
ing the plate in my studio in Philadelphia, I took a
proof to New York and touched on it with white
chalk for corrections, and thus finished my work, hav-
ing had only four days in all with the original. When
I submitted the proof to the painter he was very
much pleased with it, and had no suggestions to offer
for its further improvement. Inman had warned me
in advance, when I was about to apply for the loan
of the picture, that the chances would be against me,
because he, my backer, was a democrat, while the ma-
jority of the aldermen were whigs. They were very
courteous to me, however, and insisted on my par-
taking with them of the supper which intervened mid-
way in the evening's business. I learned elsewhere of
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an offence Inman had committed in offering the toast,
“Let us democrats hold together, and let the whigs
hang together.”
The other large plate that I engraved under similar
disadvantages was from Leutze's painting of John Knox
and Mary, Queen of Scots. This picture was adopted as
the subject of the annual distribution print of the
Philadelphia Art Union, through the advocacy of its
president, Mr. James McMurtrie. But the painting
was owned by Mr. John Towne, who, although a
member of the board of managers, refused to lend the
picture, chiefly out of antagonism to McMurtrie, who
had scoffed contemptuously at his knowledge and
judgment in art matters. Some peacemakers inter-
vened, however, and I was permitted to make a
sketch, and the plate was engraved in the same way as
the Van Buren had before been done.
As a general thing I did an enormous amount of work
at my own proper business, in addition to a great deal
from which I ought to have kept myself free. During
my editorship of my Foreign Semi-Monthly I accom-
plished my regular amount of engraving in orders from
publishers and others, besides finishing a plate every
two weeks for my own periodical, frequently ending
my day's stint by correcting printers' proof at one
o'clock in the morning. I engraved for E. H. Butler
in one summer season as many as forty-five plates for
the annuals he published himself or prepared for Bos-

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ton publishers, as well as the quarto plates for Carey
and Hart's annual, The Diadem, edited by the Rev.
William H. Furness.
In 1847 I owned and edited a quarto volume entitled
The American Gallery of Art. As it is now out of sight
and entirely a thing of the past, I may be excused for
quoting a review of it by Dr. William Elder. “The
work before us, the first volume it ought to be called,
is in quarto, very elegantly bound, a hundred and ten
pages of letter-press and eleven engravings, all exe-
cuted by the editor's own unsurpassed skill. Mr. Sar-
tain to the genius and industry of eminent art adds its
richest enthusiasm and most generous spirit, and the
heart of the man liberalizes the work of the artist. In
his personal character the public has the best assurance
of the worthiest work which his high and broad range
of talent qualifies him to achieve.”
When the large plate of Christ Rejected was finished,
as I have said, my daughter and I departed for Eu-
rope, going by the way of Canada. At Quebec our trip
and my life's journey came very near being brought to
a full stop. On the morning of sailing I went out for
a short stroll before breakfast, and descended to a
street between the water and the foot of the Mount.
Here I walked along forgetfully so far that I inquired
of a cottager if there were no short way back. He said
I could climb the path which zigzagged up from just
where I stood, and he pointed to a couple of men
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me,
near the top, but it was “mighty onconvanient.” I re-
marked that where they could go I could, and started.
Unfortunately, when near the top I missed the path,
mistaking a watercourse for it. This soon became so
steep that I could advance only by fitting my breast
against the surface of the earth and wriggling myself
forward like a worm. I caught a glimpse under my arm-
pit of the top of the tall mast of a large ship far below
me. Goethe says, “Courage gone, all's gone,” and so
it seemed with me. By slow degrees I reached the
true path above, and, arrived at the top, I lay down
on the grass, face to the sky, and panted, my heart
beating more violently than it ever did before or since.
Such a childish panic had taken possession of
that
I came near letting myself go down the cliff to death
in sheer despair.
We had been on the ship only seven days when we
landed at Londonderry in the north of Ireland, -a
short passage for those days. Thence we went to Bel-
fast and across to Glasgow, then to Edinburgh by
way of the Trossachs and Loch Katrine, and through
the most interesting places of England to London,
where we made a long stay, studying the International
Exhibition, then open, and the other attractions of
the great modern Babylon. When later we went to
Florence, taking Paris on the way, we travelled over,
not under, Mont Cenis, as the mountain had not then
been tunnelled. I had with me an order to engrave a

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large plate after Schussele's Zeishurger preaching to
the Indians. The steel, and a black-and-white copy of
the painting by the artist himself, were forwarded to
meet us on our arrival at Florence, and there we
settled down for a delightful season of work and en-
joyment in that beautiful city. Its broad mediæval
walls, now represented by the gates only, were stand-
ing intact. Donatello's St. George still stood in the
niche in the outside wall of Or San Michele where
the sculptor himself had placed it; the Old Market,
the Ghetto, and many other characteristic features of
the Florence of Dante and Savonarola were as yet
unmolested by the modern spirit of change. We had
apartments in the Via Maggio, Street of May, and
not far away was the house immortalized by Elizabeth
Barrett Browning in her Casa Guidi Windows. Hart,
the American sculptor, had rooms in Casa Grazzini,
as had also Larkin G. Mead, who was then only be-
ginning as an artist, but has now attained so high a
rank in his profession as to be professor in the Flor-
entine Academy of San Marco, although an American
sculptor. It was through Mr. Hart's interest that we
were lodged in the same house with him. About the
year 1842, when he was in Philadelphia with his mar-
ble bust of Cassius M. Clay, I had the opportunity
of being of some service to him, and he never forgot it.
Hart was a kind-hearted man, and when young Mead
arrived in Florence he invited him to make use of his
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studio in the Piazza Indipendenza, in the newly-built
portion of the city. Here, as a study, Mead modelled
in clay a copy of an antique, a female torso. On Mr.
Hart's suggestion that it would be good practice, he
added a head and arms and legs according to his
judgment of what should be the movement, with
successful result. The final pose and name of his com-
pleted statue originated in a novel and entertaining
fashion. He was at that time unacquainted with the
Italian language, and hearing the waiters in the restau-
rants constantly exclaiming “Ecco” as they placed
before the guests the dishes that had been called for,
the sound suggested the idea of naming his figure
Echo, which he rendered appropriate by slight modifi-
cations of the action to make her appear as if listening.
Some Washington friends, who had accompanied us
abroad, and with whom we had travelled considerably
in Europe, joined us later at Casa Grazzini, and their
intimate friend and neighbour, Mr. W. W. Corcoran,
was a frequent visitor. He thus became acquainted
with Mead and his work, and I took occasion to say
to him that a commission to an artist just beginning
his career, even if it amounted to but a few hundred
dollars, was of more importance than as many thou-
sands would be later on. He acted upon it and gave
Mead an order to put his Echo into marble for him.
Mead's first effort in art, and that which decided his
future, was both romantic and ingenious. One cold
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night, in Brattleboro, Vermont, the last of December,
after all the townspeople were buried in slumber he
conceived the idea of building up out of snow a co-
lossal statue, to symbolize the Recording Angel noting
the good and the bad actions of the year just dead.
By hard labour the figure grew through the hours of
the night, and as it grew, water was thrown on it from
time to time, which froze immediately, and gave it
strength to stand as it rose stage by stage to its final
completion. Judge of the surprise of the neighbours
in the morning when they wakened and beheld the
artistic creation which the evening before had no ex-
istence: the snow angel, pen in hand, recording on a
scroll the deeds of the past year.
In 1887, there was held at Earl's Court, near London,
an American exhibition, and the department of fine
arts was confided to me. In the collection of sculpture
there was a beautiful figure by Larkin G. Mead. It
was a reproduction of his Recording Angel, only this
was the finished work of the matured artist, realizing
the crude suggestion of the novice's initial perform-
ance.
Through Mead's introduction, we made the acquaint-
ance of his brother-in-law, William D. Howells, at
that time consul to Venice, who came on a brief visit
to Florence. His literary work was then realistic pic-
tures of Venice and its people. When we afterwards
went to the city of the sea, we spent some most agree-
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able hours with him and his wife in their hospitable
home overlooking the Grand Canal. Soon after our
arrival, we started to call upon them, but the difficulty
of finding one's way in those labyrinthine streets made
frequent inquiry necessary, and the answers obtained
in the clipped dialect of the Venetians were not easy
to understand. We scarcely recognized the name of
the Casa Marino Faliero we sought, abbreviated as it
was by our boy guide into the Ca’ Fayare.
[ 240
CHAPTER
XV
A
in
person the
Stanfield, Ruskin, Eastlake, Cornelius, Schnorr, 1863— New
Academy of the Fine Arts — American Exhibition in London,
1887—Encaustic Painting
BUS I was about to start on this extended trip
over the larger part of Europe, I proposed
to my colleagues in the Board of Directors
of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts that it
would be a good opportunity to present
diplomas to its honorary members abroad, free of ex-
pense to the institution. They gladly availed them-
selves of my suggestion, and the engraved certificates
were filled up, and Mr. Caleb Cope, then the presi-
dent, signed them. With some of these honorary
members I had extremely interesting interviews, es-
pecially with Sir Charles Eastlake, John Ruskin,
Clarkson Stanfield, and George Doo, the engraver.
On the occasion of my visit to Mr. Doo, whose
residence was in a village a short distance north of
London, I was received by a lady to whom I was
afterwards introduced as Mrs. Doo. Before Mr. Doo
appeared she talked with me about engravers, asking
many questions as to my likings, and dwelt particu-
larly on James Heath. I assured her how much I ad-
mired his work, and said that among my possessions

