"Industry and perseverance" was the motto of the sculptor Banks,
which he acted on himself, and strongly recommended to others.  His
well-known kindness induced many aspiring youths to call upon him
and ask for his advice and assistance; and it is related that one
day a boy called at his door to see him with this object, but the
servant, angry at the loud knock he had given, scolded him, and was
about sending him away, when Banks overhearing her, himself went
out.  The little boy stood at the door with some drawings in his
hand.  "What do you want with me?" asked the sculptor.  "I want,
sir, if you please, to be admitted to draw at the Academy."  Banks
explained that he himself could not procure his admission, but he
asked to look at the boy's drawings.  Examining them, he said,
"Time enough for the Academy, my little man! go home--mind your
schooling--try to make a better drawing of the Apollo--and in a
month come again and let me see it."  The boy went home--sketched
and worked with redoubled diligence--and, at the end of the month,
called again on the sculptor.  The drawing was better; but again
Banks sent him back, with good advice, to work and study.  In a
week the boy was again at his door, his drawing much improved; and
Banks bid him be of good cheer, for if spared he would distinguish
himself.  The boy was Mulready; and the sculptor's augury was amply
fulfilled.

The fame of Claude Lorraine is partly explained by his
indefatigable industry.  Born at Champagne, in Lorraine, of poor
parents, he was first apprenticed to a pastrycook.  His brother,
who was a wood-carver, afterwards took him into his shop to learn
that trade.  Having there shown indications of artistic skill, a
travelling dealer persuaded the brother to allow Claude to
accompany him to Italy.  He assented, and the young man reached
Rome, where he was shortly after engaged by Agostino Tassi, the
landscape painter, as his house-servant.  In that capacity Claude
first learnt landscape painting, and in course of time he began to
produce pictures.  We next find him making the tour of Italy,
France, and Germany, occasionally resting by the way to paint
landscapes, and thereby replenish his purse.  On returning to Rome
he found an increasing demand for his works, and his reputation at
length became European.  He was unwearied in the study of nature in
her various aspects.  It was his practice to spend a great part of
his time in closely copying buildings, bits of ground, trees,
leaves, and such like, which he finished in detail, keeping the
drawings by him in store for the purpose of introducing them in his
studied landscapes.  He also gave close attention to the sky,
watching it for whole days from morning till night, and noting the
various changes occasioned by the passing clouds and the increasing
and waning light.  By this constant practice he acquired, although
it is said very slowly, such a mastery of hand and eye as
eventually secured for him the first rank among landscape painters.

Turner, who has been styled "the English Claude," pursued a career
of like laborious industry.  He was destined by his father for his
own trade of a barber, which he carried on in London, until one day
the sketch which the boy had made of a coat of arms on a silver
salver having attracted the notice of a customer whom his father
was shaving, the latter was urged to allow his son to follow his
bias, and he was eventually permitted to follow art as a
profession.  Like all young artists, Turner had many difficulties
to encounter, and they were all the greater that his circumstances
were so straitened.  But he was always willing to work, and to take
pains with his work, no matter how humble it might be.  He was glad
to hire himself out at half-a-crown a night to wash in skies in
Indian ink upon other people's drawings, getting his supper into
the bargain.  Thus he earned money and acquired expertness.  Then
he took to illustrating guide-books, almanacs, and any sort of
books that wanted cheap frontispieces.  "What could I have done
better?" said he afterwards; "it was first-rate practice."  He did
everything carefully and conscientiously, never slurring over his
work because he was ill-remunerated for it.  He aimed at learning
as well as living; always doing his best, and never leaving a
drawing without having made a step in advance upon his previous
work.  A man who thus laboured was sure to do much; and his growth
in power and grasp of thought was, to use Ruskin's words, "as
steady as the increasing light of sunrise."  But Turner's genius
needs no panegyric; his best monument is the noble gallery of
pictures bequeathed by him to the nation, which will ever be the
most lasting memorial of his fame.

To reach Rome, the capital of the fine arts, is usually the highest
ambition of the art student.  But the journey to Rome is costly,
and the student is often poor.  With a will resolute to overcome
difficulties, Rome may however at last be reached.  Thus Francois
Perrier, an early French painter, in his eager desire to visit the
Eternal City, consented to act as guide to a blind vagrant.  After
long wanderings he reached the Vatican, studied and became famous.
Not less enthusiasm was displayed by Jacques Callot in his
determination to visit Rome.  Though opposed by his father in his
wish to be an artist, the boy would not be baulked, but fled from
home to make his way to Italy.  Having set out without means, he
was soon reduced to great straits; but falling in with a band of
gipsies, he joined their company, and wandered about with them from
one fair to another, sharing in their numerous adventures.  During
this remarkable journey Callot picked up much of that extraordinary
knowledge of figure, feature, and character which he afterwards
reproduced, sometimes in such exaggerated forms, in his wonderful
engravings.

