642 
same authority, or clearness: We shall 
soon haye an opportunity of supplying the 
deficiency. 
Nollekens and his Times, by T. Smith. 
2 vols. 8vo-—Nollekens was one of the 
most successful makers of busts and sepul- 
ehral monuments in his day—a dextrous 
and felicitous transferer of likenesses—but 
as little entitled to class with intellectual 
artists of ancient or modern times, as any 
man who ever gained a reputation without 
deserving it, He was indeed a man utterly 
without cultivation; with no defined no- 
tions of the principles of his art ; perfectly 
ignorant of its history—insensible to the 
beautiful conceptions of antiquity, and quite 
incapable of appreciating their superiorities. 
He had no reading in him, or literature of 
any kind—no romance—no poetry—no 
visions; but looking upon his profession as 
a mechanical trade—a business of manipu- 
lation—piqued: himself upon his executions 
in the very spirit with which a shopman 
might on his dexterity in packing a parcel. 
A pains-taking fellow, in short, who was 
able to model what stood before him. Of 
all feeling of the ideal he was totally desti- 
tute—his notion of perfection was limited 
to the production of the truest copy of the 
figure before him. The rule and compass 
did every thing for him. Bor and bred 
among statues and paintings, he had some 
tact in selecting figures “and attitudes ; but 
his very - Venuses,- for which he at one 
time gained some celebrity, have all the 
faults of individual nature. His stooping 
Venus has thick ancles—imperfectly formed 
thighs—defective, that is, in the filling up 
of the Greek statues—a bad abdomen—but 
a back of unrivalled beauty—all nicely and 
aceurately copied from the female who stood 
before him. The toes alone were taken from 
the Venus de Medici—those of his living 
model were of course, like all women’s, crip- 
pled from the compression of tight shoes. 
The history of an artist, is, somebody 
says, the history of his works, but those of 
Nollekens could furnish nothing of any in- 
terest ; for they were none of them works of 
fancy or adventure (save only the Venuses 
before alluded to), but pieces made accord- 
ing to order. The character of the man, 
and that was of the coarsest and most sor- 
did kind, accordingly supplies the materials 
of his biography. He was nothing but a 
grovelling miser—his whole soul was bent 
upon money-making, and he could not part 
with money even for his own gratification. 
He matches Elwes in sordidness, but Elwes 
was a gentleman in-manners and cultiva- 
tion, to which Nollekens had no pretension 
whatever. He was low and vulgar without 
redemption — conceited — jealous — suspi- 
cious—detractive—and full. of the most 
unmitigated prejudices. Of Flaxman, he 
once said—‘ I don’t like him ; he holds me 
very cheap, and he’s always talking of the 
simple line in the antique; why, he has” 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
. Yorkshire. 
(Dec. 
never been at Rome; he has never been 
over the Alps; he has never been at the top 
of Mount Vesuvius, where I have washed 
my hands in the clouds: what can he know 
about the matter ? he never stays a minute 
longer than to speak to Smith, when he 
comes into-my studio.” 
Nollekens was born in 1737. His father 
and grandfather were painters, and natives of 
Antwerp. He himself was born in London, 
and at thirteen placed with Scheemaker, 
then, probably, the best statuary in the me- 
tropolis, and with him he continued for ten 
years, working always, and indefatigably, 
in his vocation, but only working manually 
—doing nothing to enlighten or enlarge 
his experience, nor mixing with any ca- 
pable of supplying his manifest deficiencies. 
The Scheemakers lived grubbingly, and 
Nollekens knew no other mode of life, nor 
ever after regarded any other. He very 
early started for the prizes of the Society of 
Arts, and gained several of them. At 
three and twenty, with the little money he 
had thus acquired, he went to Rome, and 
forthwith turned his talents to account. In 
conjunction with antiquity dealers, he re- 
stored mutilations, and fitted heads and 
limbs to torsos—bought up terracottas—and 
puffed off modern fabrications—thus. gain- 
ing considerable sums—and all the while 
living in the most beggarly style of sordid- 
ness. One hit produced 1,000 guineas 
a botched Minerva, now at Newby Park, in 
While at Rome, Garrick re- 
cognized him, with—‘‘ What, are you the 
little fellow to whom we gave the prizes at 
the Society of Arts?” He employed him 
forthwith to make his bust—Nollekens’s 
first ; and Sterne soon after did the same— 
which brought him into notice. ; 
On his return to London, he came quick! 
into full employment ; and though still liv- 
ing in the most hugger-mugger style, he ~ 
was known to be wealthy, a holder of stock 
to some amount—a thing so rare among 
artists, thatit gave him consideration among 
his fraternity. He was soon admitted into the 
Academy, and patronized by the king. He 
now married a daughter of Welch—a man 
who succeeded Henry Fielding as a magis- 
trate, and whose name and fortunes are 
familiar to the readers of Johnson’s biegra- 
phers. The lady was the Pekuah of the 
Rasselas, of whom Johnson used to say—— 
“ Yes, I think Mary would have been 
mine, if little Joey had not stepped in.” She 
shared to the full all Nollekens’s propensi- 
ties ; and one of the volumes is half filled 
with specimens of their miserableness. ‘She 
used to walk round Oxford Market, when 
she went to the butcher’s, several times, to 
give her dog an opportunity of picking up 
scraps, till her purpose was detected; and 
she was assailed with, “here comes Mrs. 
Nollekens and her bull-bitch.”” Both of 
them had a taste for spices —Nollekens 
pocketed nutmegs at the Academy dinners ; 
and she, when she visited the grocer’s, had 