16
[ 2.41 ]
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I had not only an impression of his large plate of The
Death of Major Pierson after Copley, but a progress-
proof of its etched stage. I perceived that she was
gratified, and presently she said quietly, “I am his
daughter.” Mr. Doo was a very handsome old gentle-
man, his hair perfectly white and his manners most
courteous. It was interesting to me to compare his ap-
pearance then with what I remembered of him when
young.
Our call upon Mr. Stanfield was an extremely pleas-
ant one. He lived at Hampstead Heath on very ele-
vated ground, and he spoke of the remote places that
were visible from the windows of the upper stories of
his house. He took us into his painting room and
showed us his picture then in progress. Talking over
professional matters he said, “We artists are entirely
in the hands of the dealers nowadays. Mr. Gambart
will see a painting on my easel half done, and he 'll
say, “What will be your price for that when finished ?'
Perhaps I may answer, ‘Six hundred guineas.' He'll
promptly say, “Consider it mine.' After a time the
same thing will occur with another canvas, and so on.
But he will frankly tell me of the large profits he
makes on each sale, and smilingly approve when I
raise the price of the next picture I sell him.'
Mr. Stanfield spoke despondingly of his health, com-
plaining chiefly about his legs. He was tall, but fairly
well proportioned in breadth. I remember seeing him

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in 1821, and he looked taller then, for when he was
young he was thin. I carried a note to him, ordering
a picture that was wanted for an obscure recess among
the shrubbery of Vauxhall Gardens, and I can clearly
recall his appearance as he stood on his canvas on the
floor of the Coburg Theatre.
In the course of conversation he asked us what minor
cities of Italy we expected to visit, and on hearing our
itinerary he exclaimed, “Ah, how I envy you!” He
also asked me if I chanced to know anything of a
scene-painter named Jones, who had emigrated to
America. He knew him as an artist of talent, painting
in a theatre in Edinburgh. I had never met him, and
what little I knew I had learned from
my
friend
Heilge, the scene-painter employed by William E.
Burton, from whom I had obtained quite a number
of sketches by Jones. All but one were in colour,
wild, dreamy things, the prevailing tones being broad
masses of bluish tint contrasted with masses of brown,
a combination always safe. At one time he painted for
the Tremont Theatre in Boston, and produced for it
a drop-curtain so dazzling and splendid in effect, that
when it was first uncovered the entire audience burst
into spontaneous applause. Jones had a very pretty
young daughter, who used to dance on the stage of
the same theatre, in the interval between the serious
play of the evening and the afterpiece, a practice pre-
vailing in those early days of stage management. She
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afterwards married a wealthy Bostonian. Jones had
painted one season at the Arch Street Theatre in
Philadelphia before going to Boston. He was a man
of very few words, and Russell Smith, the artist, told
me that Barrymore, the actor, when about to intro-
duce him to a friend, thought it best to forewarn the
man of this peculiarity, for Jones would perhaps have
almost nothing to say.
Strange things sometimes occur that it is impossible
to account for, and I cannot refrain from telling a
wonderful experience of my own connected with this
visit to Mr. Stanfield. When a boy I was familiar with
all parts of Hampstead Heath, and one night I
dreamed of standing at a certain spot, and assisting
a lady to alight from a carriage. Unlike most dreams,
this one remained fixed and clear in my memory, and
as I handed my daughter from the carriage at Mr.
Stanfield's door, the whole picture of my dream was
realized before my eyes, after a lapse of more than
forty years. I stood bewildered with surprise.
The residence of Mr. John Ruskin was a little south
of the built-up part of London, in the quarter known,
I think, as Denmark Hill. In conformity with the
prevailing custom in England among well-to-do peo-
ple, the house, which was large, was concealed from
outside gaze by a dead wall. It was built of brick,
dark with age, and the effect was rendered all the
more impressive and solemn by the deep shade of

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noble old trees. The centre of the front projected for-
ward in the form of a half hexagon, and on entering
through the door in the middle, it was seen that the
same form was repeated inside, and, thus doubled, it
made a spacious, six-sided vestibule. On one of its
walls hung a large drawing by Mr. Ruskin, the group
of the two children in Paul Veronese's Supper at Em-
maus, in the long gallery of the Louvre.
Our interview with the owner of this fine establish-
ment was most agreeable, and in a measure instructive.
He showed us a number of drawings by Turner, some
of them bold, dashing schemes in black-and-white for
the effect of pictures, others small and so elaborately
minute in finish as to need the aid of a magnifying
glass. He said that to enjoy the full charm of Turner's
paintings it was necessary to see them fresh, and some-
times even before they went to the exhibition, so rap-
idly did their pristine beauties fade, for Turner would
use any pigment whatever that would produce the
desired effect, no matter how fleeting and transitory
the hue. I spoke in praise of his admirable character-
ization of the qualities of Turner's work, in the first
volume of Modern Painters, when he exclaimed, “Oh,
that was a very juvenile performance. I wrote it when
I was only twenty.” He made some remarks on our
Civil War, which he termed our “wow in America,”
for he had difficulty with the letter “r.” “Before you
leave,” he said, “I want you to take a glass of my
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father's wine.” I did not then know that his father
had been a wine merchant, and so understood his
words in a different sense. We drank the fine sherry
in his study on the first floor, where he had taken us
to see the Turners and some sketches by his Pre-
Raphaelite friends. Over the mantel hung a spirited
copy by himself of the Bacchus from the Titian in
the National Gallery; “the old man's god,” he called
him. He also showed us a full-size
copy
of a life-size
figure from a fresco in Venice, which he had just made
in aid of a Parliamentary Inquiry into the causes of
the rapid deterioration of the frescoes in the Houses
of Parliament. He said that he had reproduced exactly
and minutely this mural painting in Venice, to show
its good condition after three centuries of exposure to
the exhalations of a body of water much larger than
the Thames.
Sir Charles Eastlake, the president of the Royal Acad-
emy, I found to be a most charming gentleman. His
residence was a stone-fronted house in Fitzroy Square.
He said that he felt highly honoured by this mark of
appreciation on the part of the Academy of Arts in
Philadelphia, and he especially admired the beauty of
the vignette on the diploma, which represented the
Academy building on Chestnut Street as reconstructed
after the fire, from Haviland's design. It was engraved
by myself from a drawing by James Hamilton. In the
course of conversation I spoke to him of his exquisite

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picture, owned by the Philadelphia Academy through
the donation of the Carey Collection, his Hagar and
Ishmael. I expressed my admiration of that perfect
work, but not what is and always has been my convic-
tion, that it is equal to Raphael's best, lest he should
regard my words as mere flattery. I told him that I
had engraved it, and if I could find an impression of
my plate after my return home, I would send it to
him. He desired earnestly that I should do so, but
unfortunately none were left in my
folios.
This mention of my estimate of Eastlake's Hagar and
Ishmael reminds me of a conversation I had with Wash-
ington Allston at his home in Cambridge. I was speak-
ing of my own admiration of the works of Thomas
Stothard in contrast with John Phillip's scorn of them,
who said, "He had little dolls dressed up and drew
them into his pictures.” Now mark what was Allston's
comment: “Stothard ? Good as Raphael !”
In Berlin we saw the venerable Cornelius, who be-
longed less to that city than to Munich, which pos-
sesses the most important of his great works. But the
last fifteen years of his life were spent in Berlin, on
the pressing invitation of William the Fourth of Prus-
sia, to enrich the walls of the Campo Santo or Royal
Mausoleum, destined to form one of the wings of the
new cathedral. We visited him at his studio and found
him just setting out with his wife to call on us at our
hotel, he having received a letter from me with the

