763 



WINTERHALTEB, FRANZ XAVIER. 



WINTRINGHAM, CLIFTON. 



761 



penetrating mind, directed to a careful examination of the scores of 

 the great contemporary masters, to which he devoted much time, for 

 his knowledge, than to the instruction of any individual teacher. In 

 1776, whea Leasing earned into effect the establishment of a German 

 opera at Mannheim, Winter was chosen director of the orchestra. He 

 now first attempted composition, and all hia early efforts decidedly 

 failed, and he destroyed them nearly as soon as they were written. In 

 1780 appeared his first complete opera, ' Helena und Paris,' and this 

 was followed by ' Bellerophon.' He had brought out three ballads on 

 the Vienna stage ; but now Salieri, by a significant friendly hint, 

 induced him to listen and study more, and to write less. We there- 

 fore do not hear of his having produced anything worthy of notice 

 till 1791, when he proceeded to Italy, and at Naples composed 

 ' Antigone,' also the ' Fratelli Rival!,' as well as the ' Sacrifizio di 

 Crete,' for Venice. From 1794 to 1796 he resided at Vienna, where 

 he produced some of his most effective works, and among these ' Das 

 Unterbrochene Opferfest ' (The Interrupted Sacrifice), the libretto, or 

 text, of which was furnished by Huber. From 1796 to 1800 Prague 

 was his place of residence, where he brought out ' II Trionfo del Bel 

 Sesso,' and 'Maometto.' He was then invited to undertake the 

 direction of the opera at Munich, for which he wrote his ' Maria von 

 Montalban.' Between the years 1803 and 1805 he was in London, and 

 gave at the King's Theatre his three finest works 'Calypso,' 'IlRatto 

 di Proserpina,' and ' Zaira,' the chief characters in which were sus- 

 tained by Mrs. Billingtou and Madame Grassini. Here he also brought 

 forth the music of the grand ballet of ' Orphe'e,' composed in a style 

 then new to tho stage, uniting the energy and vivacity of pantomimic 

 music with the chastened regularity of that of the drama. From 

 London he proceeded to Paris, and gave his * Tamerlane ' at the Aca- 

 demic Royale de Musique with great success. He there was persuaded 

 to reset Quinault's ' Castor et Pollux,' originally composed by Rameau. 

 Gluck long before had declined this dangerous task, and Winter by 

 undertaking it drew down on himself a storm from the admirers of 

 the ancient master which induced him to quit France. The same 

 work was afterwards performed in London without success. 



In 1814, the fiftieth year of Winter's service at the court of Bavaria, 

 the king bestowed on him the honour of knighthood. In the same 

 year he produced his Battle Symphony with a chorus, in celebration of 

 the general peace ; but this had only patriotic motives to recommend 

 it. He now retired into privacy ; but in 1818 he unexpectedly 

 re-appeared, and made a journey into the north of Germany, accom- 

 panied by the celebrated singer Madame Vespermann, giving concerts 

 in most of the principal towns ; and then proceeded to Milan, where 

 he directed the performance of his ' Maometto,' recently retouched by 

 him, into which he breathed all his youthful spirit. In addition to 

 this, he, the following year, got up in the same city two other operas. 

 His last work for the stage was a comic piece, ' Der Sanger und der 

 Schneider' (The Singer and the Tailor), which long continued a 

 favourite on the German lyric theatres. He however continued com- 

 posing for the Church up to the very period of his decease, which 

 took place at Munich in 1 825. 



Winter's muse was very prolific. His German biographer gives a 

 list of nine masses and other sacred works, forty-one operas for the 

 theatre, twelve for the chamber, twelve symphonies and other instru- 

 mental pieces, many sets of cantatas, canzonets, together with nume- 

 rous detached compositions, all of which he produced five years before 

 his death ; and to them are to be added others written subsequently 

 to those enumerated. His early works do not exhibit much genius ; 

 but as he advanced in life his mind became gradually more vigorous, 

 and at length developed a power which entitles him to be ranked very 

 high as a composer for the stage and for the orchestra. 



WINTERHALTEB, FRANZ XAVIER, was born in 1803, at 

 St. Blasien, in Baden ; and was educated at Carlsruhe, whence he 

 proceeded to Munich, where in 1823 he entered as a student the 

 Academy of Art. Having passed through the usual course of study, 

 and made a visit to Italy, he commenced the practice of his profession. 

 Although he has painted both historical and poetic subjects, his 

 pencil has been chiefly devoted to portraiture, in which he has pro- 

 bably found higher and more ample patronage than any other painter 

 of the day. Besides many of the German kings and princes, he had 

 the good fortune to win the favour of Louis-Philippe of France, and 

 Victoria of England, as well as her Consort. For some years past he 

 has indeed been the favourite court painter. He has painted the 

 Queen and the Prince Consort a great many times, and he has also 

 painted all the younger members of the royal family ; as well as 

 portraits of Wellington and Peel for her Majesty, and many other 

 royal commissions. Among the higher nobility he has also of course 

 found numerous patrons. Not many of his works however have come 

 before the general public. Besides a few royal portraits, the only 

 work of importance which we recollect to have seen publicly exhibited 

 was his ' Florinde,' a somewhat opera-like rendering of the story of 

 Frederick the Goth observing Florinda bathing in the Tagus, which 

 appeared at the Royal Academy in 1852. At the Manchester Exhibi- 

 tion his state portraits of her Majesty and the Prince Consort, con- 

 tributed by the Queen, attracted some notice, but alongside the 

 portraits of Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyck, Reynolds, and 

 Gainsborough, his mincing style and overwrought conventionalism, were 

 brought into somewhat unfair prominence. Herr Winterhalter belongs 



to a far lower class of portrait painters than the great men we have 

 named, but though his touch is feeble and his colour affected, ho is 

 a careful artist ; finishes his work smoothly and conscientiously, 

 renders the court costume with scrupulous fidelity, colours gaily after 

 the French fashion, and, if he does not succeed in imparting to his 

 sitters a high degree of intellectual expression, or much force of 

 character, seldom fails to depict an amiable and pleasing countenance. 

