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    "S ^ lo ^^ of exiles , heirs of theglory and the suffering of D ^ WfiorSall connttne victimsof perfidious thrones , rotting m prisons beneath ^ set ? w " GtA ^ ro ^ has forgotten iWo . " God ' s justice" is mis-S ^ ed in the month of a Chancellor ^ the Exchequer . Let . us not , the forlorn hope of freedom in Europe , while we ask the impatient to *«* ** cret to d 6 honour to the martyrs of expectation . We have a sacred debt to oav to the dead . May the Leader never forget the obligation . In the last week of last ISbvember the Marchesa Lttcrbzia Gubbrieri

    Gootaga of Mantua died , in the twentieth year of her age . In the spring ofthesame sad year ( a year of grief and bitterness to thousands ) Emima Manin was called away from the side of her noble father , whose exile had been consoled by the tender graces of her patient love . The Marchesa Guebbiebi was the sister of Anselmo Gtjebriebi , a member of the Provisional Government of Milan in 1848 . Sorrow at the unhappy fate of her country and at the persecution of her two brothers , broke a young life devoted to that cause which inspired her genius . Fot what she felt she sang

    in words that will live in spite of Austrian censors . Shattered by emotions which were , indeed , a " fatal gift , " had long seemed to find death less difficult than life . The funeral of Lttcrezia Guebbiebi was attended by all the patriots of Mantua . The Austrian Governor saw the sacred flame still burning in that devoted city where Tazzom was hanged three years ago . The crime of Tazzom was the love of Italy , and the love of Italy brought the genius and the beanty of Lttcrezia Gtjebbieri to an early of brother knew her not

    grave . Let us say , in the words a : " We , and beyond our common faith we had no right over her grave . But a ray ofthe democracy had flashed across her brow . That is enough . Henceforth she belonged to us by sympathy . There is mourning in Courts for their dead , let us also , mourn for ours . Queens have at their funerals funeral orations : let us also compose funeral orations for the daughters of our faith . We shall then perceive by the beating of our hearts to whom God sends the better inspirations . "

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    WILLIAM ETTY , E . A . Tb £ Z&e& William Etty ^ ^ 4- By Alexander Gilchrist . Bogue We gladlyaccept this Biography , as a book which offers honest homage ^ the memory of a great Painter and a good man . Persuaded of the genuine intention with which the work has been undertaken , we will abstain altogether ftoni entering on the _ subject of its literary execution . Gar duty WwardffMr . 64 Ichr » stTwill have been easily , and , it is to be hoped , not grudgingly doue , when we have congratulated him on the care and patience Trihich ¦ ¦ lm \ m 4 !« y llL J * in collecting every available fact ia connexion with hissubiect ; and when we have expressed our thorough appreciation of the just andcandid manner in which his admiration for Etty , as artist and man , shows itselffrom the beginning of the biographical narrative to the end .

    , Having said this , we have no more to add in relation to the book—except to recommend our readers to pass over its faults of manner and execution for the sake of its merits of matter and intention , with the same forbearance which , as readers ourselves , we have endeavoured to show " \ the present notiee . On-the subject of 1 Etty himself , we- ^ niust b eg - permission J ; o dwell at greater length , because we believe that subject to be worthy of all attention and honour in these columns . We will take Mr . Gilchrist as our guide in tnatters of biographical fact , and will only draw on our own recollections of the painter , in passages where his personal character comes specially and naoessanlj uuler rarieir . _

    .... ... . Xock was the city which , in the year 1787 , had the honour of being the birthplace of the greatest colourist of modern times . Etty ' s father was a miller and a maker of gingerbread , famous in and out of York for its fine flavour and magnineent gilding . The painter was the seventh child of a family of ten , and his " first crayon" ( as he himself wrote in after years ) " tom a farthmg ' s-worth of white chalk . " After receiving a school education of the slightest kind , he was apprenticed , at the age of eleven and a ha | £ , to a letterpress printer at Hull ; and served his full time patiently and

    conscientiously . He records of himself—in an autobiography written for the . Art Journal—that his resolution to be a painter was taken at an early period of his drudgery in the printer's office . While submitting with that modest and gentle heroism of character which distinguished him all through lifiv to duties that had been imposed on him by others , he contrived to fortify his resolution by following the natural instincts of his genius , at all those adds and ends of spare time which have proved the first sources of greatness in the instances of so many great men . On the expiration of his apprenticeship the necessity for his admirable self-denial ceased ; and he

    spoke out on the subject of the great ambition of his life . It is pleasant to know that his aspirations , so nobly suppressed for so many hard years , were tenderly and fairly dealt with when he at last acknowledged them An uncle , who was a goldlace merchant in London , opened his doors to his young kinsman , and earned the lasting honour of having been tho first to start William Etty on his career as a Painter . His earliest studies ia Art were made at a plaster-cast shop in ghostly Cock-1 mm . Here . he gained , sufficient facility in drawing from the Antique to be admitted as a Probationer of the Royal Academy schools . His next step of importance was to enter the Studio of Sir Thomas Lawrence , and to submit his genius , still struggling ineffectually and obscurely to assert itself , to the teaching of the fashionable portrait-painter , who had been raised by kofcekt by talent * by luck , b y admirable personal qualities—by anything aadi «* wnrtMng « xo « p 4 tag solid and genuine gifts as a painter—to all tho f *« M . and , mare than the worldly success of Xleynolds himself . Fortunately for his future career , Etty learnt but little from his master ; but even that