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Academy diploma. Like all the others, he expressed
with warmth the gratification he felt at the honour
conferred. He showed us his drawings for portions of
the Campo Santo pictures, which I thought more
beautiful than any of his works I had seen at Munich.
I asked him whether he used the modern German
method of fresco, to which he answered emphatically
“No! I would not trust my work to any but the an-
cient, true and genuine fresco. There is a man paint-
ing in that way in the new library” (meaning Kaul-
bach), “but not I.” At the date of this interview, 1863,
Cornelius must have been about sixty-five years of
age, his wife less than half that.
We had a letter of introduction to Kaulbach, but he
was away from the city and we presented it to his wife,
who put us in the way of seeing her husband's great
work in progress in the grand stairway of the library.
We thus had an opportunity of seeing the modern
method that Cornelius despised, in actual process of
execution. It surely has certain advantages over the
old method, in which the work had to be finished in
sections and could not be retouched, while here the
artist could work up his effect in its entirety, retouch-
ing at will, and only when it pleased him spray on
with an atomizer the water-glass or liquid silica, which
unites with the lime of the wall and hardens the work
into stone.
When we arrived in Dresden, Julius Schnorr von

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Karolsfeld was there, and we sent to his residence at
once his diploma with an explanatory letter, and then
hastened to the famous picture gallery. Professor
Schnorr called immediately at our hotel, and followed
us to the gallery, differentiating us from the crowd
chiefly by the colour of my daughter's dress, which he
had taken the precaution to ascertain. He was a tall
man with a prominent aquiline nose, and a benign ex-
pression of countenance that was very charming. He
seemed proud of the compliment the American Acad-
emy had paid him, and wondered how they could
have acquired a knowledge of him and his work. The
honorary members on the continent of Europe had
in fact been selected by virtue of their position as pre-
siding heads of the art institutions of their city or
state, but the great works this artist had accomplished
were widely known. Those done for King Ludwig at
Munich he must have been aware were of world-wide
repute, and his admirable illustrations of Bible history,
published by the Literary and Artistic Institution of
Munich, had obtained large circulation and hearty ap-
preciation in America, both in the original and in
copies. He was much gratified by my assurance of
this. I found him one of the pleasantest men I have
had the fortune to meet. In every art of Europe, we
had interesting interviews with the honorary members
of the Academy, but I fear to become tedious and will
let the preceding suffice.
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This was my second visit to Europe, for I had gone
abroad in 1855, chiefly drawn there by the Interna-
tional Exhibition in Paris, and I went again for the
next of the great French expositions. On this last
occasion, in 1868, I had hoped to meet in Paris my
friend Christian Schussele, a French artist, pupil of
Paul Delaroche, who had settled in Philadelphia, and
won the high esteem of his fellow artists and of his
adopted fellow citizens. Overwork had broken down
his health, and he was now seeking a restoration of
vigour in his native air. On my arrival, I found that
Schussele and his wife had gone to Strasburg, so I
followed them there, and was pained to see that my
friend's paralytic affliction had grown much worse.
The time could not be far distant when he would be
unable to paint, but he would not be incapacitated for
teaching, and I conceived a plan for establishing a
proper art school at the Pennsylvania Academy, with
Christian Schussele as professor.
There had never yet been in the Academy an organized
school with regular paid instructors. Its collection of
casts from the antique, destroyed in the fire, had not
been replaced until some twelve or thirteen years
after, when the affairs of the institution awakened into
a state of livelier interest. The artists began to contri-
bute freely to the annual spring exhibitions, and the
public attended in paying numbers, especially in the
evening, the galleries being well lighted. A number of

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schools upon
casts were then procured from London and Paris, and
a well-lighted room for study and their display was
provided under the north picture gallery. Here stu-
dents of art drew from the casts, and when sufficiently
advanced were admitted into the life-class, a class car-
ried on at their own expense, the Academy merely
lending them the use of the room under the south-
east gallery. I was always a contributing member of
this life-class, and one of its committee.
Now seemed the opportunity for organizing the
the
proper
basis. After maturing the
entire plan in my mind, I suggested it to Schussele.
He was pleased with the idea, and we arranged to-
gether the terms that would be acceptable, and many
of the details. Upon my return to Philadelphia, the
committee of instruction and the board in turn con-
curred most heartily in the scheme, and thus in 1870
began the art schools of the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts.
About this time the institution began to feel cramped
for
space, and as the adjacent property could not be
obtained, it seemed advisable to look around for an-
other site. This action was precipitated by an offer
of one hundred and forty thousand dollars for its
ground to build a theatre. The transfer was to take
place without delay, so the Academy stored its pictures
and found temporary quarters for its schools. A lot
one hundred feet front by two hundred and sixty feet

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deep was secured on Broad Street, at the corner of
Cherry, and plans were invited. The designs sub-
mitted, however, while pretty enough in exterior ef-
fect, were within altogether unsuited to the uses re-
quired, notwithstanding full printed instructions as to
what was needed. So all were rejected, the one thou-
sand dollars offered in prizes were divided among the
three best, and the drawings returned to the owners.
My long practical experience in the working of the
institution having made me better acquainted than
any one else with its needs, I was then asked to pre-
pare plans for the distribution of the class-rooms and
galleries on both floors, irrespective of course of the
architectural forms, which were the province of the
architects selected, Messrs. Furness and Hewitt. Thus
commissioned I entered on the task with all my heart,
and was enthusiastic to the degree that I felt as if the
design and my individuality were merged into one. I
could have breathed the prayer of Socrates: “O my
beloved Pan, and all other gods, grant me to be beau-
tiful within!”
The corner stone was laid December 7, 1872, at the
northeast angle of one of the courses, over a cavity
containing a collection that cannot fail to be interest-
ing to explorers of the remote future. It was hoped
that the building might be erected for a quarter of a
million dollars, but it cost double that, including the
price of the ground, ninety-five thousand dollars. It

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was completed, ready for occupancy, by the spring of
1876, so that its first exhibition opened simultaneously
with the Centennial International Exhibition in Fair-
mount Park. The schools were installed in their new,
well-lighted quarters under Professor Schussele’s di-
rection, and all the branches of the institution soon
settled again into their usual order in their new home.
This was, however, with some exceptions. The by-
laws, or a resolution of the board of directors having
the force of a by-law and adopted without one dis-
senting voice, had established a body of Pennsylvania
Academicians, and had provided that the exhibition
committee should be composed of three Academicians
elected by their own body, and three directors ap-
pointed in like manner by their own board. The com-
mittee of instruction was composed the same way. The
financial management remained, of course, with the
board of directors, which was elected by the stock-
holders. But after I ceased to be chairman of the com-
mittee of exhibitions in 1877, this was all ignored.
In
my opinion, the Academy would gain character and
respect by returning to that rational arrangement, es-
tablished by the directors while Mr. Cope was presi-
dent, thus buttressing itself by a phalanx of Academi-
cians comprising the best resident talent of the city.
It would then no longer be at loose ends, liable to
have its exhibitions capriciously controlled by out-
side irresponsible cliques, encouraging nonsensical va-
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garies and temporary fads to the detriment of true,
honest art.
As soon as the galleries were opened to the public with
the annual exhibition of 1877, I resigned my member-
ship in the board of directors, having, as I considered,
given my full share of time to its service during a
period of twenty-three years, though still feeling as
warm an interest in its welfare as ever.
When in 1886 a project for holding an American ex-
hibition in London took shape, an art department
necessarily formed a prominent feature of the enter-
prise, needing at its head one of large experience in
work of that nature. Accordingly I was selected for
the task, and was made chief of the bureau of art.
Having collected American pictures in Philadelphia,
New York and Boston, I afterwards added more from
Paris and London, and American works of sculpture
from Rome and Florence. The collection was good in
quality and filled six galleries, each forty feet square.
I had frequent opportunities of perceiving that the
superior merit of the works was a surprise to the Lon-
don visitors. I give one instance as an example. A gen-
tleman remarked to me, “These pictures are not all by
American painters, are they ?” I assured him that they
were, or they could not have been admitted. “Well,
they are copies of English pictures, are they not?” I said
that no copies were accepted. He said, “Oh, but, my
dear sir, look at that portrait of the Queen; that, of
[ 254 ]

