

POCSSIN, CASPAR. 



POWELL, THK RKV. BADEN, M.A., F.R.8. 



I . 



British trade in that country ; and in this two-fold capacity h 

 took very decisive measures. Having waraed the British resident* 

 against the perfidy of Cbiue-a officials, be proceeded to concert hi* 

 measures witb Admiral Sir W. Parker, the result of which was the 

 capture of Ainoy. The effect of this step wai to throw o|>< n to 

 English vessels a commerce with upwards of 300,000,000 natives, and 

 the terms of the treaty were thought to be such as to afford a 

 guarantee against the necenity of the repetition of offensive measures. 

 For these services Sir Henry Pottinger was made a Knight Grand 

 Cron of the Order of the Bath, and governor and commander-in-chief 

 of the Uland of Hong Kong. Having returned to Kngland in 1844, 

 he was sworn a member of the privy couucil, and a pension of 16001. 

 a year was settled on him by vote of the House of Commons. In 

 1846 be was again 1 sent upon active service as successor to .Sir !'.< n 

 jamin Maitland in the governorship of the Cape of Good Hope ; this 

 office he held until the September of the following year, when he 

 returned to India as governor and coinmander-in-chuf of the presi- 

 dency of Madras. He returned to England in 1854, having previously 

 been raised to the local rank of lieutenant-geiier.il in India. He <li.il 

 at Malta, on the 18th of March 1656, leaving behind him the reputation 

 of an able and upright administrator of public affairs and an officer 

 who had rendered great services to his country. 



POUSSIN, QASPAU, was born at Homo, in 1613. His family was 

 originally French, and bore the name of Dugbet, but his father had 

 settled at Rome, and Nicholas Poussin having married his eister, bo 

 acquired the appellation of Gaspar Poussiu. Ou bia etchings he has 

 inscribed himself by the name he wa* called among the Italians, 

 Gasparo Duche. He studied under his brother-in-law, by whose 

 advice he adopted landscape-painting, and soon became one of the 

 most celebrated practitioners in that branch of art His early works 

 are somewhat hard, but a contemplation of the pictures of Claude 

 induced him to adopt a more mellow effect. He is said to have 

 acquired such a facility of execution that he could paint a large land- 

 scape in a single day. His pictures represent the most interesting 

 prospects in the vicinity of Home, Tivoli, and Frascati. His touch 

 is firm and vigorous, mid the folinge of each tree and plant bears 

 usually the peculiar characters of its species. The massing of his 

 pictures is simple and grand, and the management of the chiaroscuro 

 very fine; but they have a uniformly sombre effect, which in its 

 present excess is however believed to be due to the lowering of the 

 colours from his habit of painting on a dark ground. With this 

 allowance, almost every variety of effect may be discovered in his 

 works, from the utmost serenity to the most terrific convulsions of 

 nature, and each appropriately treated. His pictures are sometimes 

 embellished with figures by Nicholas Poussin, usually representing 

 some subject of history or fable. There are a few flight but masterly 

 etchings by this great artist ; they are a set of four circular landscape?, 

 and a set of four landscapes lengthways. Ho died at Home in I '17.''. 

 He had a brother, John Dughet, called also Poussin, born in Rome 

 about 1614, who was an engraver, but of little note. 



The National Gallery possesses six fine landscapes by Gaspar 

 Poussin, some of them of Urge dimensions : they are ' Abraham 

 and Isaac going to the Sacrifice,' formerly in the Colonna Palace, nn<) 

 by many regarded as the painter's masterpiece ; ' A Land-Storm ; ' 

 ' Dido and /Kneas taking shelter from the Storm ; ' ' View of La 

 Hiccia ; ' ' Woody Landscape ; ' ' Italian Landscape.' 



POUSSIN, NICHOLAS, was bom at Andely in Normandy, June 19, 

 1504. He was descended of a noble family, but reduced in fortune by 

 the part they had taken in the civil wars. Evincing an early inclina- 

 tion for drawing, he formed an acquaintance with an artist named 

 (juentin Varin, and obtained his father's consent to adopt painting as 

 a profession, of which Varin taught him the rudiments. At eighteen 

 he visited Paris, aud received lessons from Ferdinand Kile, a I 

 portrait-painter, but in a few months quitted him, having already out- 

 stripped his capability of instruction. He now applied himself to 

 composition, which be studied in prints after Raffaelle and Giulio 

 Kouiaiio, and casts from the antique. Some of his earliest efforts in 

 painting were the pictures in the church of the Capuchins at lU-i , 

 and some Bacchanalian subjects for the chateau of Chivernay. At 

 Paris be became acquainted with Marino, the Italian poet, who invited 

 him to liome, but being at that time engaged on the picture of the 

 ' Death of tho Virgin,' he was compelled to decline the invitation ; in 

 1624 however he was enabled to undertake the journey. His friend 

 received him with kindness, and introduced him to the notice of the 

 Cardinal Barberiui, nephew of Pope Urban VIII. ; but that dignitary 

 being sent on a legation to Franc* and Spain, and Marino soon after 

 dying, Pou*siu was obliged, in ordor to supply his wants, to paint 

 many picture* which he sold for scarcely more than the money they 

 cost for canvas and colour : two battle-pieces in particular only pro- 

 duced him fourteen crowns the pair. He formed an intimacy with 

 Francis du Quesnoy, the sculptor, called ' II Flamingo,' with whom he 

 lodged, and together with that eminent man he studied and made 

 nvKlela after the most celebrated statues aud bas-reliufn. The works 

 of K.flaelle were however tht> greatest attraction to Puussin, and he 

 studied them with intense devotion. 



