797 



STUERBOUT, DIERICK. 



STUKELEY, REV. WILLIAM, M.D. 



708 



more than the attendants on some animal ; while the stylo of the 

 animals themselves depended entirely on the individual before him : 

 his tiger, for grandeur, has never been equalled ; his lions are, to 

 those of Rubens, what jackals are to lions ; but none ever did greater 

 justice to that artificial animal, the race-courser.' 1 



Stubbs completed in 1766 his work ' On the Anatomy of the Horse,' 

 in eighteen tables from nature; and before hia death three numbers 

 of another work (which was to have consisted of six), under the title 

 of 'A Comparative Anatomical Exposition of the Structure of the 

 Human Body with that of a Tiger and a common Fowl,' in thirty 

 tables. 



There are two pictures by this artist in the Qrosvenor Gallery, the 

 property of the Marquis of Westminster : one of them represents 

 Portraits of Brood-Mares in a Landscape ; the other, the Qrosvenor 

 Hunt. The scene is near Eton Hall, in which portraits of the late Earl 

 Grosvenor, of his brother, and others are introduced. These pictures, 

 which are very clever, are considered, the best works of this artist. 



STUERBOUT, DIERICK, .commonly called DIRK VAN HAAR- 

 LK.M, was born at Haarlem, in the early part of the 15th century. 

 He is perhaps the oldest of the Dutch painters, aud one of the best of 

 the early masters. The two large works by him in the royal collection 

 at the Hague are wonderful works for their time, and, independent of 

 their age, are two of the moet interesting pictures in the European 

 collections. They were at one time attributed to Memling, whose works 

 they somewhat resemble ; their history however is now well known, as 

 they and their master are mentioned in some manuscript Annals and 

 Antiquities of Louvain discovered by M. de Bast. The pictures were 

 preserved at Louvain until 1827. These pictures are called, in the 

 catalogue of tbe gallery of the King of Holland, the first and second 

 pictures of the Emj eror Otho and tbe Empress Mary. Their subject 

 is from a story of the old chronicles of Louvain, called the Golden 

 Legend ; the event took place in 985. The Emperor Otho III., on his 

 return from a journey to Rome, condemned at Modena one of his 

 courtiers, an Italian count, to death, in consequence of an accusation 

 from the empress (which was false), that he had attempted her honour. 

 The count was beheaded, but immediately afterwards his widow, with 

 his head on one arm aud a red-hot iron which she holds with impunity 

 in her other hand (an infallible proof of her husband's innocence), on 

 her knees supplicates the emperor for justice. The emperor, being 

 convinced by the fire ordeal of the count's innocence, orders the 

 empress to be burnt at the stake. From this tradition Stuerbout 

 painted two pictures for the Town-hall of Louvain in 1468, on wood, 

 each 117 inches French, by 66 ; the figures are about the size of life. 

 In the first picture the emperor is listening to the false accusation of 

 the empress, and the count is being led out in his shirt to execution; 

 the actual b. heading i.s represented in the distance. In the second 

 picture the widow is kneeling before tbe emperor with the head of her 

 husband and the red-hot iron in her hand, aud in the distance of this 

 piece the empress is being burnt at the stake ; in both pictures are 

 various attendants. The execution is in the style of the Van Eyck 

 school, and is extremely elaborate, especially in the second, piece, 

 which is superior to the first. 



These pictures were fixed on the wainscoting of the Justice-hall at 

 Louvain, and by each was a panel containing an explanation of the 

 subjects in the Flemish language, and in gold Gothic letters. They 

 were very dirty, and fast approaching decay, when in 1827 they were 

 purchased for a small sum by the late King of Holland, who presented 

 them to the present king, then Prince of Orange. They were re- 

 moved to and restored at Brussels, and were in the collection of the 

 Prince of Orange there, until 1841, when they were placed in their 

 present locality at the Hague. 



In the above-mentioned manuscript, 'Annales et Antiquite's de 

 Louvain,' it ia stated that Dierick Stuerbout painted these two 

 pictures for the Council-hall in 1468, and that he was paid for them 

 230 crowns. In the same manuscript it is stated that Stuerbout was 

 on the 20th of May of the same year commissioned to paint a picture 

 26 feet long by 12 high, and another of the Last Judgment 6 feet high 

 and 4 wide, both for the sum of 500 crowns. Van Mander mentions 

 a picture by Dirk Van Haarlem which he saw at Leyden ; in the 

 centre was the head of Christ, and on two side-wings the heads o 

 St. Peter and St. Paul. It was inscribed as follows in gold letters in 

 Latin "One thousand four hundred and sixty-two years after th 

 birth of Christ, Dirk, who was born at Haarlem, made me at Louvain 

 Eternal peace abide with him." From this inscription it is eviden 

 that the Dirk of Louvain mentioned by Guicciardini in his ' Descrip 

 tion de tous les Paye-Ba?,' Antwerp, 1568, is the same as Dirk Van 

 Haarlem, though that writer mentions them as two painters. Vasar: 

 mentions Diric da Lovanio. Stuerbout must have resided some tim 

 at Louvain. He was also from his style probably a pupil of John 

 Van Eyck, or some of his scholars. These two great picture 

 prove that Stuerbout was a much better painter than many of th< 

 most celebrated of his followers; his figures are decidedly better 

 though too long in their proportions, his forms fuller and bette: 

 modelled, and his heads are executed with less rigidity and sharpnes 

 of feature. M. Nieuwenhuys and others give 1410 and 1470 as the 

 respective dates of Stuerbout's birth and death, but how the informa 

 tion is acquired is not stated ; Van Mander, whose book was publishe< 

 in 1604, was not acquainted with either. They appear to have 



riginated with Ottley, who makes some conjectures on the matter in 

 is ' Early History of Engraving.' 