THOMAS SULLY
After Engraving by John Sartain
from the Painting by Thomas Sully
an
AMERICA
course, can only be a copy !” I surprised him by as-
suring him that it was an original, painted by an
American artist, Mr. Thomas Sully, for the American
Society of the Sons of St. George in Philadelphia, of
which I was a member, and that the Queen sat ex-
pressly for it. The liberality with which public bodies
responded to my application for the loan of important
works under their control was most gratifying. Not
only did the Society of the Sons of St. George allow
their valuable picture of the Queen to be risked in a
transit to London, but the State authorities at Har-
risburg passed resolutions authorizing the commis-
sioners of Fairmount Park to lend Rothermel's great
picture, The Battle of Gettysburg, owned by the State,
but temporarily in the keeping of the Park Commis-
sion at Memorial Hall. Of course, it was conditioned
that satisfactory guarantees were furnished for its safe
return or its value in money. It being taken into con-
sideration that as the artist was still living, the work,
if lost, would be reproduced by him from studies and
photographs of its parts and as a whole, it was insured
for thirty thousand dollars.
The commissioners for the erection of the public build-
ings for Philadelphia also lent their magnificent and
costly model, the property of the city. It was necessa-
rily taken apart and packed in no less than thirty-five
separate cases. Fortunately for us, the packing was
done by or under the direction of the owners,
for its

1
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seeming perfection caused the demolition of nearly
three-fourths of the model. After each portion was in
its case it was filled up solid inside and around with
sawdust. The model, being of plaster of Paris, yielded
and broke under the weight of this packing, in the in-
evitable rolling of the boxes from side to side at sea.
On opening them in the Earls Court Galleries at
London, Casani was able to find only enough of the
wreck to build up the north front, together with a
portion of the return angles. The tower was fortunately
complete, and was erected with the aid of a derrick.
I delineated upon the platform the ground-plan of the
whole, and one of the corner pavilions standing re-
mote from the front assisted in completing the idea of
the extent of the entire edifice. At the end of the ex-
hibition, Brucciani's experienced men repacked the
fragments, and ensured their safe return without fur-
ther breakage.
About this time I became very much interested in
what was termed a lost art, encaustic painting as prac-
tised by the ancient Greeks. These tablet pictures, as
they were called, could be moved from place to place
at pleasure, like our modern works in oil or water-
colour. This interest took me again to southern Italy.
I had long been acquainted with the general character
of the art from two books on the subject in my library,
brought to this country in 1839 by Mr. Carey, one
by Count de Caylus, Anne Claude Philippe de Tu-
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AMERICA
bières, Paris, 1755, the other a free translation of it
into English by J. H. Müntz, printed at the Bible
and Crown near Chancery Lane, Holborn, 1760.
The ancients appear to have dropped the practice soon
after the time of Christ, and all memory of the process
disappeared till the attention of Count de Caylus was
attracted to a passage in the writings of Pliny, which
translated would read about thus: “Who first invented
to paint with (or in) wax, and burn (or fix) the picture
with fire is not certainly known. Some think Aristides
invented it and Praxiteles brought it to perfection; but
there were pictures by masters of a much earlier date,
such as Polygnotus and Nicanor and Arcesilaus of
Paros. Lysippus, on his picture at Ægina, inscribed
that he burnt it in, which he could not have done if
encaustic had not been in use already.”
There can now be no doubt that the art was practised
by the Egyptians long before it was known to the
Greeks, and that the latter people derived their know-
ledge of it from Egypt; also that wax formed only
one-third of the vehicle in which the pigments were
ground, two-thirds being of mastic resin. Up to the
last decade or so, only two examples of antique en-
caustic painting had been found, and one of these,
the Muse Polyhymnia now in the Museum of Cortona,
had been discovered some thirty years before Count de
Caylus published his treatise, but he had not happened
to hear of it. It was turned up in ploughing a field

17
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near Centoja, between Chiusi and Montepulciano, by
a peasant who first enshrined it as a Madonna, and
then, when enlightened by his priest, “condemned the
pagan to purgatory,” making the slate slab serve as
door to his oven. It was rescued from this barbarous
treatment in 1735 by the Chevalier Tomaso Tom-
masi, in whose family it remained for a century, till the
Signora Louisa Bartolotti Tommasi presented it to the
Tuscan Academy of Cortona, when it was deposited
in the Etruscan Museum, where I examined it. I later
made an engraving of it after a photograph.
The other encaustic was of Cleopatra in the act of ap-
plying the naja to her breast. It is believed to be the
picture painted by the order of Augustus Cæsar to be
carried in his triumph in Rome, in lieu of the queen
herself, who escaped this degradation by her suicide.
It was discovered in 1818 at Hadrian's Villa, among
the ruins of the Egyptian temple to the god Serapis,
under the canopy as shown in the cut. Like the Muse
of Cortona, it is painted on slate. When found it was
broken into sixteen pieces, but they have been closely
fitted together and securely cemented at the back. It
is the property of my friend the Baroness de Benne-
val, and is preserved in her villa at the Piano di Sor-
rento opposite Naples.
While I was examining the picture I complained of
the imperfect light, and it was removed into the gar-
den in the glaring Italian daylight, that I might have
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every facility for thorough inspection. I made drawings
of some of the details, and a photographer sent for
from Sorrento made a copy from which I engraved a
plate, as I had previously done of the Muse. I also
wrote and published a book on the subject, for which
I am largely indebted to the learned German savant,
Dr. R. Schoener. Readers interested in encaustic paint-
ing will find his exhaustive articles in the four supple-
ments to the Allgemeine Zeitung, 1882, Nos. 227, 228,
229, 230.
It adds to the interest attached to these ancient Greek
encaustic tablet pictures to read of the enormous prices
paid for them. For two pictures by Timomachus the
Byzantine, Julius Cæsar paid the equivalent of $350,-
000, one being of Ajax, the other of Medea, the latter
unfinished. He presented them to the Temple of
Venus Genetrix as a votive offering. A picture by
Apelles, painted for the city of Cos, was accepted three
centuries later by Augustus Cæsar in the place of a
tribute of $100,000. It was a Venus Anadyomene ris-
ing from the sea, and it had suffered irreparable injury
in the lower part of the figure.
The interval between individuals widely remote in
time is sometimes bridged over by a single life, if that
life is linked in youth with an aged person, and in
age with a youthful one. For example, I possess ob-
jects of Shakspearean interest; bits of his desks as
schoolboy and playwright, pieces of his mulberry tree,

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of Herne's oak, and of the crab tree at Shottery, yet
some of these were removed from Stratford one hun-
dred and twenty-eight years ago by Mr. Palmer, and
only a single life has intervened between his life and
my own. Palmer was with Garrick when he went to
Stratford in 1769, to get up his famous Shakspeare
Jubilee, and while Robert Balmanno was still a young
man he received them as a gift from Palmer, and in
turn, when past eighty, bequeathed them to me. An-
other of his interesting relics is now in the possession
of Dr. Horace Howard Furness, the famous Shak-
spearean scholar, a large block of the mulberry tree
that Shakspeare is known to have planted in the gar-
den of his house, New Place, at Stratford. While it
was in Mr. Balmanno's collection, I used to think
that it left Stratford at the time of the jubilee, but
when it was purchased from his widow it was proved
by the accompanying documents that the block was
presented to Garrick by the corporation of Stratford
in 1762, seven years earlier than the jubilee. It is not
improbable that the idea of the jubilee may have
arisen in Garrick's mind through the presentation of
this relic. Garrick's widow, who survived him forty-
three years, cared nothing for such things, and in con-
sequence it reposed in an attic among dust and lumber
until her death in 1822. It was then brought to light
by her executor, Mr. George F. Beltz, with the two
seals intact that Garrick had impressed upon it in red
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AMERICA
wax. That gentleman's brother presented it to Mr.
Crofton Croker, in 1844, who in turn presented it to
Mr. Balmanno in 1854.