Cardinal Barberiui on his return to Borne liberally patronised 

 Poussin, who painted for him his celebrated picture of the Death of 

 Qennankus,' and the Taking of Jerusalem by the Emperor Titus.' 



His patron also procured for him the commission to paint a large. 

 picture of the 'Martyrdom of St Erasmus' for St. Peter's, which is 

 now in tho pontifical palace of Muntc Cavello. Thecu productions 

 established his reputation, and recommended him to the lri< i d.-hip of 

 the Cavaliere del Pozzo, for whom he painted his first series of the 

 ' Seven Sacraments of the Church of Rome,' which were afterwards 

 brought to England, and are now in the posseMion of the Duke of 

 Rutland, at Belvoir Castle, but one of them was unfortunately 

 destroyed in the fire which occurred there in 1816. He afterwards 

 painted another set of the Sacraments, executed in 1C44 and 1647, 

 with variations, for M. de Chantelou, which were among the principal 

 attractions of the Orleans collection : they were purchased by th 3 

 Duke of Bridgewatcr for 4000 guineas, and form a chief attraction in 

 the gallery of the Earl of Ellesmerv, Bridgewater House. 



The celebrity which Poussin had now attained induced Louis XIII. 

 in 1639 to desire his return to France, which took place in the follow- 

 ing year, when he was appointed principal painter to the kiug, and 

 had apartments assigned him in the Tuilerics. He was commissioned 

 to paint an altar-piece for the chapel of St Germaiu-en-Laye, where be 

 produced his admirable work of the ' Last Supper,' and was engaged 

 to decorate the gallery of the Louvre, for which be had prcpm 

 designs and somu of the cartoons, representing tho ' Labours of Her- 

 cules,' when the criticisms of his brother artists excited his disgust, 

 and determined him to depart again to Rome, to obtain leave to do 

 which he feigned a desire to settle some private matters and to fetch 

 his wife to France. He quitted that country in 1642, with a deter- 

 mination, which he adhered to, never to return. He resided in liome, 

 pasting his time in diligent practice of his art, aud in the strictest 

 simplicity and privacy of living, until his death, November in, 1665. 



Poussin was a profound admirer of the antique, and his uiiud seems 

 to have been strongly imbued with a veneration for classic forms. No 

 painter amongst the moderns appears to have so greatly excited his 

 admiration as Raffaelle. In his conceptions he seems to have imbibed 

 something of the spirit as well as of the manner of that gre.it master, 

 whom he has followed also in the beauty of his female forms, tho 

 grace aud dignity of his attitudes, and his admirable expression of the 

 passions. His compositions evidence an intimate acquaintance with 

 the principles of ancient art They are simple, grand, and impressive ; 

 whilst his draperies are disposed with classical grace and his costumes 

 are generally correct. 



In the National Gallery are eight pictures by Nicholas Poussin : 

 ' The Nursing of Bacchus ; ' ' A Bacchanalian Festival ; ' ' A Baccha- 

 nalian Dance ; ' ' Pbineas and his Followers turned into Stone at tho 

 Siyht of the Goixon's Head ; ' ' Cephalus and Aurora ; ' ' Venus Sleep- 

 ing surprised by Satyrs ; ' ' Phocion : a Landscape, with Figures ; ' 

 ' The Plague among the Phili-tines at Ashdod.' 



POWELL, THE REV. I'.AUKN', M.A., K.R.S., F.R.A.S., F.G.S., 

 Savilian professor of geometry in the University of Oxford, the sou 

 of a London merchant, was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, where 

 he took the degree of M.A. in 1817. He became Savilian professor of 

 geometry in 1827 ; having been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 

 in ivjl. 



The progress of mathematical and physical science, in many 

 departments, especially optics aud thermotics, and in that universal 

 philosophy which enters into every department, has been deeply 

 indebted, for upwards of a third part of n century, to the extensive 

 knowledge, the logical mind, the disciplined skill, and the unwearied 

 industry of Professor Powell. He is alfo one of the small band of 

 reformers who have striven, and after a long struggle, witb some 

 success, to improve the system of education pursued at Oxford, by the 

 addition to the former studies of the University, of a due aud recog- 

 nised attention to natural knowledge. He is tho author of numerous 

 papers in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' the ' Reports ' of the 

 ItriiUh Association (of which he has been from the first an active 

 member), the ' Annals of Philosophy,' the ' Philosophical Magazine,' 

 and Taylor's ' Scientific Memoirs.' Not a few of these communications 

 to the journals consist of translations of foreign memoirs with com- 

 mentaries by Professor Powell himself, or of methodical accounts of 

 the more profound theories and researches of continental philosopher**, 

 adapted to the use of Engli-h students and experimenters. Among bis 

 original contributions many relate to physical optics, and the uudulatory 

 theory of light, which he has been remarkably successful in developing, 

 in its application to the phenomena of dispersion, and come other 

 cases to which it had been scarcely applied before, aud to others which 

 had been loft unnoticed by previous investigators. Many of his views 

 have in the first instance been brought before the Asbmolean Society 

 of Oxford, to the ' Proceedings' of which he has in other respects been 

 a valuable contributor. Some of the great subjects of cosmical philo- 

 sophy, and their bearing upon religion and the interpretation of the 

 Scriptures, have also received bis attention, an will appear from the 

 annexed enumeration of his principal separate publications ; and tin rn 

 are very few authors of scientilio works, who have acquire d in an 

 equal degree, the means aud the power of concentrating the rays of 

 modern discovery in many departments, upon tho particular subject 

 of discussion; few who have, handled their respective topics in a 

 manner so entirely adequate to the actual state of knowledge. 



The following are the titles of Professor Powell's principal works: 

 'A short Elementary Treatise on Experimental aud Mathematical 