STUKELEY, THE REV. WILLIAM, M.D., wan descended from an 

 ncient Lincolnshire family, and was born at Holbeach in that county, 

 >n the 7th November 1687. From the grammar-school of his native 

 /own he went to Bennet College, Cambridge, in 1703. At this time 

 atural science as connected with the profession for which he was 

 ntended, seems to have been his favourite pursuit ; and the chief 

 issistant of his studies was Stephen Halts, afterwards celebrated for 

 'is physical investigations and discoveries, who was a member of the 

 ame college. Hales and he, we are told, were wont to ramble over 

 Jogmagog Hills and the bogs of Cherry Hunt Moor, gathering 

 imples; Stukeley, who was a ready draughtsman, having added a 

 map of the country to Ray's Latin Catalogue of the Plants growing 

 around Cambridge, which they used to take with them as their guide. 

 L'he two friends also applied themselves together to anatomy and 

 chemistry, and performed many curious dissections and experiments. 

 ''Account of Hales,' drawn up from materials furnished by Peter 

 Jollinson, F.R.S., in 'Annual Register' for 1765.) 



Having taken his degree of M.B. in 1709, Stukeley afterwards 

 epaired to London, where he attended St. Thomas's Hospital as a 

 lupil of Dr. Mtad ; and then he settled as a medical practitioner at 

 Boston, in his native county. In 1717 he removed to London; in 

 1719 he took his degree of M.D. ; in 1720 he was admitted a Fellow 

 of the College of Physicians ; but although he appears to have con" 

 ;inued to rise in his profession, he left the metropolis in 1726, and, 

 returning once more to Lincolnshire, fixed himself at Grantham. 

 Here he soon acquired great reputation. His health however had 

 been for some yeai-s giving way, and in 1729, on the persuasion, it is 

 said of Archbishop Wake, he relinquished medicine and took orders. 

 The same year he was presented by Lord Chancellor King to the 

 living of All Saints, in Stamford ; and some time after, having become 

 chaplain to the Duke of Ancaster, he received from his Grace, in 1739, 

 the living of Somerby, near Grantham, which he seems to have 

 held along with his Stamford preferment. But in 1747 he was 

 presented to the rectory of St. George the Martyr, in Queen Square, 

 London, by the Duke of Montague, with whom he had become 

 acquainted some years before, when they were brought together as 

 founders of the Egyptian Society; and this brought him once more up 

 to the metropolis, which, or Kentish Town, in tb immediate neigh- 

 bourhood, continued to be his residence for the rest of his life. He 

 died in the rectory-house, on the 3rd of March 1765, from a stroke of 

 palsy with which he had been attacked a few days before. 



The taste for antiquarian research showed itself in Stukeley at an 

 early uge, and occupied much of his leisure even when his chief 

 attention was given to other studies. It is only as a writer on British 

 antiquities that he is now remembered. His only medical publication 

 is a tract entitled ' A Dissertation on the Spleen/ which appeared in 

 1723, and is said to have been well received. But even before this he 

 had published his first antiquarian work, 'An Account of a Roman 

 Temple (the celebrated Arthur's Oven) and other Antiquities near 

 Graham's Dike in Scotland,' 4to/London, 1720. This was followed by 

 his 'Itinerarium Curiosum, or an Account of the Antiquities and 

 Remarkable Curiosities in Nature or Art observed in Travels through 

 Great Britain ; ' illustrated with copper-plates, fol., 1724. A second 

 volume, or 'Ce'nturia,'as it is designated, was added to this work from 

 the papers and drawings he left at his death ready for the press ; and 

 was given to the world, along with a reprint of the former volume, in 

 1776. It is of all Stukeley's works the one that is now most sought 

 after. His next publications were his two works on the great druidical 

 or supposed druidical remains in the West of England : the first, 

 entitled ' Stonehenge aud Abury, two Temples restored to the Briti**h 

 Druids/ fol., 1740 ; the second, 'Abury, a Temple of the British 

 Druids/ fol., 1743. A new edition of these two works was published 

 at London, in 2 vols, fol., in 1838. In 1743 also appeared his 'Palseo- 

 grapbia Britannica/ 4to. He produced nothing more except some com- 

 munications to the ' Archseologia ' and the ' Philosophical Transactions/ 

 till in 1757, he printed, in a separate tract, his account, with extracts, 

 of the work of Richard of Cirencester, ' De Situ Britanniae,' sent to him 

 as having been recently discovered at Copenhagen, by J. C. Bertram 

 [RICHABD OF CIRENCESTER] ; but a more extended account of this 

 work is given in the second or posthumous Centuria of his ' Itinerarium 

 Curiosum,' already noticed. In 1759 appeared, in a quarto volume, 

 one of his most remarkable works, entitled ' Some Account of the 

 Medallic History of Marcus Aurelius Valerius Carausius, Emperor of 

 Britain.' "I have used bis materials," says Gibbon, in one of his 

 notes, referring to this work, "and rejected most of his fanciful con- 

 jectures." No antiquarian ever had so lively, not to say licentious a 

 fancy as Stukeley ; the idea of the obscure remote past inflamed him 

 like a passion ; most even of his descriptions are rather visions than 

 sober relations of what would be perceived by an ordinary eye ; and 

 never before or since were such broad or continuous webs of specula- 

 tion woven out of little more than moonshine. He possessed however 

 a great deal of real ingenuity as well as learning; and all his works 

 contain many things that are both curious and valuable, some of them 

 much that would by this time have been irrecoverably lost but for 

 his record of it, although few, if any of either his theories or his 

 histories are to be received throughout with implicit faith. His only 



