831 



ETIENNE. 



ETTY, WILLIAM. 



&o. These circumstances may serve to fix the time of the compilation 

 of the work towards the end of the 4th century, when Rome had 

 become completely Christian, but yet before Alaric's invasion. 

 JEthicus and his ' Cosmography ' are mentioned by several writers 

 of the following ages, and among others by Isidorus of Seville, who 

 lived in the early part of the 7th century. Rabauus Maurus ('de 

 Inventione Linguarum '), a writer of the 9th century, calls ^Ethicus 

 "a Scythian;" and Flodoardus, a writer of the following century, 

 calls him "Ister" from "Istria." (Vossius, 'de Historicis Latinis,' 

 b. iii.) At the beginning of his 'Cosmography,' ^Ethicus states that 

 Julius C'jcsar. during his consulship with M. Antony, by virtue of a 

 senatus consultum, ordered a survey of tbe Roman world to be taken, 

 and that the work was entrusted to three geometers Zenodoxus for 

 the eastern part, Polycleitus for the south, and Theodotus for the 

 north who completed their work under Augustus. This survey was 

 probably the source from which the Antonine Itinerary was derived, 

 which Itinerary in its present shape has also been attributed by some 

 to .Ethicus, The 'Cosmography' in most publications is followed by 

 another and somewhat fuller description of the various parts and 

 provinces of the world, apparently of the same period, entitled 'Alia 

 totius Orbis Descriptio,' and generally attributed to ^Ethicus also, 

 though there are doubts concerning his authorship. The second work 

 is also found almost literally in Orosius, forming the second chapter 

 of his 1; istory. It has been suggested that Orosius may have copied 

 it from .Kthicus, and the text of iJro-ius has certainly the appearance 

 of a copy, as he has shortened the beginning or introductory part, 

 and also left out the concluding sentence, in which the author of the 

 description, as we have it separately, promises to give a continuation 

 of his work, or an ampler description of the towns, &c., beginning 

 from Rome, which he styles " Caput Mundi et Douiiaa Senatus." 

 (Simler*s edition of ^Ethicus, Basil, 1575.) This last sentence pro- 

 mising a fuller account the author did not fulfil, or the account has 

 been lost. But it is also worthy of remark, that in two manuscripts 

 of Orosius in the national library at Paris. Nos. 4878 and 4882, the 

 second chapter ends with these wonls, which are not found in the 

 other manuscripts and printed editions of Orosius " Pereensui 

 breviter ut potui provincial et iasulas Orbis Universi, qum Sotinua ita 

 dacrtptit." This would seem to attribute th work to Solinus. 



To the two Cosmographies attributed to .Ktlii :us is added, in some 

 editions, another extract, which is styled " Julii Honorii OratorU 

 Excerpta qua! ad Cosmographiam pertinent." It is in its plan similar 

 to the first Cosmography of jEthicus, only perhaps still Jrier and 

 more incorrect. The three have been published, together with 

 ' Pom pom 11 s Mela,' by Qronovius, Leydeo, 1635. 



El'IEXXE. [STEPHENS.] 



ETl'Y, WILLIAM, R.A., was born at York, March 10, 1787. His 

 father rente. I a mill in the vicinity, and kept a baker's shop in the 

 city ; and the buy assisted in the shop till he was of age to be put to 

 learn a trade. He had already shown a marked fondness for drawing, 

 and his mother, as in after-life the great painter was fond of relating, 

 had encouraged his propensity, while neighbours used to 'patronise' 

 the incipient artist with halfpence aud pennies to buy chalk and 

 pencils. In his twelfth year he was apprenticed to a printer at Hull, 

 iii which situation, over-worked, wit-iout friends and distant from his 

 family, an I denied the privilege of drawing, he appears to have at 

 first led a very uncomfortable life. But after awhile his master was 

 persuaded to let the boy " at lawful hours " indulge his artistic tastes, 

 and, though still without instruction, Etty soon began to acquire 

 sufficient facility in drawing to make his companions in the printing- 

 office desirous to possess, and some of them careful to preserve, his 

 sketches and rude attempts at painting. At length, his seven years' 

 apprenticeship having expired, he gladly obeyed the invitation of an 

 uncle to comu up to London. His uncle, himself a skilful draughts- 

 man, saw promise in the youth's crude efforts, and generously afforded 

 him the means of practically solving the question whether his inclination 

 for the life of a painter was an impulse merely, or the result of a native 

 aptitude. 



At fir it, without any formal instruction, he drew, as ha says in his 

 ' Autobiographical Sketch,' " from prints, or from nature, or from any- 

 thing he could; . . . his first academy being a plaster-cast shop, 

 kept by Uianelli, near Smithfield." Having thus sufficiently mastered 

 tin; dulicuhieg of drawing " from the round," he obtained an intro- 

 duction to Fuseli, then keeper of the Royal Academy, aud was admitted 

 by him to study there as a probationer. He entered as a student in 

 January 1 807, along with Collins, from whose companionship in study, 

 with that of Hilton aud Haydou, be derived considerable benefit. In 

 the following July Etty b came an in-door pupil for twelve months to 

 Sir Thomas Lawrence, then in the height of his reputation Etty's 

 uncle kindly paying the hundred guineas required as a premium. 