When Callot at length reached Florence, a gentleman, pleased with
his ingenious ardour, placed him with an artist to study; but he
was not satisfied to stop short of Rome, and we find him shortly on
his way thither.  At Rome he made the acquaintance of Porigi and
Thomassin, who, on seeing his crayon sketches, predicted for him a
brilliant career as an artist.  But a friend of Callot's family
having accidentally encountered him, took steps to compel the
fugitive to return home.  By this time he had acquired such a love
of wandering that he could not rest; so he ran away a second time,
and a second time he was brought back by his elder brother, who
caught him at Turin.  At last the father, seeing resistance was in
vain, gave his reluctant consent to Callot's prosecuting his
studies at Rome.  Thither he went accordingly; and this time he
remained, diligently studying design and engraving for several
years, under competent masters.  On his way back to France, he was
encouraged by Cosmo II. to remain at Florence, where he studied and
worked for several years more.  On the death of his patron he
returned to his family at Nancy, where, by the use of his burin and
needle, he shortly acquired both wealth and fame.  When Nancy was
taken by siege during the civil wars, Callot was requested by
Richelieu to make a design and engraving of the event, but the
artist would not commemorate the disaster which had befallen his
native place, and he refused point-blank.  Richelieu could not
shake his resolution, and threw him into prison.  There Callot met
with some of his old friends the gipsies, who had relieved his
wants on his first journey to Rome.  When Louis XIII. heard of his
imprisonment, he not only released him, but offered to grant him
any favour he might ask.  Callot immediately requested that his old
companions, the gipsies, might be set free and permitted to beg in
Paris without molestation.  This odd request was granted on
condition that Callot should engrave their portraits, and hence his
curious book of engravings entitled "The Beggars."  Louis is said
to have offered Callot a pension of 3000 livres provided he would
not leave Paris; but the artist was now too much of a Bohemian, and
prized his liberty too highly to permit him to accept it; and he
returned to Nancy, where he worked till his death.  His industry
may be inferred from the number of his engravings and etchings, of
which he left not fewer than 1600.  He was especially fond of
grotesque subjects, which he treated with great skill; his free
etchings, touched with the graver, being executed with especial
delicacy and wonderful minuteness.

Still more romantic and adventurous was the career of Benvenuto
Cellini, the marvellous gold worker, painter, sculptor, engraver,
engineer, and author.  His life, as told by himself, is one of the
most extraordinary autobiographies ever written.  Giovanni Cellini,
his father, was one of the Court musicians to Lorenzo de Medici at
Florence; and his highest ambition concerning his son Benvenuto was
that he should become an expert player on the flute.  But Giovanni
having lost his appointment, found it necessary to send his son to
learn some trade, and he was apprenticed to a goldsmith.  The boy
had already displayed a love of drawing and of art; and, applying
himself to his business, he soon became a dexterous workman.
Having got mixed up in a quarrel with some of the townspeople, he
was banished for six months, during which period he worked with a
goldsmith at Sienna, gaining further experience in jewellery and
gold-working.

His father still insisting on his becoming a flute-player,
Benvenuto continued to practise on the instrument, though he
detested it.  His chief pleasure was in art, which he pursued with
enthusiasm.  Returning to Florence, he carefully studied the
designs of Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo; and, still further
to improve himself in gold-working, he went on foot to Rome, where
he met with a variety of adventures.  He returned to Florence with
the reputation of being a most expert worker in the precious
metals, and his skill was soon in great request.  But being of an
irascible temper, he was constantly getting into scrapes, and was
frequently under the necessity of flying for his life.  Thus he
fled from Florence in the disguise of a friar, again taking refuge
at Sienna, and afterwards at Rome.

During his second residence in Rome, Cellini met with extensive
patronage, and he was taken into the Pope's service in the double
capacity of goldsmith and musician.  He was constantly studying and
improving himself by acquaintance with the works of the best
masters.  He mounted jewels, finished enamels, engraved seals, and
designed and executed works in gold, silver, and bronze, in such a
style as to excel all other artists.  Whenever he heard of a
goldsmith who was famous in any particular branch, he immediately
determined to surpass him.  Thus it was that he rivalled the medals
of one, the enamels of another, and the jewellery of a third; in
fact, there was not a branch of his business that he did not feel
impelled to excel in.

Working in this spirit, it is not so wonderful that Cellini should
have been able to accomplish so much.  He was a man of
indefatigable activity, and was constantly on the move.  At one
time we find him at Florence, at another at Rome; then he is at
Mantua, at Rome, at Naples, and back to Florence again; then at
Venice, and in Paris, making all his long journeys on horseback.
He could not carry much luggage with him; so, wherever he went, he
usually began by making his own tools.  He not only designed his
works, but executed them himself,--hammered and carved, and cast
and shaped them with his own hands.  Indeed, his works have the
impress of genius so clearly stamped upon them, that they could
never have been designed by one person, and executed by another.
The humblest article--a buckle for a lady's girdle, a seal, a
locket, a brooch, a ring, or a button--became in his hands a
beautiful work of art.

Cellini was remarkable for his readiness and dexterity in
handicraft.  One day a surgeon entered the shop of Raffaello del
Moro, the goldsmith, to perform an operation on his daughter's
hand.  On looking at the surgeon's instruments, Cellini, who was
present, found them rude and clumsy, as they usually were in those
days, and he asked the surgeon to proceed no further with the
operation for a quarter of an hour.  He then ran to his shop, and
taking a piece of the finest steel, wrought out of it a beautifully
finished knife, with which the operation was successfully
performed.

Among the statues executed by Cellini, the most important are the
silver figure of Jupiter, executed at Paris for Francis I., and the
Perseus, executed in bronze for the Grand Duke Cosmo of Florence.
He also executed statues in marble of Apollo, Hyacinthus,
Narcissus, and Neptune.  The extraordinary incidents connected with
the casting of the Perseus were peculiarly illustrative of the
remarkable character of the man.