[261]
CHAPTER
XVI
Centennial Exhibition, 1876—Stuarts Washington
LTHOUGH the preliminary steps for cele-
brating at Philadelphia the one hundredth
anniversary of the Declaration of Indepen-
dence were taken as early as March, 1871, the Bureau
of Art was not organized until September, 1875, and
in the month following I received the appointment of
chief. A building was already in course of erection at
the joint expense of the city and state, which was to
be lent to the exhibition company for an art gallery,
and to be known as Memorial Hall. This cost a mil-
lion and a half dollars, two-thirds of which were fur-
nished by the state, and the rest by the city. The de-
sign, by a private understanding, was planned to be
suitable for the accommodation of the state legisla-
ture in case a possible removal of that body from
Harrisburg to Philadelphia could at any time be ef-
fected, and this understanding assisted in obtaining so
large an appropriation from the state towards its con-
struction.
At first it was expected that the galleries into which
the building was to be divided would be more than
sufficient for all the works of painting and sculpture
likely to be contributed to the exposition, but the


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applications for space were so numerous that an art
annex was ordered, and was erected to the north of
Memorial Hall. It was equal to it in length and
breadth, and contained thirty galleries, each forty feet
square, besides a larger gallery, one hundred feet by
fifty-four.
When the architect submitted to me his plan, the
doors were all placed in the centre of the walls. I
showed him that they occupied precisely the space
most valuable for the display of pictures, and left only
the corners for that use. I made a sketch for him with
the opening in each room at its angle, cutting it across
diagonally to the line of the walls. Upon this plan the
annex was built, and the effect of the large, unbroken
wall spaces was excellent. When eleven years later the
art department of the American exhibition in London
was placed in my charge, I had the galleries there
built in the same way, and the novel plan was muc
admired.
Italy was later than other nationalities in making
known her desire to participate in the International
Exhibition, and in consequence I had already allotted
most of the space of the art department before her
application was received. But after the art annex was
added I was able to enlarge her space-allotment to the
extent she desired. Count Giuseppe Dassi was the
commissioner who presided over the art exhibit of his
nation, a most estimable and patriotic gentleman, who
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has honoured me with his friendship from that day.
It was my good fortune to find opportunities of largely
promoting the interests of the Italian artists, and in
consideration of Count Dassi’s representation of these
services, King Umberto conferred on me the title of
“Cavaliere,” creating me “Officer of the Royal Eques-
trian Order of the Crown of Italy,” sending the jewel of
the order and my diploma through the Italian Minis-
ter at Washington, who in turn forwarded them to me
through the Italian consul resident in Philadelphia.
It almost always happens at the close of these great
international exhibitions that numbers of contributors
neglect to send for the objects they have had in dis-
play, which after a reasonable time are removed to
some place of storage at the owner's expense and risk.
This difficulty I fortunately escaped through the es-
tablishment in the main building of a permanent exhi-
bition, and as an art department placed in my charge
was included in the plan, there was a home of refuge
provided for what was left over from the Centennial
collection. Here the estrays rested until called for by
the owners from time to time during the next few suc-
ceeding years.
A gentleman in New York, named A. H. Reitlinger,
wrote me that he had four pictures from Paris con-
signed to his care that were intended for the Centen-
nial Exhibition. They were the works of the noted
communist Gustave Courbet, and he had hesitated to

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send them until he was advised they would be accepted
and would find a place on the wall. He was assured
that the pictures would be welcomed, and that the
reputation of so distinguished an artist would certainly
secure them a good place. The pictures were sent
thus through a private channel instead of in the regu-
lar way with the French collection, which would have
freed them of customs duty and other expenses, in
order to evade confiscation by the government of
France. Courbet had been a member of the commu-
nistic government which ordered the demolition of the
Napoleon Column in the Place Vendôme. All his
property that could be found was therefore attached
to help pay the cost of rebuilding it. After the close
of the exhibition the Courbet pictures were,
returned to the agent from whom we had received
them. Subsequently French newspapers raised a com-
plaint against the American exhibition management
for defrauding the artist's widow by not returning her
pictures. No doubt Mr. Reitlinger retained the pictures
only until he had been refunded the amount of the
expense he had incurred.
Few would imagine the difficulties and trials that be-
set a man in a position of such responsibility as I had
assumed, owing to the jealousies and selfishness of
those with whom one has to deal. My resolve to be
strictly impartial in the discharge of my arduous du-
ties brought me into frequent antagonism with one
of course,
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REMINISCENCES
and the other, making it difficult to preserve an out-
ward appearance of calm. If this is true of one who
had but a single department to care for, what must
have been the trials of General Goshorn, bearing on
his shoulders the weight of the entire responsibility ?
His equipoise and serenity under all conditions of af-
fairs was admirable. It is very gratifying to receive
from him a recent letter endorsing my management of
the department confided to my care. It is as follows:

THE
MY DEAR MR. SARTAIN:
HE enclosed slip from one of our daily news-
papers recalls pleasant incidents of our connec-
tion with the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.
Your trials, difficulties and final success come fresh to
my memory as though it were but yesterday. No one
ever succeeded more acceptably in a similar. position.
The best test of the genuine good feeling after it was
all over was the friendly manifestation toward you by
the exhibitors in the department, and the hearty ap-
proval of the public. Your mild, equable temper,
modest bearing and unselfish interest in the work were
admirable; rarely are such good qualities of disposition
and administrative ability happily combined.
I cannot recall those days which tested our patience
and endurance without a feeling of grateful acknow-
ledgment to all who were associated with me in the
administration, and especially do I turn to you. I have
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AMERICA
only the most agreeable recollection of the part you
took in that memorable exhibition.
Now, my dear Mr. Sartain, that you have arrived at
a ripe old age with all your faculties remaining, you
are truly to be congratulated. When I last saw you at
the Paris exhibition in 1889, you seemed vigorous and
full of health and spirit. Since then I have been be-
reaved sorely by the loss of my wife. She too greeted
you cordially, and expressed her surprise at meeting
one so young.
But time rolls on,—soon the summons will come to
us as it has to many of our associates in the Centen-
nial. I again congratulate you on your good health
and venerable age, and trust you may have many
years of happiness in the full enjoyment of life.
Sincerely yours,

a
6
ho
ni
Cincinnati, February 10, 1897.
Some idea of the magnitude of the display in the Cen-
tennial art department alone may be formed from the
fact that it was found by careful measurement that
the length of wall covered with pictures was but little
short of two miles and a half, while the floor-space
actually covered with sculpture measured ten thou-
sand, nine hundred and sixty-two superficial feet.
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REMINISCENCES
As soon as I had received the appointment of chief
of the bureau of art, Mr. William D. Lewis, whom
I had known nearly fifty years, from the time when
he was cashier or president of the Girard Bank, asked
me whether I would like to have a painting owned
by a relative of his in London, the original Lansdowne
picture of Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart for
Mrs. Bingham. It is needless to set down my answer.
He said he believed he could obtain it, and he did
succeed. The painting came out packed among the
British contribution, and although it was the work of
an American artist, it thus got hung in a central posi-
tion in the collection of British art. I tried persistently
to reclaim it, but in vain, so I wrote to Mr. Lewis
and he came to the rescue from his home at Florence
Heights on the Delaware. We went together to the
British residence within the enclosure of the exhibi-
tion grounds, and Mr. Lewis presented the case so
forcibly to Sir Herbert Sandford, that resistance ended
and I transferred the picture to the American depart-
ment, where it properly belonged. By this time the
galleries had all been arranged and catalogued, so that
the best place I could find for it was in the rotunda,
where the light was not so strong as the painting
needed.
Mr. Lewis sent with the picture an autograph note
from General Washington to Stuart, dated, I think,
April 4, 1795, but I am not quite sure about the

[ 268 ]
AMERICA
date. It stated that Mrs. Bingham had asked him
to “set” for his portrait, but that he was uncertain
whether it was to be at the State House or at the
artist's rooms on Chestnut Street. On the lower mar-
gin was written by Stuart in a very tremulous hand
a note to the then owner, Mr. Williams, saying that
the above was the best autograph of Washington's
that he could find for him, and that it was especially
appropriate in this instance “ because it relates to the
picture that you own.” He went on to say that there
were but two portraits of Washington in existence
that he had painted from life. “One you have, the
other is in my possession. I did paint a third in the
winter season, but I rubbed it out.” The second one
he mentions is now owned by the Boston Athenæum.
This interesting document I had fixed securely behind
a thick plate glass and fastened below the canvas.
There it remained till the close of the exhibition at
the end of October, when it went back with the pic-
ture to the owner. I regret exceedingly that I did not
have a photographic copy made of it.
It must have been somewhere about 1826 that I saw
the Lansdowne Washington in London, in the gallery
of an auctioneer on the east side of old Bond Street,
about midway between Burlington Gardens and Pic-
cadilly. There was no other picture in the room. I
suppose it was sold at that time to the gentleman
(whose name I have not learned) who later fell into

