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    upright , and of such unbending Integrity that no one eould ever charge him with trimming or timeserving . If he erred , it was on the other side . His zeal and intrepidity despised alike the fear of man and the praise and fashion of the world ;

    His eye was single and his heart was upright . His piety was sincere and his moral conduct most exemplary . " He married for his second wife a daughter of the late excellent Mr . Simpson , of Worship Street , by whom he has left a large family to deplore his loss ,

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    Mr . Flaxman , at the time of his death , was in the 72 d year of his age . His health had been gradually declining for some years , but his friends had no apprehension of his end being so near , when a severe cold baffled the power of medicine , and overpowered his remaining strength . He was born in the Strand , and at a very early age evinced a predilection for the art in which he afterwards

    so eminently excelled . He did not enjoy the advantages of a classical education , of so much importance to his profession , and he married young . Subsequently to his marriage he spent some years in Italy , and there laid the foundation of the celebrity he afterwards acquired . The following eloquent eulogy on Mr . Flaxman was pronounced by Sir Thomas Lawrence at the Royal Academy on the day of his death .

    " Mr . Flaxman ' s genius , in the strictest sense of the words , was original and inventive . " His purity of taste led him , in early life , to the study of the noblest relics of antiquity , and a mind , though not of classical education , of classic bias , urged him to the perusal of the best translations

    of the Greek philosophers and poets ; till it became deeply imbued with those simple and grand sentiments which distinguish the productions of that favoured people . When immersed in these mingling studies , a fortunate circumstance —the patronage of a lady of high rank , * whose taste will now be remembered

    with her known goodness—gave birth to those unequalled compositions from Homer and the Greek tragedians , which have so long been the admiration of Europe . These , indeed , from their accuracy in costume , and the singular felicity of the union between their characters and * " The Dowager Countess Spencer . "

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    subjects , to minds unaccustomed to nice discrimination , may have naturally conveyed the idea of too close an imitation of Grecian art . Undoubtedly , the Elements of his style were founded on it ; but only on its noblest principles , on its deeper intellectual power , and not on the mere surface of its style . Though

    master of its purest lines , he was rather the sculptor of sentiment , than of form ; and , whilst the philosopher , the statesman , and the hero , were treated by him with appropriate dignity , not even in Raffaele have the gentler feelings and sorrows of human nature been traced with more touching pathos , than in the various designs and models of this estimable man . The rest of Europe know only the productions of the earlier

    period of his fame , but these , which form the highest efforts of his genius , had their origin in nature only , and the sensibility and virtues of his mind . Like the greatest of modern painters , he delighted to trace , from the actions of familiar life , the lines of sentiment and passion ; and from the populous haunts and momentary peacefulness of poverty and want , to form those unequalled groups of maternal tenderness , of listening infancy and filial love !

    " The sources and habits of composition , in Michel Angelo and Flaxman , were the same—and , sanctified as the memory of the former is by time and glory , it receives no slight addition from the homage of this modest but great man ; whose shield of Achilles , that matchless union of beauty , energy and grandeur , his genius only could surpass . " Some of Mr , Flaxman ' s friends have

    appeared anxious to represent him to be a member of the Church of England . But it is well known that he was by religious profession a disciple of Swedenborg . His modest and retiring habits prevented him , however , from publicly appearing as the champion or abettor of an unpopular sect . In' private life he was en * deared to a large circle of friends by the high excellencies of his character , and

    the amiableness of his manners . He was buried on the 15 th December . It had been intended that the Royal Academy should follow his remains to the grave , but this was prevented by his own injunctions , that his funeral should be private . Several of the more distinguished members of the Academy attended , notwithstanding , to bear their testimony to his eminent worth .

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    Obituary > - ~ John Flaxman , Esq . 125

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    John Flaxman , Esq ., R . A .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1827, page 125, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1793/page/45/