Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, Shearjashub Spooner [big screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗

by his industry, activity, and talents. Mr. Donaldson says, "his sister was a servant in Mr. Dance's family, which proves that the strength of Soane's character enabled him to rise to so distinguished a rank merely by his own exertions." He afterwards studied under Holland, and in the Royal Academy, where he first attracted public notice by a design for a triumphal bridge, which drew the gold medal of that institution, and entitled him to go to Italy for three years on the pension of the Academy. During a residence of six years in Italy, he studied the remains of antiquity and the finest modern edifices with great assiduity, and made several original designs, which attracted considerable attention; among them were one for a British Senate House, and another for a Royal Palace. In 1780 he returned to England, and soon distinguished himself by several elegant palaces, which he was commissioned to erect for the nobility in different parts of the kingdom, the plans and elevations of which he published in a folio volume in 1788. In the same year, in a competition with nineteen other architects, he obtained the lucrative office of Surveyor and Architect to the Bank of England, which laid the foundation of the splendid fortune he afterwards acquired. Other advantageous appointments followed; that of Clerk of the Woods of St. James' Palace, in 1791; Architect of the Woods and Forests, in 1795; Professor of Architecture in the Royal Academy in 1806; and Surveyor of Chelsea Hospital in 1807. In addition to his public employments, he received many commissions for private buildings. He led a life of indefatigable industry in the practice of his profession till 1833, when he reached his eightieth year. He died in 1837. SOANE'S LIBERALITY AND PUBLIC MUNIFICENCE.

Sir John Soane was a munificent patron of various public charities, and was even more liberal in his contributions for the advancement of art; he subscribed £1000 to the Duke of York's monument; a similar sum to the Royal British Institution; £750 to the Institute of British Architects; £250 to the Architectural Society, &c. He made a splendid collection of works of art, valued at upwards of £50,000 before his death, converted his house into a Museum, and left the whole to his country, which is now known as Sir John Soane's Museum—one of the most attractive institutions in London. He devoted the last four years of his life in classifying and arranging his Museum, which is distributed in twenty-four rooms, and consists of architectural models of ancient and modern edifices; a large collection of architectural drawings, designs, plans, and measurements, by many great architects; a library of the best works on art, particularly on Architecture; antique fragments of buildings, as columns, capitals, ornaments, and friezes in marble; also, models, casts, and copies of similar objects in other collections; fragments and relics of architecture in the middle ages; modern sculptures, especially by the best British sculptors; Greek and Roman antiquities, consisting of fragments of Greek and Roman sculpture antique busts, bronzes, and cinerary urns; Etruscan vases; Egyptian antiquities; busts of remarkable persons; a collection of 138 antique gems, cameos and intaglios, originally in the collection of M. Capece Latro, Archbishop of Tarentum, and 136 antique gems, principally from the Braschi collection; a complete set of Napoleon medals, selected by the Baron Denon for the Empress Josephine, and formerly in her possession, curiosities; rare books and illuminated manuscripts; a collection of about fifty oil paintings, many of them of great value, among which are the Rake's Progress, a series of eight pictures by Hogarth, and the Election, a series of four, by the same artist; and many articles of virtu too numerous to mention here, forming altogether a most rare, unique, and valuable collection. What a glorious monument did the poor bricklayer's son erect to his memory, which, while it blesses, will cause his countrymen to bless and venerate the donor, and make his name bright on the page of history! Some there are who regard posthumous fame a bubble, and present pomp substantial; but the one is godlike, the other sensual and vain.

THE BELZONI SARCOPHAGUS.

One of the most interesting and valuable relics in Sir John Soane's Museum, is the Belzoni Sarcophagus. It was discovered by Belzoni, the famous French traveler, in 1816, in a tomb in the valley of Beban el Malouk, near Gournon. He found it in the centre of a sepulchral chamber of extraordinary magnificence, and records the event with characteristic enthusiasm: "I may call this a fortunate day, one of the best, perhaps, of my life. I do not mean to say that fortune has made me rich, for I do not consider all rich men fortunate; but she has given me that satisfaction, that extreme pleasure which wealth cannot purchase—the pleasure of discovering what has long been sought in vain." It is constructed of one single piece of alabaster, so translucent that a lamp placed within it shines through, although it is more than two inches in thickness. It is nine feet four inches in length, three feet eight inches in width, and two feet eight inches in depth, and is covered with hieroglyphics outside and inside, which have not yet been satisfactorily interpreted, though they are supposed by some to refer to Osirei, the father of Rameses the Great. It was transported from Egypt to England at great expense, and offered to the Trustees of the British Museum for £2,000, which being refused, Sir John Soane immediately purchased it and exhibited it free, with just pride, to crowds of admiring visitors. When Belzoni discovered this remarkable relic of Egyptian royalty, the lid had been thrown off and broken into pieces, and its contents rifled; the sarcophagus itself is in perfect preservation.