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financial difficulties, so that the painting had to be dis-
posed of again for the benefit of his estate. A pur-
chaser could not be found at the price he had paid,
and recourse was had to a raffle, the chances being
placed at fifty pounds each. It was through this raffle
that it came into the possession of Mr. Delaware
Lewis, who lent it to the Centennial. He got it for
fifty pounds, the cost of the lottery ticket which had
the good luck to draw it. This had been bought for
him by a subordinate member of the firm during his
absence from London, and when he learned of the
purchase he had been greatly incensed, and threatened
to repudiate the transaction. He was calmed by a
warning whispered in his ear that he was risking by
this course the loss of a lucrative trade with America.
The insurance value he placed on the picture when it
came to the Centennial Exhibition was something
enormous. The canvas next appears to have been in-
herited by Mr. Herman LeRoy Lewis. The present
owner, Lord Rosebery, paid two thousand guineas
for it in 1890. In 1805 it had been sold for five hun-
dred and forty pounds, and was bought later for four
hundred pounds by the Mr. Samuel Williams to
whom was addressed the note before alluded to, ap-
pended by Stuart in 1823 to the letter from General
Washington.
As is well known, Mrs. Bingham had this portrait
painted expressly to present to her friend Lord Shel-

[270]
AMERICA
burne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne. What is
still known as the Lansdowne Plateau in West Fair-
mount Park was named by the Binghams in compli-
ment to him, and I well remember the stately Bing-
ham mansion which stood in these beautiful grounds.
It was here, the reader will recollect, that the family of
Ivanhoe's Rebecca took refuge during the yellow fever
epidemic in 1802. The Bingham town-house, on the
west side of Third above Spruce Street, was not de-
molished till much later than their country house, and
must be remembered by many.
The exhibition in Philadelphia of the original Lans-
downe Washington furnished an opportunity, so far
as was practicable without seeing them side by side,
for comparison between the two whole-length life-size
portraits of Washington painted for Mrs. Bingham by
Gilbert Stuart in 1796. My own impression is that
the painting in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts, the one ordered by Mrs. Bingham for herself, is
the fresher and more brilliant of the two, but that the
other is the more elaborate. The subdued tone of the
English canvas may be caused in part by the smoky
atmosphere of London, which darkens everything ex-
posed to it.

1
[ 271 ]
CHAPTER
XVII
A
Washington Monument— Monument Cemetery, Philadelphia
YEAR or two before the breaking out of the
southern rebellion, a movement was made
toward the erection in Philadelphia of the
long-desired monument to Washington. A committee
of eighteen was formed, into which I was drawn, and
which included the treasurer of the fund raised by the
Society of the Cincinnati for that purpose, and the
chairman of the committee in charge of what was known
as the Chauncey Fund, which had been subscribed in
the burst of renewed patriotic enthusiasm excited by
the visit of Lafayette to this country in 1823. The
preliminary agreement now arrived at was that these
two funds, which had been nursed up into respectable
proportions, should be united, and that to the sum
thus obtained the committee of eighteen should add a
sum equal at least to the amount of the combined
funds.
The committee being regularly organized with Joseph
R. Ingersoll as president and John Sartain as secretary,
it was agreed that the centre of Washington Square
was the most suitable site. A general competition was
opened for designs for the work, and all appeared set-
tled except obtaining from the State Legislature an act


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of incorporation, and the necessary steps were accord-
ingly taken to that end. When, however, the charter
came from Harrisburg, it was found to our astonish-
ment and dismay that the names of the gentlemen
who were about to open their purses in furtherance of
the scheme were stricken out, and others substituted,
of Tom, Dick and Harry whom nobody knew. Our
disgust may be imagined; the whole thing was dropped,
and there was an end of the project for the time being.
The Civil War and its consequences then came to
occupy every one's attention to the exclusion of other
things, and in the meanwhile both funds were silently
augmenting, until that of the Society of the Cincinnati
had grown to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
and its custodians concluded that the means at their
command were sufficient to warrant immediate action.
They invited designs, and in course of time a model
by the distinguished sculptor Semering was received
from Berlin, which was of such exceptional merit that
it left no choice but to adopt it.
When the estimate of its cost arrived, however, it
called for an expenditure of fifty thousand dollars
more than the amount of the Cincinnati fund, and
they felt that there was nothing to do but to wait. But
I reminded them of the existence of the Chauncey
fund, which had been entirely forgotten by the younger
generation, and of which my memory alone retained
cognizance, because of all those actively engaged in

18
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REMINISCENCES
the earlier movement I was the only one still living.
I advised them to have me summoned, as sole sur-
vivor of the committee of eighteen, to testify that the
two funds were formerly merged into one for the pur-
pose of erecting a monument. It was so done, and by
order of the court the Cincinnati fund committee was
authorized to draw upon the Chauncey fund, which
had increased in the guardianship of a trust company
to more than the needed amount.
I was consulted about material for the likeness. I told
them that the Houdon head was a safe reliance, de-
clared so by such good authority as Gilbert Stuart,
but that in the year 1831 I had held in
1 I had held in my hand a
death-mask cast direct from Washington's face, and if
this cast could be found, —and I thought I knew
where to look for it,—a mould could be made from
it and a duplicate sent to Semering. I was successful
in my search, and sent to Berlin one of the two repli-
cas made; the other I have framed in my library.
Washington had first been enclosed in a wooden cof-
fin, but was afterwards removed to one of lead, and at
the time of the change from one to the other this cast
of his face was made for Judge Peters. The mould
drew out several hairs from the eyebrows, and the cast
in turn had drawn them out of the mould. It did not
look like a death-mask, but rather as if made during
life. A little over thirty years after his death, Wash-
ington's face was again open to view, when he was

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AMERICA
placed in the great marble sarcophagus presented by
Mr. John Struthers of Philadelphia. He still remained
unaltered in appearance, but some one stooped over
to kiss him on the forehead, and at that instant the
features fell suddenly away. The unaccustomed expo-
sure to the air crumbled the face to dust.
When the Monument Cemetery on Broad Street,
Philadelphia, was established in 1838, the wide por-
tion of the street terminated at Poplar Lane, which
ran thence in a northwesterly direction. The rest of
Broad Street was so only in name, for it was but fifty
feet wide, narrowed in still further by a ditch on either
side, behind which was a post-and-rail fence, the boun-
dary of the adjacent fields. Between the hills at Pop-
lar Lane and at the cemetery were two valleys crossing
the street, and at the bottom of these flowed small
streams wending their way eastward to the river Del-
aware. In the spring of the year, when the frost was
coming out of the ground, there was no other way to
pass these hollows than to do as I used to do, namely,
quit the road and take to the fence, moving sideways
on the lower rail until the slough of despond was left
behind.
A design for the entrance to the projected cemetery
had been adopted, but before building it was thought
best to devise some way of getting the street widened
at once. The managers agreed that the cemetery should
give thirty feet six inches of ground, provided the

[275]
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other land owners on both sides of the street would
do the same, and the donors further agree to plant
and keep a double row of trees along each sidewalk.
The proposition was accepted and the work accom-
plished, and thus was North Broad Street widened to
its present breadth, one hundred and thirteen feet,
extending this noble avenue thirteen miles in length,
straight as a ray of light.
By the time the managers of the cemetery were pre-
pared to erect the entrance lodge in the new position,
they had become dissatisfied with the design, and asked
me to prepare a new one, which I did in the Gothic
style. As originally built it was in conformity with my
drawings. It was afterwards spoiled by a member of
the board of managers who was a carpenter, and who
considered that every building must have a projecting
cornice. During my absence in Europe, he persuaded
his colleagues to let him put one in place of the Gothic
parapet and pinnacles, so that my original design is
now travestied.
The name of Monument Cemetery is derived from a
monument to Washington and Lafayette, which from
the beginning was destined to occupy the centre of the
grounds. A design of mine was selected from a num-
ber sent in competition, but lack of funds delayed the
execution of the work. After a few years, a new com-
petition was announced, inviting designs of a less costly
character. Again mine was pronounced the best, and

[ 276 ]
AMERICA
it was finally erected in 1869. It is of granite, with
bronze ornamentation. Two bronze plates, nine feet
long, contain inscriptions surrounding large profiles of
Washington and Lafayette, both inscriptions and me-
dallions being by myself.

va
[ 277 ]
CHAPTER
XVIII
An Unexecuted Project — Some XIIIth Century Woodcuts
OCALITIES associated with distinguished
men of the past are always interesting, and
of all peoples the Florentines of Italy are
especially conspicuous in their care to preserve the
memory of these associations. Casa Niccolò Machia-
velli, Casa Amerigo Vespucci, Casa Guidi and the like,
all bear inscriptions engraved on marble tablets inserted
in their front walls. But the most singular tablet is to
be found in the small triangular piazza overlooked by
the Casa Guidi windows, for it commemorates a va-
porous intention that never materialized, an unrealized
project to erect there a monumental column. It is a
curious pushing to extremes of a commendable prac-
tice, to record not only things done, but also things
once intended.
The foregoing serves as preamble or excuse for record-
ing an unfulfilled purpose of my own, a darling project
nursed for some seventy years. It involved a stay in
Rome of uncertain duration, and although I have
visited that city thrice, I have never been able to de-
vote sufficient time to the pursuit of this my
cherished
hope, and now at my time of life it is too late. I have
always entertained the conviction that in the library of