The Grand Duke having expressed a decided opinion that the model,
when shown to him in wax, could not possibly be cast in bronze,
Cellini was immediately stimulated by the predicted impossibility,
not only to attempt, but to do it.  He first made the clay model,
baked it, and covered it with wax, which he shaped into the perfect
form of a statue.  Then coating the wax with a sort of earth, he
baked the second covering, during which the wax dissolved and
escaped, leaving the space between the two layers for the reception
of the metal.  To avoid disturbance, the latter process was
conducted in a pit dug immediately under the furnace, from which
the liquid metal was to be introduced by pipes and apertures into
the mould prepared for it.

Cellini had purchased and laid in several loads of pine-wood, in
anticipation of the process of casting, which now began.  The
furnace was filled with pieces of brass and bronze, and the fire
was lit.  The resinous pine-wood was soon in such a furious blaze,
that the shop took fire, and part of the roof was burnt; while at
the same time the wind blowing and the rain filling on the furnace,
kept down the heat, and prevented the metals from melting.  For
hours Cellini struggled to keep up the heat, continually throwing
in more wood, until at length he became so exhausted and ill, that
he feared he should die before the statue could be cast.  He was
forced to leave to his assistants the pouring in of the metal when
melted, and betook himself to his bed.  While those about him were
condoling with him in his distress, a workman suddenly entered the
room, lamenting that "Poor Benvenuto's work was irretrievably
spoiled!"  On hearing this, Cellini immediately sprang from his bed
and rushed to the workshop, where he found the fire so much gone
down that the metal had again become hard.

Sending across to a neighbour for a load of young oak which had
been more than a year in drying, he soon had the fire blazing again
and the metal melting and glittering.  The wind was, however, still
blowing with fury, and the rain falling heavily; so, to protect
himself, Cellini had some tables with pieces of tapestry and old
clothes brought to him, behind which he went on hurling the wood
into the furnace.  A mass of pewter was thrown in upon the other
metal, and by stirring, sometimes with iron and sometimes with long
poles, the whole soon became completely melted.  At this juncture,
when the trying moment was close at hand, a terrible noise as of a
thunderbolt was heard, and a glittering of fire flashed before
Cellini's eyes.  The cover of the furnace had burst, and the metal
began to flow!  Finding that it did not run with the proper
velocity, Cellini rushed into the kitchen, bore away every piece of
copper and pewter that it contained--some two hundred porringers,
dishes, and kettles of different kinds--and threw them into the
furnace.  Then at length the metal flowed freely, and thus the
splendid statue of Perseus was cast.

The divine fury of genius in which Cellini rushed to his kitchen
and stripped it of its utensils for the purposes of his furnace,
will remind the reader of the like act of Pallissy in breaking up
his furniture for the purpose of baking his earthenware.
Excepting, however, in their enthusiasm, no two men could be less
alike in character.  Cellini was an Ishmael against whom, according
to his own account, every man's hand was turned.  But about his
extraordinary skill as a workman, and his genius as an artist,
there cannot be two opinions.

Much less turbulent was the career of Nicolas Poussin, a man as
pure and elevated in his ideas of art as he was in his daily life,
and distinguished alike for his vigour of intellect, his rectitude
of character, and his noble simplicity.  He was born in a very
humble station, at Andeleys, near Rouen, where his father kept a
small school.  The boy had the benefit of his parent's instruction,
such as it was, but of that he is said to have been somewhat
negligent, preferring to spend his time in covering his lesson-
books and his slate with drawings.  A country painter, much pleased
with his sketches, besought his parents not to thwart him in his
tastes.  The painter agreed to give Poussin lessons, and he soon
made such progress that his master had nothing more to teach him.
Becoming restless, and desirous of further improving himself,
Poussin, at the age of 18, set out for Paris, painting signboards
on his way for a maintenance.

At Paris a new world of art opened before him, exciting his wonder
and stimulating his emulation.  He worked diligently in many
studios, drawing, copying, and painting pictures.  After a time, he
resolved, if possible, to visit Rome, and set out on his journey;
but he only succeeded in getting as far as Florence, and again
returned to Paris.  A second attempt which he made to reach Rome
was even less successful; for this time he only got as far as
Lyons.  He was, nevertheless, careful to take advantage of all
opportunities for improvement which came in his way, and continued
as sedulous as before in studying and working.

Thus twelve years passed, years of obscurity and toil, of failures
and disappointments, and probably of privations.  At length Poussin
succeeded in reaching Rome.  There he diligently studied the old
masters, and especially the ancient statues, with whose perfection
he was greatly impressed.  For some time he lived with the sculptor
Duquesnoi, as poor as himself, and assisted him in modelling
figures after the antique.  With him he carefully measured some of
the most celebrated statues in Rome, more particularly the
'Antinous:' and it is supposed that this practice exercised
considerable influence on the formation of his future style.  At
the same time he studied anatomy, practised drawing from the life,
and made a great store of sketches of postures and attitudes of
people whom he met, carefully reading at his leisure such standard
books on art as he could borrow from his friends.

