

07 



CARSTEXS, ASMUS JACOB. 



CARTE, THOMAS. 



Council with one of these cruel instruments, which he bequeathed as 

 an heir-loom to his family; and it is a traditional anecdote that 

 William III., haying desired to experience the initial symptoms of this 

 species of torture, the divine turned the screw at his request, but 

 rather too vigorously for his Majesty's nerves. Carstares was ulti- 

 mately released on a sort of compromise, by which he confessed a 

 knowledge of matters which were otherwise proved in the trial of 

 Baillie of Jerviswood. He returned to Holland with all his really 

 important secrets undivulged, and was warmly received by the prince, 

 who, in devising the expedition which created the Revolution of 1688, 

 is saiil to have mainly relied on the full knowledge of British parties, 

 and the advice, both bold and sagacious, of Carstares. He was subse- 

 quently of great service in producing a reconciliation between the 

 Scottish Presbyterians and William III., who could not precisely 

 understand the pertinacity with which his northern subjects adhered 

 to the principle of spiritual independence. A General Assembly being 

 about to convene, at which it was understood that there would be a 

 violent opposition to the oath of allegiance, the king, taking advice 

 from less sagacious counsellors, had prepared and delivered to a 

 messenger despatches directing the peremptory enforcement of the 

 act. It is said that Carstares assumed authority to stop the messenger 

 in his Majesty's name; and presenting himself to the king (who had 

 gone to bed) in the middle of the night, in the guise of a petitioner for 

 his life, forfeited by bis having thus committed high treason, to have 

 prevailed on him to dispense with the oath. Whether the anecdote 

 be true or not in all its circumstances, there is little doubt that his 

 influence obtained the dispensation. He became now virtually prime 

 minister for Scotland ; and received the popular designation of 'Cardinal 

 Carstares.' Even after the death of William, his knowledge of Scottish 

 affairs, and the respect paid to his talents, left him with considerable 

 influence. In 1704 he was chosen Principal of the University of Edin- 

 burgh. He died on the 28th of December 1715. (Stale Papers and 

 Letters addrened to William C'arttares; to which ii prefixed the Life, of 

 Mr. C'arstam, 4to, 1774.) 



CARSTENS, ASMUS JACOB, a distinguished German artist, was 

 born at St. Giirgen, near Schleswig, May 10th, 1754. His father was 

 a miller, but his mother, who was the daughter of an advocate at 

 Schleswig, had been exceedingly well-educated, and was therefore able 

 to bring up her three sons in a manner very superior to what the 

 circumstances of the family would otherwise have allowed. After his 

 father's death, which happened when he WHS about nine years old, 

 Asmus was sent to the public school at Schleswig, where he made 

 little or no progress ; but the pictures in the cathedral there by Jurian 

 Ovens, a pupil of Kembrandt, which seemed to him miracles of the 

 pencil, determined him to become himself a painter. His mother 

 readily seconded his inclination, and on his quitting school at the 

 ago of sixteen, applied to two painters to take him as a pupil ; but the 

 sum demanded was much greater than could prudently be afforded. 



His mother soon after died, and his guardians refusing to listen to 

 his earnest entreaties, placed 'him with a wine-merchant at Eckern- 

 forde. After the first feeling of despondency had passed over, he 

 employed the whole of his leisure time, and frequently a considerable 

 portion of the night, in drawing, and the reading of whatever books 

 he could procure relative to art ; and he about this time renewed his 

 acquaintance with Ipsen, a young painter whom he had known at 

 Schleswig, from whoso instructions he obtained some insight into the 

 management of colours and other technical matters. Having served 

 five years, be purchased the remaining two of his apprenticeship, and 

 proceeded to Copenhagen, where he again met with Ipsen, who pro- 

 cured for him free access to the Royal Gallery of Paintings, and to 

 the collection of casts and antiques at the academy. Whilst prosecuting 

 his studies here he endeavoured to support himself by taking liknesses 

 in red chalk, and was so fortunate as to be thus enabled to continue 

 his usual studies for two years longer, during which he produced his 

 ' Balder's Death ' and ' yEolus and Ulysses," compositions that excited 

 much notice, and would have obtained for him admittance into the 

 academy, had he not given offence on a particular occasion. But 

 having thus closed against himself the road to favour, he determined 

 upon leaving Copenhagen and going to Rome along with his youngest 

 brother (who had also been studying painting at Schleswig) and the 

 sculptor Busch. Accordingly, they set out in the spring of 1783, and 

 G'aratena and his brother travelled on foot cs far as Mantua, their 

 companion having parted from them at Nuremberg. After passing 

 an entire month at Mantua, chiefly occupied in examining the works 

 of Giulio Romano, Carstens found that they must abandon their plan 

 and return homewards. They accordingly set out again northward, 

 passing through Switzerland to Lubeck, where Carstens was glad to 

 take up with bis former occupation of portrait painting, which he 

 pursued for nearly five years ; but he employed all the time not BO 

 occupied in making historical and poetical compositions. He also now 

 began for the first time to read diligently ; and the fruits of his studies 

 shortly began to manifest themselves in a number of compositions 

 from Homer, the Greek tragedians, and other great masters of poetry, 

 both ancient and modem. But he felt that he was here in a great 

 measure cut off from the hope of being able to produce any works of 

 magnitude ; and he therefore gratefully accepted the generous offer 

 of Kodde, a wealthy amateur, who furnished him with the means of 

 visiting Berlin. 



