FLAXMAN, JOHN. 



FLAXMAN, JOHN. 



the money to a Mr. Hodgson, which was done on April 12. The 

 agraeaxnt which was actually signed by the parties has Dot boon 

 discovered, but there are three drafts of it bv Newton, differing 

 materially from that propounded by Klamsteed. Halley itates that it 

 was agreed that the catalogue of stars should accompany the first 

 volume, which Mr. Baily denies. But Flamsteed himself says, " I 

 aigned the articles, but reman/erf that the catalogue of the fixed 

 stars mentioned to make a part of the first volume, should not be 

 printed but with the last." In opposition to this, which however 

 admits that the agrttmaU which he signed provided for the printing 

 of the catalogue in the first volume, there is in Newton's draft a state- 

 ment of the contents of the two volumes, in which the catalogue of 

 stars stands as the very first item of the first volume. It is also to be 

 observed, that Flamsteed made no objection for a considerable time. 

 On the signing of the second agreement, by which he was to receive a 

 payment of 12i/., he writes to Mr. Sharp, on April 19, 1708, of this 

 " change in his sffairs which it will not be displeasing to him to hear." 

 The payment no doubt was very small for the immense amount of 

 labour, performed also with instruments of his own, and Flamsteed 

 had very sufficient reasons for being discontented, but he seems to 

 have vented his displeasure to a considerable degree on the wrong 

 parties ; on the other band, he was much harassed by the printing 

 committee in urging haste with his calculations, which seems to have 

 been done with as little consideration as if he had been a railway con- 

 tractor employed on an operation requiring nothing but bodily 

 labour. 



We hare thus endeavoured to present a view of both sides of the 

 question, so that our readers may form their own conclusions. We 

 may add, that among the matters contained in Mr. Baily 's preface is a 

 complete refutation of a story derived from a provincial history, that 

 Klamstced, when very young, was convicted of highway robbery, and 

 that a i-anlon was found among his papers. On searching the records, 

 no such panion is found entered, and various other circumstances 

 make it physically impossible that Flamsteed could have been thus 

 engaged at the time stated. 



FLAXMAX, JOHN, was born at Tork, July 6, 1755; yet he may 

 properly be considered a denizen of the metropolis, for he was brought 

 to London when not more than six mouths old. At that time his 

 father, who was a mould, r of figures, kept a shop in New-street, 

 Covcnt Garden, and subsequently in the Strand ; and it was in this 

 humble rtudio that the future artist received the first artistic 

 impression;. A natural weakness of constitution and delicacy of 

 health, which continued until about his tenth year, gave him a relish 

 for solitary and sedentary amusement. It was perhaps fortunato for 

 him as an artist to have thus early and constantly before Ms eyes 

 oljects adapted to fix his feelings, and to muse his intelligence. 

 Stated behind the counter with paper and pencil, or with books, he 

 studied more desultorily than would otherwise have been the case, 

 yet perhaps more profitably and more diligently, because less 

 compulsorily. 



After the death of his mother, which occurred when he was in his 

 tenth year, his father married a second wife, who treated young Flax- 

 man and his brother with such tenderness as to win their affliction 

 and esteem. It was somewhere about this period that having attracted 

 the notice of the Bev. Mr. Mathew, be was introduced by that gentle- 

 man to his wife, a lady of very superior acquirements, who took 

 delight in making him acquainted with the beauties of Homer and 

 Virgil, while he would attempt to embody with his pencil such poetic 

 images or parts of the narrations as most caught his fancy. I'.y 

 those kind and judicious friends he was encouraged to study the 

 original languages; and although here also be was chiefly his own 

 tutor, he made such proficiency as enabled him to read the matter 

 poets of antiquity, if not very critically, yet with sufficient readiness 

 to enter in'o their spirit and follow their conceptions. 



In his fifteenth year Flaxman became a student of the Royal 

 Academy, and in 1770 exhibited, as his first subject there, a figure of 

 Nrjituna in wax. Here, while he distinguished himself by the 

 assiduity with which be prosecuted his studies, he received a lesson 

 which taught him that application and enthusiasm combined are not 

 always a match for mediocrity when backed by favour, or following 

 the ordinary routine of the established authorities; for on hi* 

 becoming a candidate for the gold medal (the silver one he had 

 previously carried off), the nrue was awarded to Engleheart, a now 

 utterly forgotten name. Mortified, yet not dispirited, Flaxmau 

 returned to bis studies, with unabated energy, although for some 

 time compelled to devote a considerable portion of bis time to pro- 

 viding for the exigencies of the passing dsy, which he did by designing 

 and modelling for others, particularly for the Wedgwoods, to whom 

 his talents and bis lasts were eminently useful. Moderate as was the 

 unetmUoo, roeh employment put him at ease in bis pecuniary 

 drcumrtaoow, because he already possessed one very important fund 

 towards pwunury independence, namely contented frugality and an 

 utter disrelish of all expensive habits and amusements. And here it 

 may be observed, that even in aftr-lif, when he was in comparative 

 affluence, and when his fsmc would have been a passport to the most 

 brilliant circles, he continued to distinguish himself by perfect sim- 

 j.hcity in bis habits and mode of living, equally remote from affectation 

 on the one hand and a spirit of penuriousntas on the other. 