During all this time he remained very poor, satisfied to be
continually improving himself.  He was glad to sell his pictures
for whatever they would bring.  One, of a prophet, he sold for
eight livres; and another, the 'Plague of the Philistines,' he sold
for 60 crowns--a picture afterwards bought by Cardinal de Richelieu
for a thousand.  To add to his troubles, he was stricken by a cruel
malady, during the helplessness occasioned by which the Chevalier
del Posso assisted him with money.  For this gentleman Poussin
afterwards painted the 'Rest in the Desert,' a fine picture, which
far more than repaid the advances made during his illness.

The brave man went on toiling and learning through suffering.
Still aiming at higher things, he went to Florence and Venice,
enlarging the range of his studies.  The fruits of his
conscientious labour at length appeared in the series of great
pictures which he now began to produce,--his 'Death of Germanicus,'
followed by 'Extreme Unction,' the 'Testament of Eudamidas,' the
'Manna,' and the 'Abduction of the Sabines.'

The reputation of Poussin, however, grew but slowly.  He was of a
retiring disposition and shunned society.  People gave him credit
for being a thinker much more than a painter.  When not actually
employed in painting, he took long solitary walks in the country,
meditating the designs of future pictures.  One of his few friends
while at Rome was Claude Lorraine, with whom he spent many hours at
a time on the terrace of La Trinite-du-Mont, conversing about art
and antiquarianism.  The monotony and the quiet of Rome were suited
to his taste, and, provided he could earn a moderate living by his
brush, he had no wish to leave it.

But his fame now extended beyond Rome, and repeated invitations
were sent him to return to Paris.  He was offered the appointment
of principal painter to the King.  At first he hesitated; quoted
the Italian proverb, Chi sta bene non si muove; said he had lived
fifteen years in Rome, married a wife there, and looked forward to
dying and being buried there.  Urged again, he consented, and
returned to Paris.  But his appearance there awakened much
professional jealousy, and he soon wished himself back in Rome
again.  While in Paris he painted some of his greatest works--his
'Saint Xavier,' the 'Baptism,' and the 'Last Supper.'  He was kept
constantly at work.  At first he did whatever he was asked to do,
such as designing frontispieces for the royal books, more
particularly a Bible and a Virgil, cartoons for the Louvre, and
designs for tapestry; but at length he expostulated:- "It is
impossible for me," he said to M. de Chanteloup, "to work at the
same time at frontispieces for books, at a Virgin, at a picture of
the Congregation of St. Louis, at the various designs for the
gallery, and, finally, at designs for the royal tapestry.  I have
only one pair of hands and a feeble head, and can neither be helped
nor can my labours be lightened by another."

Annoyed by the enemies his success had provoked and whom he was
unable to conciliate, he determined, at the end of less than two
years' labour in Paris, to return to Rome.  Again settled there in
his humble dwelling on Mont Pincio, he employed himself diligently
in the practice of his art during the remaining years of his life,
living in great simplicity and privacy.  Though suffering much from
the disease which afflicted him, he solaced himself by study,
always striving after excellence.  "In growing old," he said, "I
feel myself becoming more and more inflamed with the desire of
surpassing myself and reaching the highest degree of perfection."
Thus toiling, struggling, and suffering, Poussin spent his later
years.  He had no children; his wife died before him; all his
friends were gone:  so that in his old age he was left absolutely
alone in Rome, so full of tombs, and died there in 1665,
bequeathing to his relatives at Andeleys the savings of his life,
amounting to about 1000 crowns; and leaving behind him, as a legacy
to his race, the great works of his genius.

The career of Ary Scheffer furnishes one of the best examples in
modern times of a like high-minded devotion to art.  Born at
Dordrecht, the son of a German artist, he early manifested an
aptitude for drawing and painting, which his parents encouraged.
His father dying while he was still young, his mother resolved,
though her means were but small, to remove the family to Paris, in
order that her son might obtain the best opportunities for
instruction.  There young Scheffer was placed with Guerin the
painter.  But his mother's means were too limited to permit him to
devote himself exclusively to study.  She had sold the few jewels
she possessed, and refused herself every indulgence, in order to
forward the instruction of her other children.  Under such
circumstances, it was natural that Ary should wish to help her; and
by the time he was eighteen years of age he began to paint small
pictures of simple subjects, which met with a ready sale at
moderate prices.  He also practised portrait painting, at the same
time gathering experience and earning honest money.  He gradually
improved in drawing, colouring, and composition.  The 'Baptism'
marked a new epoch in his career, and from that point he went on
advancing, until his fame culminated in his pictures illustrative
of 'Faust,' his 'Francisca de Rimini,' 'Christ the Consoler,' the
'Holy Women,' 'St. Monica and St. Augustin,' and many other noble
works.

"The amount of labour, thought, and attention," says Mrs. Grote,
"which Scheffer brought to the production of the 'Francisca,' must
have been enormous.  In truth, his technical education having been
so imperfect, he was forced to climb the steep of art by drawing
upon his own resources, and thus, whilst his hand was at work, his
mind was engaged in meditation.  He had to try various processes of
handling, and experiments in colouring; to paint and repaint, with
tedious and unremitting assiduity.  But Nature had endowed him with
that which proved in some sort an equivalent for shortcomings of a
professional kind.  His own elevation of character, and his
profound sensibility, aided him in acting upon the feelings of
others through the medium of the pencil." {21}