TASSO'S "GERUSALEMME LIBERATA."

The original copy of "Gerusalemme Liberata," in the handwriting of Tasso, is in the Soane Museum. It was purchased by Sir John Soane, at the sale of the Earl of Guilford's Library, in 1829. This literary treasure, which cannot be contemplated without emotion, once belonged to Baruffaldi, one of the most eminent literary characters of modern Italy. Serassi describes it, and refers to the emendations made by the poet in the margin (Serassi's edit. Florence, 1724;) but expresses his fear that it had been taken out of Italy. In allusion to this expression of Serassi, Lord Guilford has written on the fly-leaf of the MS., "I would not wish to hurt the honest pride of any Italian; but the works of a great genius are the property of all ages and all countries: and I hope it will be recorded to future ages, that England possesses the original MS. of one of the four greatest epic poems the world has produced, and, beyond all doubt, the only one of the four now existing." There is no date to this MS. The first printed edition of the Gerusalemme is dated 1580.

There are other rare and valuable MSS. in this Museum, the most remarkable of which are a Commentary in Latin on the epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, by Cardinal Grimani. It is adorned with exquisite miniature illustrations, painted by Don Giulio Clovio, called the Michael Angelo of miniature painters. "The figures are about an inch in height," says Mrs. Jameson, "equaling in vigor, grandeur, and originality, the conceptions of Michael Angelo and of Raffaelle, who were his cotemporaries and admirers." Also, a missal of the fifteenth century, containing ninety-two miniatures by Lucas van Leyden and his scholars, executed in a truly Dutch style, just the reverse of those of Clovio, except in point of elaborate finishing.

GEORGE MORLAND.

The life of this extraordinary genius is full of interest, and his melancholy fall full of warning and instruction. He was the son of an indifferent painter, whose principal business was in cleaning and repairing, and dealing in ancient pictures. Morland showed an extraordinary talent for painting almost in his infancy, and before he was sixteen years old, his name was known far and wide by engravings from his pictures. His father, who seems to have been a man of a low and sordid disposition, had his son indented to him as an apprentice, for seven years, in order to secure his services as long as possible, and he constantly employed him in painting pictures and making drawings for sale; and these were frequently of a broad character, as such commanded the best prices, and found the most ready sale. Hence he acquired a wonderful facility of pencil, but wholly neglected academic study. His associates were the lowest of the low. On the expiration of his indenture, he left his father's house, and the remainder of his life is the history of genius degraded by intemperance and immorality, which alternately excites our admiration at his great talents, our regrets at the profligacy of his conduct, and our pity for his misfortunes. According to his biographer, Mr. George Dawe, who wrote an impartial and excellent life of Morland, he reached the full maturity of his powers, about 1790 when he was twenty-six years old; and from that time, they began and continued to decline till his death in 1804. Poor Morland was constantly surrounded by a set of harpies, who contrived to get him in their debt, and then compelled him to paint a picture for a guinea, which they readily sold for thirty or forty, and which now bring almost any sum asked for them. Many of his best works were painted in sponging houses to clear him from arrest.

MORLAND'S EARLY TALENT.

Morland's father having embarked in the business of picture dealing, had become bankrupt, and it is said that he endeavored to repair his broken fortunes by the talents of his son George, who, almost as soon as he escaped from the cradle, took to the pencil and crayon. Very many artists are recorded to have manifested an "early inclination for art," but the indications of early talent in others are nothing when compared with Morland's. "At four, five, and six years of age," says Cunningham, "he made drawings worthy of ranking him among the common race of students; the praise bestowed on these by the Society of Artists, to whom they were exhibited, and the money which collectors were willing to pay for the works of this new wonder, induced his father to urge him onward in his studies, and he made rapid progress."

MORLAND'S EARLY FAME.

The danger of overtasking either the mind or body in childhood, is well known; and there is every reason to believe that young Morland suffered both of these evils. His father stimulated him by praise and by indulgence at the table, and to ensure his continuance at his allotted tasks, shut him up in a garret, and excluded him from free air, which strengthens the body, and from education—that free air which nourishes the mind. His stated work for a time was making drawings from pictures and from plaster casts, which his father carried out and sold; but as he increased in skill, he chose his subjects from popular songs and ballads, such as "Young Roger came tapping at Dolly's window," "My name is Jack Hall," "I am a bold shoemaker, from Belfast Town I came," and other productions of the mendicant muse. The copies of pictures and casts were commonly sold for three half-crowns each; the original sketches—some of them a little free in posture, and not over delicately handled, were framed and disposed of for any sum from two to five guineas, according to the cleverness of the piece, or the generosity of the purchaser. Though far inferior to the productions of his manhood, they were much admired; engravers found it profitable to copy them, and before he was sixteen years