In 1782 he removed from his paternal residence in the Strand, and 

 established himself in a house in Wardour-street. In the same year 

 ho married Miss Ann Deiiman, a woman equally estimable for her 

 virtues and her accomplishments. He soon after gave proofs of 

 increased ability in his profession by his monument of Collins the 

 poet, in Chichester Cathedral, and that of Mrs. Morley, in Gloucester 

 Cathedral; the latter especially a work replete with that poetic 

 simplicity and pathos which hallow so many of our artist's productions 

 of that class. In 1787 he set out for Italy, accompanied by his wife. 

 While he was at Rome he made a series of thirty-nine subjects from 

 the 'Iliad,' and thirty-four from the 'Odyssey,' illustrative of the 

 principal events in those poems. Although he received a very small 

 jecuniary remuneration for these remarkable compositions, he was 

 >aid in worthier coin, for they at once stamped his reputation. They 

 ilso served to collect patrons around him ; among the rest the 

 Countess Spencer, for whom he composed his series of illustrations of 

 ' jEschylu*,' and the eccentric Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Deny, 

 who hail commissioned him to execute the group of 'Athamas.' 

 This group Flaxman engaged to execute for GOO/., a sum fur too small 

 lo repay the costliness of the material and the labour bestowed on 

 its execution ; but Flaxman was too honourable to retract from his 

 engagement During his stay at Rome he executed for Mr. Thomas 

 Hope an exquisite small marble group of ' Cephalus and Aurora.' It 

 was for him too that he produced that third sublime series of poetic 

 compositions, the 'Illustrations of Dante,' amounting altogether to 

 109 subjects, namely, thirty-eight from the ' Inferno,' as many from the 

 ' Purgatorio,' and thirty-three from the ' Paradiso.' Here, being left 

 almost entirely to tha resources of his own imagination, without 

 assistance from the previous ideas of other artists, he manifested still 

 greater originality of mind and intellectual vigour than in the Homeric 

 series, or that from yEschylus. AH the three constitute an almost new 

 province of art, combining the distinguishing qualities of picturesque 

 and sculpturesque design. 



On his return from Italy, where he had spent upwards of sev<>n 

 years, not unprofitably as regarded his pecuniary affairs, and certainly 

 most profitably as regarded both his studies and his reputation, he 

 took a house in Buckingham-street, Fitxroy-square, and in a very 

 short time distinguished himself by his noble monument to Lord 

 Mansfield. Ho was unanimously elected an Associate of the Royal 

 Academy in 1797. In that year he exhibited at the Academy his 

 monument of Sir W. Jones, now in the chapel of University College, 

 Oxford, and three bas-relief sketches of subjects from the New 

 Testament, namely, ' Christ raising from the Dead the Daughter of 

 Jaii-us,' and two illustrative of the texts, 'Comfort and Help the 

 Weak-Hearted ; ' ' Keed the Hungry.' Those may be considered as 

 the commencement of a cycle of scriptural compositions intended to 

 show that the simple truths of the Qo*pel were fully capable of 

 in ) iring the sculptor and supplying him with appropriate subjects. 

 Of this class are the reliefs of the monument of Sir F. Baring's 

 family in Micheldeau Church, Hants, which expressly figure the ideas 

 of the following sentences : ' Thy will be done ' ' Thy kingdom come ' 

 'Deliver us from evil.' To these may be added his beautiful 

 illustration of the text, ' Blessed are they that mourn,' in a monument 

 to Mary Lushington, of Lewisham, Kent, representing a mother 

 sorrowing for her daughter, and comforted by an angel. His groups 

 of ' Come, ye Blessed ' ' Lead us not into temptation ' ' Charity,' 

 and the monuments of Countess Spencer and Mrs. Tighe, the poetess, 

 not to enumerate others, are also replete with religious sentiment and 

 fervour. That he should have been pre-eminently happy in such 

 subjects needs not greatly excite our surprise, because he was at 

 home in them ; in them his head and hand spontaneously obeyed the 

 dictates of a heart tenderly alive to every sentiment of devotion. 

 Hence it was that he so successfully broke through the convent IOM il 

 trammels of his profession, and opened an almost entirely fresh track 

 for himself. On the contrary, when fettered down to common-place 

 ideas and subjects, he did not rise at all higher than many others 

 have done. Even his monument of Nelson, as well as others by him 

 in Su Paul's, are cold both in conception and execution. Whether he 

 would have succeeded very much better in the colossal figure of 

 Britannia, which he proposed should bo erected upon Greenwich Hill, 

 perhaps admits of doubt; although that he could have executed such 

 a work can hardly be questioned. A figure however of such stupendous 

 dimensions, for its height was to have been not less than 200 feet, was 

 treated as an absurdly extravagant, if not impracticable aud utterly 

 visionary scheme. 



In 1810 he was appointed to the then new professorship of sculpture 

 at the Royal Academy, to which circuinstanoa the world is indebted 

 for bis series of Lectures on the art, which, although of no extraord in iry 

 merit as literary compositions, are full of good sense and good feeling, 

 and may bo studied with profit, not by those alone of his own pro- 

 fession, but by artists aud men of taste generally. 



Till the year 1820 he hsd enjoyel a life of serenity and tranquil 

 competence, with constant occupation in the art he loved, and 

 increasing fame attending it; but hi ha I now felt the bitterness of 

 losing his wife. Ho henceforth felt a blank in his existence which 

 neither the solace of friendship nor the honours of public appUu-o 

 could fill up. Nevertheless he continued to apply himself vigorously 

 to bis art, aud some of his latest productions are among bis best. The 