One of the artists whom Scheffer most admired was Flaxman; and he
once said to a friend, "If I have unconsciously borrowed from any
one in the design of the 'Francisca,' it must have been from
something I had seen among Flaxman's drawings."  John Flaxman was
the son of a humble seller of plaster casts in New Street, Covent
Garden.  When a child, he was such an invalid that it was his
custom to sit behind his father's shop counter propped by pillows,
amusing himself with drawing and reading.  A benevolent clergyman,
the Rev. Mr. Matthews, calling at the shop one day, saw the boy
trying to read a book, and on inquiring what it was, found it to be
a Cornelius Nepos, which his father had picked up for a few pence
at a bookstall.  The gentleman, after some conversation with the
boy, said that was not the proper book for him to read, but that he
would bring him one.  The next day he called with translations of
Homer and 'Don Quixote,' which the boy proceeded to read with great
avidity.  His mind was soon filled with the heroism which breathed
through the pages of the former, and, with the stucco Ajaxes and
Achilleses about him, ranged along the shop shelves, the ambition
took possession of him, that he too would design and embody in
poetic forms those majestic heroes.

Like all youthful efforts, his first designs were crude.  The proud
father one day showed some of them to Roubilliac the sculptor, who
turned from them with a contemptuous "pshaw!"  But the boy had the
right stuff in him; he had industry and patience; and he continued
to labour incessantly at his books and drawings.  He then tried his
young powers in modelling figures in plaster of Paris, wax, and
clay.  Some of these early works are still preserved, not because
of their merit, but because they are curious as the first healthy
efforts of patient genius.  It was long before the boy could walk,
and he only learnt to do so by hobbling along upon crutches.  At
length he became strong enough to walk without them.

The kind Mr. Matthews invited him to his house, where his wife
explained Homer and Milton to him.  They helped him also in his
self-culture--giving him lessons in Greek and Latin, the study of
which he prosecuted at home.  By dint of patience and perseverance,
his drawing improved so much that he obtained a commission from a
lady, to execute six original drawings in black chalk of subjects
in Homer.  His first commission!  What an event in the artist's
life!  A surgeon's first fee, a lawyer's first retainer, a
legislator's first speech, a singer's first appearance behind the
foot-lights, an author's first book, are not any of them more full
of interest to the aspirant for fame than the artist's first
commission.  The boy at once proceeded to execute the order, and he
was both well praised and well paid for his work.

At fifteen Flaxman entered a pupil at the Royal Academy.
Notwithstanding his retiring disposition, he soon became known
among the students, and great things were expected of him.  Nor
were their expectations disappointed:  in his fifteenth year he
gained the silver prize, and next year he became a candidate for
the gold one.  Everybody prophesied that he would carry off the
medal, for there was none who surpassed him in ability and
industry.  Yet he lost it, and the gold medal was adjudged to a
pupil who was not afterwards heard of.  This failure on the part of
the youth was really of service to him; for defeats do not long
cast down the resolute-hearted, but only serve to call forth their
real powers.  "Give me time," said he to his father, "and I will
yet produce works that the Academy will be proud to recognise."  He
redoubled his efforts, spared no pains, designed and modelled
incessantly, and made steady if not rapid progress.  But meanwhile
poverty threatened his father's household; the plaster-cast trade
yielded a very bare living; and young Flaxman, with resolute self-
denial, curtailed his hours of study, and devoted himself to
helping his father in the humble details of his business.  He laid
aside his Homer to take up the plaster-trowel.  He was willing to
work in the humblest department of the trade so that his father's
family might be supported, and the wolf kept from the door.  To
this drudgery of his art he served a long apprenticeship; but it
did him good.  It familiarised him with steady work, and cultivated
in him the spirit of patience.  The discipline may have been hard,
but it was wholesome.

Happily, young Flaxman's skill in design had reached the knowledge
of Josiah Wedgwood, who sought him out for the purpose of employing
him to design improved patterns of china and earthenware.  It may
seem a humble department of art for such a genius as Flaxman to
work in; but it really was not so.  An artist may be labouring
truly in his vocation while designing a common teapot or water-jug.
Articles in daily use amongst the people, which are before their
eyes at every meal, may be made the vehicles of education to all,
and minister to their highest culture.  The most ambitious artist
way thus confer a greater practical benefit on his countrymen than
by executing an elaborate work which he may sell for thousands of
pounds to be placed in some wealthy man's gallery where it is
hidden away from public sight.  Before Wedgwood's time the designs
which figured upon our china and stoneware were hideous both in
drawing and execution, and he determined to improve both.  Flaxman
did his best to carry out the manufacturer's views.  He supplied
him from time to time with models and designs of various pieces of
earthenware, the subjects of which were principally from ancient
verse and history.  Many of them are still in existence, and some
are equal in beauty and simplicity to his after designs for marble.
The celebrated Etruscan vases, specimens of which were to be found
in public museums and in the cabinets of the curious, furnished him
with the best examples of form, and these he embellished with his
own elegant devices.  Stuart's 'Athens,' then recently published,
furnished him with specimens of the purest-shaped Greek utensils;
of these he adopted the best, and worked them into new shapes of
elegance and beauty.  Flaxman then saw that he was labouring in a
great work--no less than the promotion of popular education; and he
was proud, in after life, to allude to his early labours in this
walk, by which he was enabled at the same time to cultivate his
love of the beautiful, to diffuse a taste for art among the people,
and to replenish his own purse, while he promoted the prosperity of
his friend and benefactor.