 One of his best poetic pictures, ' II Decamerone,' is in the collection of 

 the Duke of Sutherland. Many of his royal pictures and some of his 

 fancy subjects, have been engraved or lithographed. He has himself 

 lithographed several works of modern German painters, and some of 

 his own portraits. 



* WlNTHER, CHRISTIAN, or to give his name at full length, 

 RASMUS VILLADS CHRISTIAN FERDINAND WlNTHER, a 

 Danish poet of high reputation, was born on the 29th of July 1796, at 

 the country town of Fensmark in the island of Seeland. He lost his 

 father, who was a clergyman, in 18Q8, but in his mother's second 

 husband, Rasmus Moller, he found a second parent, and in Poul 

 Martin Moller, who became her step-son by the marriage, a companion, 

 who took the place of a brother. Rasmus Moller, who was afterwards 

 bishop of Laaland and Falster, was a copious theological writer, his 

 son, who died in 1838, became an eminent professor, and after his 

 death a collection of his works was edited by Winther. The poet 

 was himself intended for a clergyman, and in 1824 passed his theolo- 

 gical examination at the university of Copenhagen, which he had 

 entered in 1815 as a student, but he seems to have felt no inclination 

 to the calling. After spending some years as a private tutor, the 

 death of an uncle in 1829 put him in possession of the means of 

 making a tour to Italy, where he passed ten months in the study of 

 its language and literature. So early as when a student in 1819, he 

 had "written a song for the students which had remarkable popularity ; 

 he had afterwards inserted some lyrics in periodicals, and in 1828 had 

 published his first volume of poetry, which met with a warm welcome. 

 After his return from Italy, he issued occasional volumes of poems, 

 which fixed his place as one of the first lyric poets of Denmark, and 

 an annual pension of a thousand rix-dollars was assigned him by the 

 Diet in 1853. The king had previously in recompence for his services 

 in instructing the present Queen of Denmark in Danish, granted him 

 the title of Professor. The last we believe of his numerous volumes 

 of lyrics is that intitled ' Nye Digtninger,' ' New Poems ' in 1853. He 

 is also the author of several short novels which are in as high estima- 

 tion as his poems, have run through several editions, and have been 

 translated into German. For some time he was editor of the ' Danske 

 Kunstblad,' or ' Danish Art-Journal,' and he has also published ' Five- 

 and-twenty Fables,' and other books for children, a translation of 

 ' Reynard the Fox,' &c., &c. Like many other Danish poets he has 

 also composed in German, but his ' Judith, a fragment of a large poem ' 

 in that language (1837) has hitherto remained a fragment during the 

 lapse of twenty years. The most successful efforts of Winther are 

 his poetical sketches, entitled ' Traesnit,' ' Wood-cuts,' which ara 

 admirable for their sharpness and truth to nature. 



WINTRINGHAM; CLIFTON, father and son. The elder Win- 

 tringham practised as a surgeon at York, and published several works 

 which have obtained for him a reputation both as a physician and 

 physiologist. His first work was on gout, and was published at 

 York, with the title ' Tractatus de Podagra, in quo de ultimis et 

 liquidis et succo nutritio tractatur,' 8vo, 1714. In this work there are 

 evident indications of his belonging to the mechanical school. He 

 attributed gout to several causes, such as the acrimonious viscosity of 

 the nervous liquid, the rigidity of the muscles, and a contraction of 

 the diameter of the vessels near the joints. In 1718 he published ' A 

 Treatise on Endemic Diseases.' This work consists of an analysis of 

 the causes producing endemic diseases, and attributes them variously 

 to a change of temperature, to prevailing winds, to the nature of the 

 soil, to the influence of water and food, and particular climates. In 

 1729 he published a commentary on the epidemic diseases of York 

 and its neighbourhood, with the title ' Commentarium nosologicuui 

 morbos Epidemicos et aeris variationes in urbe Eboracensi, locisque 

 vicinis, ab anno 1715 ad anni 1725 finem grassantes complectens/ 8vo, 

 London. This work is an admirable description of the diseases on which 

 it treats. A second edition was published by the younger Wiutringham 

 in 1733. In 1740 he published in London ' An Experimental Enquiry 

 on some Parts of the Animal Structure,' 8vo. These inquiries were 

 principally directed to the vascular system and the functions of the 

 eye. In 1743 he published a second physiological work, entitled 'An 

 Enquiry into the Exility of the Vessels of the Human Body,' 8vo. In 

 this work he has attempted to apply mathematical formulae to the 

 solution of physiological problems. But as the data upon which all 

 the subsequent reasoning is based were mere assumptions, he came to 

 no results of any importance; but these works, independent of their 

 speculations, contain much accurate observation and valuable research. 

 These works are often erroneously attributed to his son, and this 

 error pervades most of the continental biographies. The elder Win- 

 tringham was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and died at York, on the 

 12th of March 1748. 



WINTRINGHAM, CLIFTON, the Younger, was born at York in 1710, 

 and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and took his degree 

 of Doctor of Medicine in. that university in 1749. He afterwards 