[278]
AMERICA
the Vatican could be found a set of woodcuts, eight in
number, representing the Triumph of Alexander of
Macedon, and a ninth containing a coat-of-arms and a
dedication. They were designed and engraved about the
year 1284 by a brother and sister, twin children of Count
di Cunio, Podestà of Imola, a city not far from Venice.
The dedication was to a relative on the maternal side of
the Savilli family, who was then cardinal, but became
Pope in 1285, with the title of Honorius the Fourth.
Is it not reasonable to assume with certainty that he
would have placed this work in the papal library, where
I have hoped to search for it? Honorius died at the
end of the second year of his pontificate.
A copy of the book was last seen in the library of a
Captain Greder of the Royal Swiss Guard, who re-
sided in the village of Bagneux near Mont Rouge, not
far from Paris. It was there, however, only as a loan
from a Mr. Spirchtvel, his friend, who was a descend-
ant on the mother's side of Jan. Jacq. Turene. The
work had been held as a kind of heirloom in the fam-
ily, and was especially valued because some old writ-
ing in it recorded that it was a gift from Count di
Cunio himself, the father of the talented twins who
designed and engraved the woodcuts.
Upon the blank leaf that followed the eighth cut were
these words, badly written in old Swiss characters, with
ink so faded as to be scarcely legible:
“This precious book was given to my grandfather

[ 279 ]
REMINISCENCES
possess
Jan. Jacq. Turene, a native of Berne, by the illustrious
Count di Cunio, Podestà of Imola, who honoured him
with his liberal friendship. Of all the books I
I esteem this the most, on account of the quarter from
whence it came into our family, the science, the val-
our, the beauty of the amiable twins Cunio and their
noble and generous intention of thus gratifying their
relatives and friends. Behold their singular and curious
history in the manner in which it was several times
related to me by my venerable father, and according
to which I have caused it to be written more legibly
than I myself could have done it.”
Then followed in blacker ink, but in the same kind of
letters, though better formed:
“The young and amiable Cunii, twin brother and
sister, were the first children of the son of the Count
di Cunio, that he had by a noble and beautiful Vero-
nese lady allied to the family of Pope Honorius the
Fourth, when he was still Cardinal. This
man had espoused the young lady clandestinely, with-
out the knowledge of the relatives of either of them;
who, when the consequences could no longer be con-
cealed, caused the marriage to be annulled and the
priest who married them banished. The noble lady fled
for refuge to an aunt, who lived not far from Ravenna,
and there the twins were born. Nevertheless the Count
di Cunio, out of regard to his son, whom he had com-
pelled to espouse another noble lady of higher grade

young noble-
[ 280 ]
AMERICA
in the social scale, permitted him to bring up these
children in his house, which was done with every ten-
derness possible, not alone on the part of the Count,
but also of his son's wife, who conceived such an affec-
tion for Isabella Cunio that she loved and cherished
her as if she had been her own daughter; loving
equally Alessandro Alberico Cunio, her brother, who,
like his sister, was full of talent and of the most amia-
ble disposition. Both of them made rapid advances in
various sciences, profiting by the instruction of their
masters; but especially Isabella, who, at thirteen years
of age, was considered a prodigy, for she perfectly
understood and wrote Latin, composed verses, and ac-
quired a knowledge of geometry, was skilled in music
and played upon several instruments; moreover she
was practised in drawing, and painted with taste and
delicacy. Her brother acknowledged that he could
never attain so high a degree of perfection in these
arts, nevertheless he was one of the finest young men
in Italy; he equalled his sister in beauty of person,
was every way accomplished in all military exercises
and skilled in the use of arms, and at fourteen could
master a restive horse. Both of them constituted the
delight of their family, and they loved each other so
perfectly that the pleasure or chagrin of one or the
other was divided between them.
“At the age of sixteen he accompanied his parent to
the wars, and performed such acts of bravery that his

[ 281 ]
REMINISCENCES
father in admiration of his prowess declared on the
field of battle that there was nothing he could ask for
that should not be accorded. He asked permission to
visit his mother; it was granted, and she experienced
the joy of his company for two days.
“But in the action he received wounds that made a pe-
riod of rest needful to restore his health, and he spent
some time in Ravenna with his sister Isabella, for they
were inseparable; during this time they together pro-
duced the eight cuts referred to, and the ninth as a
dedication to their relative the Pope. At the age of
nineteen the brother was again engaged for the fourth
time in battle, and was then slain. His sister so grieved
at his loss that she languished and died before she was
twenty.”
Such is the story found written on flyleaves inserted
by the grandson of the first recipient of the book, as
told him by his father. There are some persons, how-
ever, who doubt that such a book ever existed, because
no other copy of it is now to be found. “But that is a
poor argument,” writes the Abbé Zani, who discov-
ered the Finiguerra print that had been lost for more
than three centuries, “for there is only one copy known
to exist of the book entitled Meditationes Reverendissimi
patris domini Johannis de Turrecremata, printed at Rome
by Uric Han in 1467. Now
copy
ish by some accident, could those who come after us
deny that it ever existed? ... And so great is the

suppose this
to per-
[ 282 ]
AMERICA
rarity of ancient prints that in all my researches I have
not chanced to find a second copy of many engravings
of the fifteenth century, an age far less remote than
that of Honorius IV.” Of the Donatus printed by
Sweynheym and Pannartz in 1464, and of which three
hundred copies are known to have been published, not
a single copy is now to be found. The extreme youth
of the two artists who produced the woodcuts is no
argument against their existence, for it is well known
that of the numerous works of Lucas van Leyden the
finest and most finished were done before he had com-
pleted his fifteenth year.
The few fragments of the ancient classics that have
survived the general destruction had narrow escapes
from total loss. Roman and Greek writings, once
deemed immortal, were obliterated to give place to
monkish legends. At Rome a book of Livy, only half
effaced, was found between the lines of a later writer,
and a copy of Cicero's De Republica was discovered
concealed under newer, valueless writing. A page of
the second decade of Livy was found on a parchment
stretched on a battledore, and all the rest had been
consumed by the artisan in similar uses. The history
of Phænicia by a contemporary of Solomon now con-
sists only of a few fragments preserved by Eusebius.
So it is vain to claim that the work of the two Cunii
never existed because it is not now to be found.
Payne Collier rendered us a valuable service in caus-

[ 283 ]
REMINISCENCES
ing to be reprinted certain rare books which seemed
about to perish. It was by a fortunate chance that a
copy came to be preserved of what Michael Angelo
had painted on the upper part of the end wall of the
Sistine Chapel, afterwards effaced to give room for
heightening his fresco of the Last Judgment, now cov-
ering the entire space. As originally carried out, the
unbroken series represented the descent of Christ from
Abraham, through his father, the carpenter of Naza-
reth. Some unknown artist, however, had happened to
make a copy of the portion of the work afterwards
obliterated. In course of time this unique treasure
drifted into the possession of Samuel Rogers, the poet
banker, whose friend William Young Ottley had an
engraving made from it, an impression of which I am
so fortunate as to own. The art-world knew from the
recorded history that a part of the original work had
been effaced, but wondered what had been its pictorial
features.