At length, in the year 1782, when twenty-seven years of age, he
quitted his father's roof and rented a small house and studio in
Wardour Street, Soho; and what was more, he married--Ann Denman was
the name of his wife--and a cheerful, bright-souled, noble woman
she was.  He believed that in marrying her he should be able to
work with an intenser spirit; for, like him, she had a taste for
poetry and art; and besides was an enthusiastic admirer of her
husband's genius.  Yet when Sir Joshua Reynolds--himself a
bachelor--met Flaxman shortly after his marriage, he said to him,
"So, Flaxman, I am told you are married; if so, sir, I tell you you
are ruined for an artist."  Flaxman went straight home, sat down
beside his wife, took her hand in his, and said, "Ann, I am ruined
for an artist."  "How so, John?  How has it happened? and who has
done it?"  "It happened," he replied, "in the church, and Ann
Denman has done it."  He then told her of Sir Joshua's remark--
whose opinion was well known, and had often been expressed, that if
students would excel they must bring the whole powers of their mind
to bear upon their art, from the moment they rose until they went
to bed; and also, that no man could be a GREAT artist unless he
studied the grand works of Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, and others,
at Rome and Florence.  "And I," said Flaxman, drawing up his little
figure to its full height, "_I_ would be a great artist."  "And a
great artist you shall be," said his wife, "and visit Rome too, if
that be really necessary to make you great."  "But how?" asked
Flaxman.  "WORK AND ECONOMISE," rejoined the brave wife; "I will
never have it said that Ann Denman ruined John Flaxman for an
artist."  And so it was determined by the pair that the journey to
Rome was to be made when their means would admit.  "I will go to
Rome," said Flaxman, "and show the President that wedlock is for a
man's good rather than his harm; and you, Ann, shall accompany me."

Patiently and happily the affectionate couple plodded on during
five years in their humble little home in Wardour Street, always
with the long journey to Rome before them.  It was never lost sight
of for a moment, and not a penny was uselessly spent that could be
saved towards the necessary expenses.  They said no word to any one
about their project; solicited no aid from the Academy; but trusted
only to their own patient labour and love to pursue and achieve
their object.  During this time Flaxman exhibited very few works.
He could not afford marble to experiment in original designs; but
he obtained frequent commissions for monuments, by the profits of
which he maintained himself.  He still worked for Wedgwood, who was
a prompt paymaster; and, on the whole, he was thriving, happy, and
hopeful.  His local respectability was even such as to bring local
honours and local work upon him; for he was elected by the
ratepayers to collect the watch-rate for the Parish of St. Anne,
when he might be seen going about with an ink-bottle suspended from
his button-hole, collecting the money.

At length Flaxman and his wife having accumulated a sufficient
store of savings, set out for Rome.  Arrived there, he applied
himself diligently to study, maintaining himself, like other poor
artists, by making copies from the antique.  English visitors
sought his studio, and gave him commissions; and it was then that
he composed his beautiful designs illustrative of Homer, AEschylus,
and Dante.  The price paid for them was moderate--only fifteen
shillings a-piece; but Flaxman worked for art as well as money; and
the beauty of the designs brought him other friends and patrons.
He executed Cupid and Aurora for the munificent Thomas Hope, and
the Fury of Athamas for the Earl of Bristol.  He then prepared to
return to England, his taste improved and cultivated by careful
study; but before he left Italy, the Academies of Florence and
Carrara recognised his merit by electing him a member.

His fame had preceded him to London, where he soon found abundant
employment.  While at Rome he had been commissioned to execute his
famous monument in memory of Lord Mansfield, and it was erected in
the north transept of Westminster Abbey shortly after his return.
It stands there in majestic grandeur, a monument to the genius of
Flaxman himself--calm, simple, and severe.  No wonder that Banks,
the sculptor, then in the heyday of his fame, exclaimed when he saw
it, "This little man cuts us all out!"

When the members of the Royal Academy heard of Flaxman's return,
and especially when they had an opportunity of seeing and admiring
his portrait-statue of Mansfield, they were eager to have him
enrolled among their number.  He allowed his name to be proposed in
the candidates' list of associates, and was immediately elected.
Shortly after, he appeared in an entirely new character.  The
little boy who had begun his studies behind the plaster-cast-
seller's shop-counter in New Street, Covent Garden, was now a man
of high intellect and recognised supremacy in art, to instruct
students, in the character of Professor of Sculpture to the Royal
Academy!  And no man better deserved to fill that distinguished
office; for none is so able to instruct others as he who, for
himself and by his own efforts, has learnt to grapple with and
overcome difficulties.

After a long, peaceful, and happy life, Flaxman found himself
growing old.  The loss which he sustained by the death of his
affectionate wife Ann, was a severe shock to him; but he survived
her several years, during which he executed his celebrated "Shield
of Achilles," and his noble "Archangel Michael vanquishing Satan,"-
-perhaps his two greatest works.