In that capital he at first had to contend with pecuniary difficulties, 

 and was obliged to make designs for book-prints. At length, his 

 ' Fall of the Angels,' a large composition containing upwards of 200 

 figures, obtained for him an appointment as oue of the professors at 

 the academy, and the following year a considerable gratuity was added 

 to bis salary. His chief object however in accepting this post was as 

 a means of obtaining a travelling pension to Rome, which he was now 

 more than ever desirous of visiting. He had become acquainted with 

 the architect Genelli, who was just returned from Italy, and on his 

 recommendation was employed to decorate the walls of a saloon in the 

 Dorville palace with a series of mythological subjects. This work 

 procured for him an introduction to the king, who granted him a 

 travelling pension, and in the summer of 1792 he again set out for 

 Rome. He travelled through Dresden and Nuremberg, making some 

 stay at the first place for the purpose of visiting the Gallery of 

 Antiques and that of pictures ; and at the latter, in order to become 

 acquainted with the works of Albert Diirer, whom, after Michel 

 Angelo and Raflaelle, he held to be one of the greatest masters in 

 his art. 



Arrived at Rome, Rome for a long time existed to him only in the 

 Vatican. His first object was to imbue himself thoroughly with the 

 spirit of Michel Angelo and Raffaelle, to catch if possible their modes 

 of thought, and to traco their conceptions to their source. Highly 

 wrought up as his expectations had been, he found them here surpassed, 

 and that their works were instinct with a mental power of which no 

 copies or engravings had before conveyed to him any idea. The severity 

 of his principles of criticism obtained for him not a few enemies, and 

 they more than insinuated that he could not perform what he exacted 

 from others. He soon convinced them of the contrary by a large 

 drawing representing the visit of the Argonauts to the centaur Chiron, 

 a subject he had before produced at Berlin, but which he now 

 recomposed, and in a style that plainly indicated how much he had 

 already benefited by studying Michel Angelo and Raffaelle. 



The two years to which his stay at Rome was limited having expired, 

 he begged hard for a little longer extension of the term, as he was 

 preparing to make a public exhibition of the subjects which he had 

 produced while in Italy. His exhibition was opened in April 1795, 

 and consisted of eleven designs mostly poetical and mythological, and 

 few of them ever before treated. Both iu style and subject these 

 works were an earnest of powers as superior as they were uncommon, 

 and the artist's fame was soon spread through Germany by an article 

 on the exhibition in Wielund's ' Mercur.' The same year he sent three 

 compositions to Berlin, whereupon he was again urged to return to 

 his post in the academy ; but instead of its being complied with, this 

 demand was followed by remonstrance and refusal on the part of 

 Carstens, and his connection with the Berlin academy soon after ceased 

 altogether. In the course of the two following years he produced 

 many fine compositions, including a series of twenty-four subjects from 

 Pindar, Orpheus, and Apollouius Rhodius, all of them illustrative of 

 the Argonautic expedition. This series it was his intention to etch 

 himself, but iu the autumn of 1797 he was attacked by a serious 

 malady, which was succeeded by a slow fever and an obstinate cough, 

 whereby he was so enfeebled that he was unable to employ his pencil 

 except for a very short interval in the day. Yet even after he was 

 incapable of quitting his bed his wonted enthusiasm and energy did 

 not forsake him ; and but a few hours before his death he conversed 

 with his friend Fernow respecting a mythological subject which had 

 suggested itself to him. He expired on the 25th of May 1798, when 

 he had just entered his forty-fifth year. 



Thus may Carstens be said to have been prematurely cut off just as 

 he had begun hia career as an artist. In him Germany lost one who 

 gave promise of taking rank among the greatest masters of the art. 

 His life as yet had been a life of preparation. To art he gave himself 

 undividedly ; his whole soul was in it, so that, although he had not 

 mastered some things that lie more on the surface, he had dived into 

 its depths and recesses. What he chiefly valued was creative power, 

 intelligence, and mind, of which he regarded external forms merely 

 as the expression. Conformably with such opinions and theory was 

 his own practice. His compositions, which he was in the habit of 

 completely shaping out, maturing, and finishing up mentally, before 

 he committed them to paper, are all marked by a severe simplicity 

 and fine poetic conception ; and had a longer life and health been 

 granted to him, he would doubtless have left behind him works com- 

 mensurate in other respects with their intellectual value, and which 

 would have acquired for him the kind of fame he coveted. 



CARTE, THOMAS, was born iu April 166 at Clifton in Warwick- 

 shire, of which parish his father, the Rev. Samuel Carte, was vicar. 

 He matriculated at Oxford, but took his degree of Master of Arts in 

 the University of Cambridge, and afterwards entered into holy orders, 

 and was attached to the cathedral of Bath. 



Carte's opinions were very strong in favour of the Stuart family, and 

 his zeal brought on-him some suffering. On the accession of George I, 

 he declined to take the oaths of allegiance, aud therefore abandoned 

 the priesthood : in 1715 he was obliged to conceal himself lest he 

 should be apprehended as participating in the rebellion ; aud in 1722 

 he was so strongly suspected of being concerned in the conspiracy of 

 Bishop Atterbury (whose secretary he, was), that a reward of lOOOi. 

 was offered for his apprehension. Ho escaped to France, where he 