    little showed itself , in the faulty parts of his technical practice as a painter , to the latest day of his life . It is sad to know that he ever tried , even as a youth , to learn , anything from the practice of Lawrence-but it is nothing less San amazing to hear—as we do hear from Mr . Gilchnst—that in the very htTyea ^ o ? his lifeT the painter of " Judith" and the « Sirens" absolutely employed himself in making a " second copy" of one of Lawrence s pictures ; Nothing we have , ever known of Etty places his admirable modesty , his generous tendency to over-estimate the works of his brother-painters , and his affectionate remembrance of aid rendered or kindness shown to him ma stronger and more characteristic light , to our perception , than this one little ^ wVmust get on as quickly as may be to the few remaining events of the painter ' s life which it will be necessary to notice here . It is melancholy to know that the kind uncle died before the hard-working nephew had mounted even the first step towards that high place in Art which he was afterwards destined to occupy . Etty ' s faculties , like those of many other men of genius , ripened slowly . It was fortunate that his excellentjmcle lef t him a legacy , which just helped him to bide his time . He failed and tor tne avert tne

    fell often before he gathered strength enough great leap . Academy gold medalhe tried for in vain . Year after year his pictures were rejected at the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and the British Institution . Still he never faltered , never despaired . Bravely , hopefully , patiently , he worked on , with a loving devotion of himself to his art , which no words can praise too highly . At last , the reward he had wrought for so long , came - ^ came late , it is true , but came gloriously as well . Fame was his first thought ; and fame he won , when , at the age of tbirty-tliree , he exhibited at the lloyal Academy his celebrated picture of the Coral Finders . In 1820 , the year of its production , this exquisite poem on canvas was bought of the painter for 30 f . In 1849 , it was sold in an auction-room for 370 guineas . The lapse of little more than a quarter of a century has wrought wholesome chances indeed in the public estimation of works of modern art J ^ flU r * Wnrndm > tion of the Cored Finders , Etty rose to his true place as

    one of the great painters of the English school . Henceforward , the best history of his life is contained in his pictures . After gaining huniame , they gained him the academic honours which he prized as highly . Last of all , lin"erin < r lono- after Fame and Honours , came—what was to Etty—Wealth , ffcflived long enough to see , and , as he deserved , to profit by that change for the better , in the appreciation of modern art , which it is . the glory of the merchant-class in Eng land to have been mainly concerned in bringing about : he lived to win by his own brush 17 , 000 / ., accumulated , at the end of his life , in the short period x > f eight years , after all his finest pictures of earlier days had been sold at prices which seem almost incredibly insufficient at the present time . Living to enjoy this deserved compensation , he also lived to taste a greater triumph st ill . Worn and -broken down by illness , he was

    yet spared long enough to see the room in the house in the Society of Arts , where , in the year 1849 , all his greatest works were gathered together for publicfixhibitidn . In this room , day after day / he lingered lovingly among the children of his fancy—himself , in his guileless happiness , his gentle gratitude for the smallest word of praise , spoken by the humblest visitors to the collection—hardly ~ a less interesting and less ennobling sight than the glorious works that hung around him . To the last , the old man lingered near his pictures . When they were dispersed , and each work had been safely returned to its owner , he retired to his native city , to his second home , never again to leave it . In little more than six weeks after his last return to York , he died of a lung disorder , at the age of sixty-three . No truer man ever lived ; no kinder , purer , braver heart than his ever beat .

    His brother-academicians , his friends among famous ^ men m literaturestudents ^ ui . odelSj . ser all grieved over the loss of the gentle , simple-hearted painter . Xt was his happy privilege to win affection and regard wherever he went . Among his inferiors in art he was always modestly ready to help : among his equals , always honestly ready to praise . If ever it could be said of a man that he had no sucli thing as a real enemy in the world , those words might well be spoken of William Etty . On his genius as a painter , it is not now necessary for us to dwell at any length . He had met with the warm recognition which was his due , from all whose opinions were worth having , loug before he died . If in the minds of any intelligent persons , of any class , doubts had ever arisen , of late years ,

    as to the validity of hi 3 claims to fill a foremost place in the ranks of the English School , those doubts were assuredly set at rest when his pictures were formed into one magnificent collection by tho Society of Arts . Tho so-called " moral" objections to some of his works , wo propose to leave entirely unnoticed in these columns . We believe that the nasty-minded people who infest the world may be divided into two classes : —First , the frankly nasty , whose admiration of the " nude" in pictures is an openly laBcivious admiration 5 secondly , the hypocritically nasty ( or worst class of the two ) , whose horror of this same " nude " is a secretly-lascivious horror . Any attempt at reasoning with , either of . these two classes we consider to be utterly useless . If no sensible person ever took any notice of them or their objections , we are firmly persuaded that thoy would bo more damaged as a party than by all tho moral and logical confutations in tho world . A

    second objection urged against some of fctty ' s pictures—the smaller almost exclusively—we are willing to treat with greater deference , for it ia not altogether unfounded . It seems , indeed , undeniable that tikis great master of his art suffered his own healthy and puro admiration of tho human form to lead him , on too many occasions , into condescending to a species oi painter ' s-work which was unworthy of his powers . His mere studies from the living model , in which the picture was done first , and the subject found out afterwards , are unrivalled specimens of flesh-paint ing , and nothing more . In the case of a second-rate man , this would be much to say ; iu the case of the painter of the " Sirens , " it is simply a fault ; the only important fault that con fiurly be charged against him on a general view of his works . Still , when every due allowance hasHbeen made for this defect , the great achievements of Etty remain to speak for him indisputably before all contemporary r ivals in his own line . Among his historical pictures on ' a large scale , works like the " Judith "—especially the noble first compartment ia which tho

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• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 27, 1855, page 90, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2075/page/18/