Chantrey was a more robust man;--somewhat rough, but hearty in his
demeanour; proud of his successful struggle with the difficulties
which beset him in early life; and, above all, proud of his
independence.  He was born a poor man's child, at Norton, near
Sheffield.  His father dying when he was a mere boy, his mother
married again.  Young Chantrey used to drive an ass laden with
milk-cans across its back into the neighbouring town of Sheffield,
and there serve his mother's customers with milk.  Such was the
humble beginning of his industrial career; and it was by his own
strength that he rose from that position, and achieved the highest
eminence as an artist.  Not taking kindly to his step-father, the
boy was sent to trade, and was first placed with a grocer in
Sheffield.  The business was very distasteful to him; but, passing
a carver's shop window one day, his eye was attracted by the
glittering articles it contained, and, charmed with the idea of
being a carver, he begged to be released from the grocery business
with that object.  His friends consented, and he was bound
apprentice to the carver and gilder for seven years.  His new
master, besides being a carver in wood, was also a dealer in prints
and plaster models; and Chantrey at once set about imitating both,
studying with great industry and energy.  All his spare hours were
devoted to drawing, modelling, and self-improvement, and he often
carried his labours far into the night.  Before his apprenticeship
was out--at the ace of twenty-one--he paid over to his master the
whole wealth which he was able to muster--a sum of 50l.--to cancel
his indentures, determined to devote himself to the career of an
artist.  He then made the best of his way to London, and with
characteristic good sense, sought employment as an assistant
carver, studying painting and modelling at his bye-hours.  Among
the jobs on which he was first employed as a journeyman carver, was
the decoration of the dining-room of Mr. Rogers, the poet--a room
in which he was in after years a welcome visitor; and he usually
took pleasure in pointing out his early handywork to the guests
whom he met at his friend's table.

Returning to Sheffield on a professional visit, he advertised
himself in the local papers as a painter of portraits in crayons
and miniatures, and also in oil.  For his first crayon portrait he
was paid a guinea by a cutler; and for a portrait in oil, a
confectioner paid him as much as 5l. and a pair of top boots!
Chantrey was soon in London again to study at the Royal Academy;
and next time he returned to Sheffield he advertised himself as
ready to model plaster busts of his townsmen, as well as paint
portraits of them.  He was even selected to design a monument to a
deceased vicar of the town, and executed it to the general
satisfaction.  When in London he used a room over a stable as a
studio, and there he modelled his first original work for
exhibition.  It was a gigantic head of Satan.  Towards the close of
Chantrey's life, a friend passing through his studio was struck by
this model lying in a corner.  "That head," said the sculptor, "was
the first thing that I did after I came to London.  I worked at it
in a garret with a paper cap on my head; and as I could then afford
only one candle, I stuck that one in my cap that it might move
along with me, and give me light whichever way I turned."  Flaxman
saw and admired this head at the Academy Exhibition, and
recommended Chantrey for the execution of the busts of four
admirals, required for the Naval Asylum at Greenwich.  This
commission led to others, and painting was given up.  But for eight
years before, he had not earned 5l. by his modelling.  His famous
head of Horne Tooke was such a success that, according to his own
account, it brought him commissions amounting to 12,000l.

Chantrey had now succeeded, but he had worked hard, and fairly
earned his good fortune.  He was selected from amongst sixteen
competitors to execute the statue of George III. for the city of
London.  A few years later, he produced the exquisite monument of
the Sleeping Children, now in Lichfield Cathedral,--a work of great
tenderness and beauty; and thenceforward his career was one of
increasing honour, fame, and prosperity.  His patience, industry,
and steady perseverance were the means by which he achieved his
greatness.  Nature endowed him with genius, and his sound sense
enabled him to employ the precious gift as a blessing.  He was
prudent and shrewd, like the men amongst whom he was born; the
pocket-book which accompanied him on his Italian tour containing
mingled notes on art, records of daily expenses, and the current
prices of marble.  His tastes were simple, and he made his finest
subjects great by the mere force of simplicity.  His statue of
Watt, in Handsworth church, seems to us the very consummation of
art; yet it is perfectly artless and simple.  His generosity to
brother artists in need was splendid, but quiet and unostentatious.
He left the principal part of his fortune to the Royal Academy for
the promotion of British art.

The same honest and persistent industry was throughout distinctive
of the career of David Wilkie.  The son of a Scotch minister, he
gave early indications of an artistic turn; and though he was a
negligent and inapt scholar, he was a sedulous drawer of faces and
figures.  A silent boy, he already displayed that quiet
concentrated energy of character which distinguished him through
life.  He was always on the look-out for an opportunity to draw,--
and the walls of the manse, or the smooth sand by the river side,
were alike convenient for his purpose.  Any sort of tool would
serve him; like Giotto, he found a pencil in a burnt stick, a
prepared canvas in any smooth stone, and the subject for a picture
in every ragged mendicant he met.  When he visited a house, he
generally left his mark on the walls as an indication of his
presence, sometimes to the disgust of cleanly housewives.  In
short, notwithstanding the aversion of his father, the minister, to
the "sinful" profession of painting, Wilkie's strong propensity was
not to be thwarted, and he became an artist, working his way
manfully up the steep of difficulty.  Though rejected on his first
application as a candidate for admission to the Scottish Academy,
at Edinburgh, on account of the rudeness and inaccuracy of his
introductory specimens, he persevered in producing better, until he
was admitted.  But his progress was slow.  He applied himself
diligently to the drawing of the human figure, and held on with the
determination to succeed, as if with a resolute confidence in the
result.  He displayed none of the eccentric humour and fitful
application of many youths who conceive themselves geniuses, but
kept up the routine of steady application to such an extent that he
himself was afterwards accustomed to attribute his success to his
dogged perseverance rather than to any higher innate power.  "The
single element," he said, "in all the progressive movements of my
pencil was persevering industry."  At Edinburgh he gained a few
premiums, thought of turning his attention to portrait painting,
with a view to its higher and more certain remuneration, but
eventually went boldly into the line in which he earned his fame,--
and painted his Pitlessie Fair.  What was bolder still, he
determined to proceed to London, on account of its presenting so
much wider a field for study and work; and the poor Scotch lad
arrived in town, and painted his Village Politicians while living
in a humble lodging on eighteen shillings a week.