[ 284 ]
CHAPTER XIX
Conclusion

HAVE now arrived at the last chapter of
these reminiscences, and it is natural to
pause and take a retrospective survey of the
various experiences glanced at in the preceding pages.
While chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies, the
spectre of reproach arises for things done that ought
not to have been done, and of others left undone that
ought to have been done, and all past help.
I have a distinct memory of things of a public nature
extending from the year 1814 to this year of 1897,
and the changes that I have seen evolve, were I to tell
them all, would seem incredible. In the single item of
illumination, what progress from whale oil lamps and
candles, lighted in no other way than by making a
spark by striking flint and steel together! The diverse
phases that painting has passed through, too; how many
fads and fashions have been in vogue since my student
days, when the art of Reynolds, Gainsborough and
Lawrence prevailed. I quote a few words from a letter
addressed by J. L. Gérôme, the French artist, to my
friend, Stephen J. Ferris, the Philadelphia painter and
etcher. It is dated May 18, 1897. “You say a few
bitter words about modern art so-called, and I agree
[ 285 ]
REMINISCENCES
with you. Things are seen that make reason and art
shudder, for it was here that the movement began
which is spreading further and further. It might be
thought that we are in an insane asylum, for it is evi-
dent to me that a breeze of insanity is blowing upon
us, and works that cannot be named seem to find ad-
mirers! The more stupid a thing is, the more welcome
it appears. It is hard to believe. But there is no cause
to be uneasy about such productions, as they will soon
pass away, for only works founded on reason are last-
ing.”
In May, 1893, he had written, “We are living in an
age that is out of joint, in which we see the strangest
things. Simplicity, naturalness, truth are no longer in
fashion. We are living in a fictitious and ugly world,
and I am glad that I am at the end of my career, as I
would never enter those ways of which I disapprove.”
But in the material world the progress has been steadily
forward. I have before me a letter from my esteemed
friend John A. Clark, congratulating me on the last
anniversary of my birthday, in which he says, “Your
life has been spread over the most magnificent period
of the world's history, for more has been accomplished
for civilization during the years you have lived than
during the preceding eighteen hundred years of the
Christian era. This is a most surprising statement, but
it is certainly true. On the day of your birth, men were
travelling upon the land and the sea with little better

[ 286 ]
AMERICA
facilities than existed several centuries before, and as
far as land was concerned with no greater speed than
in the time of Julius Cæsar. Steam, electricity and ma-
chinery have in your lifetime changed the face of the
globe.”
I began these memoirs only in fulfilment of a promise,
as I have said, to my friend Thomas A. Janvier, and
I finish them now in my eighty-ninth year; but in
bringing them to a close there is satisfaction in a deed
accomplished, and I cannot but remember what Long-
fellow has said so nobly on the subject of old age:

It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand Edipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his com peers,
When each had numbered more than fourscore years,
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,
Had hut hegun his Charakters of Men.
Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past.
These are indeed exceptions; but they show
How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow
Into the arctic region of our lives,
Where little else than life itself survives.
[ 287 ]

REMINISCENCES
What then? Shall we sit idly down and say
The night hath come; it is no longer day?
The night hath not yet come; we are not quite
Cut off from labour hy the failing light;
Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may hear;
Not Edipus Coloneus, or Greek ode,
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode
Out of the gateway of the Tahard Inn,
But other something, would we hut begin;
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.
FINIS
Index

INDEX
PAGE
ABBO
ABB Abercrombie, Dr.
54, 57
174
229
144, 166, 250
140
93, 120
179
146
142
90
10
10
20
Abolition Society
Academy of the Fine Arts, Pennsylvania
American Academy of Arts, New York
Apprenticeship
Artists' Fund Society, Philadelphia
Artists in America in 1768
Artists in Philadelphia in 1830
Astley's Theatre
Bagnidge Wells
Battle Bridge
Belgravia
Bell, Liberty
Bells, Poe's
Bemhridge
Birch, Thomas
Bird, Dr. Robert M.
Birdcage Walk
Bishop, Thomas
Blake, William
Blake's Widoze
Blue Coat School
123
202, 220
152

143, 180
196, 197, 198
3.
171
108
114, 183
39
[ 291 ]
INDEX
29, 113
9
8, 18
1, 27, 31
Bray, Mrs.
Breakneck Stairs
Bridge, Blackfriars
Bridge, Chinese, St. James' Park
Bridge, Old London
Bridge, Strand, or Waterloo
British Museum
Brook Green
Buckingham Palace
Burton, William E.
5, 8, 81
19, 32
17
127
3, 21
65, 196
111
7
262
62
59, 67
54, 61, 83
231
Canterbury, Pilgrimage to
Carlton House
Centennial Exhibition, Philadelphia
Chapman
Chatterton, Mrs.
Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia
Christ Rejected
Clarke, Thomas Cottrell
Claypole, James
Clint, George
Cooke, George and Edward W.
Copley, John Singleton
Cornelius
Courbet's Pixtures
Covent Garden Theatre
Cunii, The Twin
215
148
62

20
146
247
264
52
279
Death on the Pale Horse
167
[ 292 ]
INDEX
Dihdin, Thomas Frognall
Doo, George
Douce, Francis
98, 107
241
98, 103
Early Florentine School
Eastlake, Sir Charles, P. R. A.
Edwin, David
Encaustic Painting
English, Thomas Dunn
Erasmus
Exhibition, Centennial, Philadelphia
Exhibition in London, American
95
241, 246
54, 85, 194
256
215, 226
40
262
254, 263
58, 60
22
Farren
Fire Column, London
Fireworks-making
Fleet River
Flogging Collegians
Foote, Miss
França, Manuel de
51
9
41
59, 62, 67
143, 175
21
14, 72, 131
285
Gas in London, Introdu&tion of
George the Fourth
Gérôme, 7. L.
Graham's Magazine
Gratz, Miss Rebecca
Greath
Griswold, Rufus W.
196
183
151
215

Harlow, G. H.
63
[ 293 ]
INDEX
Hesselius
Hirst, Henry B.
Hungerford Market
Hyde Park Turnpike Gate
147
224
73
5
Inman, Henry
Irving, Washington
Italian School of Design
Ivanhoe's Rebecca
144, 161, 233
183
104
183
146
248
61, 66
63
61
68
80
11
Kain
Kaulhach, Wilhelm von
Kemhle, Charles
Kemhle Family
Kemhle, Fanny
Kemhle, John Philip
King's Bench Prison
King's Cross
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, P.R. A.
Leslie, Charles R., R. A.
Liberty Bell
Liston, John
London
Lyon, Pat
Macready, William Charles
Marrow-hones and Cleavers
Marsh Gate
Marshalsea Prison

61, 98, 105, 195
98, 100, 158, 228
123
60, 67
1
192
53, 67
28
52, 90
75
[ 294 ]
INDEX
15
237
79, 83
17
126, 275
160
276
272
142, 178, 192
Martin, John
Mead, Larkin G.
Miller, Mrs.
Montague House
Monument Cemetery
Monument, Penn Treaty
Monument to Washington and Lafayette
Monument, Washington
Neagle, Fohn
North American, The
Ottley, William Young
Parliament Houses, Old
Payne, John Howard
Peace Jubilees
Peale, letter of Charles Wilson
Peale, Rembrandt
Poe, Edgar Allan
Pratt, Matthew
Primrose Hill
198
94, 284
13
227
25
146
144
199, 220, 226
148, 151
6
102, 255
4
Queen Victoria's Portrait
Queen's Basin
Regent Street
Regent's Quadrant
Rench, Miss Polly
Richmond, George
Richter, Henry

6
7, 38
153
115
112, 119
[ 295 ]
INDEX
98, 284
11
Rogers, Samuel
Roman Camp
Roscoe, Thomas
Rosetta Stone
Rothermel, P. F.
Ruskin, John
98, 102
18, 107
182, 255
241, 244
1
19
125
11
22
219
111
St. James' Park
St. Katharine's Dock
St. Mary-le-Strand
St. Pancras
St. Paul's
Sartain's Magazine
Schiavonetti
Schnorr, Julius
Schools, English
Schussele, Christian
Semitore
Serpentine, The
Shaw, Joshua
Sherrard Street and Mansion
Sistine Chapel Series
Sloane, Sir Hans
Smibert, John
Somerset House
Southwark
Stanfield, William Clarkson, R. A.
Steamboat, First Sight of a

248
34
250
151
26
16, 176, 179
12
284
17
146
124
20
242
13
[ 2961
INDEX
Steele
149
Stephens, Miss
62
Stoddard, R. H.
227
Stothard, Thomas, R. A.
29, 111, 177
Stuart, Gilbert
153, 178, 194
Stuart's Washingtons
268
Sully, Thomas
67, 102, 142, 163, 184, 192, 255
Sumner, Charles
223
Taylor, Bayard
228
Temple of Concord, Green Park, 1814
28
Thames Emhankment
15
Thames Mud
15, 74
Travel from Philadelphia to New York in 1830 137
Tree, Miss
60
Trial of Queen Katharine
63
Turnpikes
University, London
124
Varley, John
108
Vauxhall Gardens
Von Holst, Theodore
116
Washington, Death-Mask of
274
Washington Monument, Philadelphia
272
Waterloo Celebration
32
West, Benjamin, P. R. A.
148, 167, 231
Whitehall Palace
24
Wollaston
147
5, 87
52, 56

رک
[ 297 ]
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
GRADUATE LIBRARY
DATE DUE
nrla
1977
라
​JAN 33 1972
MAR 24 1981,
DEC 13/1983
LUUU
1984
AUG 1
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ogn?
AUG 3
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Form 9584
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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