 From the great portrait painter Etty received little direct instruction ; 

 he however saw him paint, aud though at firnt the extreme facility of 

 the master's execution almost overwhelmed the pupil with despair, he 

 gradually learnt this very important part of a painter's craft" the 

 great kuy to art," as he calls it; and lie found, wnen he could copy 

 Lawrence's pi -tur.-H, that those of other painters, im.luiling the f/n-at 

 painters of Italy, presented comparatively f;w difficulties. Etty 

 laboured with untiring diligence in the school of the Royal Academy, 

 and in copying at tho British Institution and elsewhere, whilst pre- 



paring his earliest original works for the Academy Exhibition ; but 

 though his copies met with purchasers, and his original efforts with 

 praise, it was long before he could find an opportunity to bring any 

 of his works before the public. Year afcer year all the pictures he 

 sent were returned from both the Royal Academy and the British 

 Gallery. He applied in his despondency for advice to his old master. 

 " Lawrence," he says, " told me the truth in no flattering terms ; he 

 said I had a very good eye for colour, but that I was lamentably 

 deficient in all other respects almost." Etty took the reproof iu good 

 part, worked day and ni-;ht, " and with such energy, to cure his radical 

 defects, that at last a better state of things began to dawn." He had 

 the delight to find one of his pictures, a ' Telemachus Rescuing Antiope,' 

 admitted to a place on the walls of the Royal Academy iu 1811. 

 But the place was a bad one, and the picture attracted no notice. 

 However ha went on, and at each succeeding exhibition of the Aca- 

 demy and the British Institution some of hia paintings found a place. 

 His subjects, with the exception of a few portraits, were mostly 

 classical, though not of the kind by which he ultimately acquired fame 

 and fortune ; and the impression among his companions iu the schools 

 where he was still one of the most regular attendants as well as 

 among artists and patrons, was, that he was a good-tempered plodding 

 fellow, but would never become a successful painter. His friends 

 suggested a visit to Italy, and for Italy accordini^ly intending a year's 

 stay in the land of art he set out in the autumn of 1816. But he 

 soon became home-sick moreover one of his oft-recurring love-fits 

 for "one of my prevailing weaknesses was a propensity to fall in 

 love" was strong upon him, and within three months he was back 

 again and hard at work in London. 



But his run into Italy, and still more a short stay among the 

 painters of Paris, did him good service. He saw a new style of art, 

 and new methods of execution, and had a fresh ranije of subjects 

 suggested to his mind. It was not however till some three or four 

 more years had passed away that he began to catch the eye of the 

 artistic world. In 1820 he says, "I sent a small picture to the 

 British Gallery, highly finished and carefully wrought ; it made a con- 

 siderable noise. I sent a larger the same year to the Royal Academy ; 

 it made a still greater noise." This last was the ' Coral Finders- 

 Venus and her youthful Satellites arriving at the Isle of Paphos,' the 

 first of hia long series of representation of the undraped feminine form, 

 for which Grecian and Roman poetry or legend suggested the subject 

 or furnished the apology. This was followed the next year by his 

 ' Cleopatra's arrival in Cilicia,' a work far more glowing in colour, 

 skilful in composition, and brillant in general effect; and its success 

 was complete. The painter at once became famous. It was com- 

 missioned by Sir Francis Freeling, who however, startled by the 

 then unusual freedom with which the painter had depicted hia bevy 

 of fair forms for Etty, reading as literally as possible the statement 

 that Cleopatra appeared in the character of Venus, with her attendants 

 as Nereides, Graces, Cupids, and Tritons, had rendered the voluptuous 

 subject with infinite gusto besought the painter to add a little 

 drapery; and, though he never added too much, the hint was not 

 lost, for while, during the rest of his life the nude female form con- 

 tinued to be the chief subject on which he exercised his pencil, he 

 henceforth seldom suffered one to appear without some, however 

 scaut and unserviceable, clothing. 



After this great success Etty resolved again to visit Italy, and 

 though he this time also carried with him a new love sorrow, he did 

 not suffer himself again to return without seeing Rome. There, aud 

 at Venice, where he stayed seven months, he laboured with a diligence 

 and copied with a rapidity and decision of execution, which astonished 

 the degenerate native painters ; and the effect of his studios of the 

 great Venetian colourists was displayed in every picture he subse- 

 quently executed. On his return he painted a ' Pandora crowned by 

 the Seasons,' which at the exhibition of 1824 won for him new laurels, 

 had the singular honour of being purchased by the President, aud pro- 

 cured his election as Associate of the Royal Academy. " Strike while 

 the iron is hot ; you see what may be done by a little courage," was the 

 advice now tendered by his old master, and Etty profited by the well- 

 timed counsel. A succession of import tnt works followed, some of 

 large size and in the historical style, but mostly classic subjects of the 

 order indicated above, and each succeeding one, until he became 

 careless or negligent under the pressure of competing patrons claiming 

 ever new pictures from hi n, contributing its share towards placing 

 him in the position he ultimately obtained by general consent, of the 

 first English colourist of his day, and also by far the first English 

 painter iu his own peculiar walk of any day. 



His life was a very quiet one. His days were almost entirely spent 

 in London and iu his painting-room the only breaks being an occa- 

 sional visit to a friend in the country, a run to Edinburgh or to the 

 Netherlands, and a brief stay on account of illness at York. His 

 evenings he passed, during the academic session, almost invariably in 

 the Life School at the Royal Academy, where to the last he was one 

 of the naoH regular and diligent among the students it being his 

 practice to paint studies iu oil from the living model as shown there 

 by gas-light a practice which explains much that is evil as well as 

 good in his painting of flesh : and so much attached was he to the 

 Life Academy, that when it waa formally suggested to him from the 

 academicians, in prospect of his election as R.A. in 182S, that those 