Notwithstanding the success of this picture, and the commissions
which followed it, Wilkie long continued poor.  The prices which
his works realized were not great, for he bestowed upon them so
much time and labour, that his earnings continued comparatively
small for many years.  Every picture was carefully studied and
elaborated beforehand; nothing was struck off at a heat; many
occupied him for years--touching, retouching, and improving them
until they finally passed out of his hands.  As with Reynolds, his
motto was "Work! work! work!" and, like him, he expressed great
dislike for talking artists.  Talkers may sow, but the silent reap.
"Let us be DOING something," was his oblique mode of rebuking the
loquacious and admonishing the idle.  He once related to his friend
Constable that when he studied at the Scottish Academy, Graham, the
master of it, was accustomed to say to the students, in the words
of Reynolds, "If you have genius, industry will improve it; if you
have none, industry will supply its place."  "So," said Wilkie, "I
was determined to be very industrious, for I knew I had no genius."
He also told Constable that when Linnell and Burnett, his fellow-
students in London, were talking about art, he always contrived to
get as close to them as he could to hear all they said, "for," said
he, "they know a great deal, and I know very little."  This was
said with perfect sincerity, for Wilkie was habitually modest.  One
of the first things that he did with the sum of thirty pounds which
he obtained from Lord Mansfield for his Village Politicians, was to
buy a present--of bonnets, shawls, and dresses--for his mother and
sister at home, though but little able to afford it at the time.
Wilkie's early poverty had trained him in habits of strict economy,
which were, however, consistent with a noble liberality, as appears
from sundry passages in the Autobiography of Abraham Raimbach the
engraver.

William Etty was another notable instance of unflagging industry
and indomitable perseverance in art.  His father was a ginger-bread
and spicemaker at York, and his mother--a woman of considerable
force and originality of character--was the daughter of a
ropemaker.  The boy early displayed a love of drawing, covering
walls, floors, and tables with specimens of his skill; his first
crayon being a farthing's worth of chalk, and this giving place to
a piece of coal or a bit of charred stick.  His mother, knowing
nothing of art, put the boy apprentice to a trade--that of a
printer.  But in his leisure hours he went on with the practice of
drawing; and when his time was out he determined to follow his
bent--he would be a painter and nothing else.  Fortunately his
uncle and elder brother were able and willing to help him on in his
new career, and they provided him with the means of entering as
pupil at the Royal Academy.  We observe, from Leslie's
Autobiography, that Etty was looked upon by his fellow students as
a worthy but dull, plodding person, who would never distinguish
himself.  But he had in him the divine faculty of work, and
diligently plodded his way upward to eminence in the highest walks
of art.

Many artists have had to encounter privations which have tried
their courage and endurance to the utmost before they succeeded.
What number may have sunk under them we can never know.  Martin
encountered difficulties in the course of his career such as
perhaps fall to the lot of few.  More than once he found himself on
the verge of starvation while engaged on his first great picture.
It is related of him that on one occasion he found himself reduced
to his last shilling--a BRIGHT shilling--which he had kept because
of its very brightness, but at length he found it necessary to
exchange it for bread.  He went to a baker's shop, bought a loaf,
and was taking it away, when the baker snatched it from him, and
tossed back the shilling to the starving painter.  The bright
shilling had failed him in his hour of need--it was a bad one!
Returning to his lodgings, he rummaged his trunk for some remaining
crust to satisfy his hunger.  Upheld throughout by the victorious
power of enthusiasm, he pursued his design with unsubdued energy.
He had the courage to work on and to wait; and when, a few days
after, he found an opportunity to exhibit his picture, he was from
that time famous.  Like many other great artists, his life proves
that, in despite of outward circumstances, genius, aided by
industry, will be its own protector, and that fame, though she
comes late, will never ultimately refuse her favours to real merit

The most careful discipline and training after academic methods
will fail in making an artist, unless he himself take an active
part in the work.  Like every highly cultivated man, he must be
mainly self-educated.  When Pugin, who was brought up in his
father's office, had learnt all that he could learn of architecture
according to the usual formulas, he still found that he had learned
but little; and that he must begin at the beginning, and pass
through the discipline of labour.  Young Pugin accordingly hired
himself out as a common carpenter at Covent Garden Theatre--first
working under the stage, then behind the flys, then upon the stage
itself.  He thus acquired a familiarity with work, and cultivated
an architectural taste, to which the diversity of the mechanical
employment about a large operatic establishment is peculiarly
favourable.  When the theatre closed for the season, he worked a
sailing-ship between London and some of the French ports, carrying
on at the same time a profitable trade.  At every opportunity he
would land and make drawings of any old building, and especially of
any ecclesiastical structure which fell in his way.  Afterwards he
would make special journeys to the Continent for the same purpose,
and returned home laden with drawings.  Thus he plodded and
laboured on, making sure of the excellence and distinction which he
eventually achieved.