STOTHARD. 



803 



in the course of business, a gentleman who saw 

 these drawings was struck with them; and putting 

 some questions as to the artist, was told they were 

 by one of the apprentices, who had made a great 

 number. The gentleman took some of the drawings 

 away with him ; and having shown them to a pub- 

 lisher of that day with whom he was intimate, this 

 led to the employment of the young artist in mak- 

 ing drawings for the booksellers. Mr Harrison, 

 the well known publisher in Paternoster Row, 

 was, we believe, the earliest employer of Mr Stot- 

 hard. Many of the engravings for " The Town 

 and Country Magazine," between 1770 and 1780, 

 are from drawings by Stothard, but there is no 

 name to them. Shortly afterwards he became more 

 known by the exquisite little designs he made for 

 Bell's " British Poets," and the " Novelist's Ma- 

 gazine ;" some of which procured for him the 

 friendship of his eminent contemporary, Flaxman. 

 Sir Joshua Reynolds also was so struck with his 

 talents that when he was requested by Sir John 

 Hawkins to design a frontispiece for Ruggle's Latin 

 play of " Ignoramus," he said, " There is a young 

 artist of the name of Stothard who will do it 

 much better than I can ; go to him." 



His designs at this period formed an era in 

 British art, and created a new taste in the public 

 mind. They were also productive of a more la- 

 boured and beautiful style of engraving than had 

 till then been seen in embellishments to printed 

 works. Mr James Heath was to Stothard what 

 Bartolozzi was to Cipriani ; transferring his designs 

 to copper in a manner worthy of them, preserving 

 the character and spirit of the originals, and at the 

 same time investing them with the grace and bril- 

 liancy of a finished work. Most of the embellished 

 volumes published during the last half century 

 were illustrated by the inimitable compositions of 

 this truly poetic painter, and they form a monu- 

 ment, not to his own fame only, but to that of the 

 country which gave him birth. The number of 

 his productions of this class cannot be less than five 

 or six thousand. His series of sketches for " Robin- 

 son Crusoe " are among the happiest of all his 

 works of that class, and his designs to illustrate 

 " The Pilgrim's Progress," engraved by Strutt, are 

 singularly beautiful. His illustrations of " Don 

 Quixote " and " Gil Bias " are full of humour. 

 Among the most beautiful of his more recent de- 

 signs were his illustrations of Mr Rogers's " Italy," 

 in which he could not have been more successful 

 if he had passed his life in that luxurious clime. 



The easel pictures of Mr Stothard were few 

 compared with his designs for books and other pub- 

 lications ; but they were abundantly sufficient to 

 establish his reputation as a painter. And first, 

 both for originality and character, should be placed 

 his " Canterbury Pilgrims." It was Mr Cromek 

 who commissioned Mr Stothard to paint this fine 

 picture. An engraving from it was made, but the 

 completion of the plate was long delayed. The 

 two engravers originally employed, Louis and 

 Philip Schiavonetti, as well as Mr Cromek him- 

 self, paid the debt of nature during its progress ; 

 and it was eventually finished by Mr Heath. The 

 painting was afterwards bought by Hart Davis, 

 Esq. A copy, with some variations, was made for 

 a gentleman in Yorkshire of the name of Benson, 

 who also purchased Mr Stothard's "Characters 

 from Shakspeare." The Decameron of Boccacio 

 supplied Mr Stothard largely with the romantic 

 scenes of ladies and lovers strolling, as vagrant 



fancy or accident directed, amid rustling groves, 

 running streams, and sunny knolls, which were his 

 especial favourites. The largest painting ever exe- 

 cuted by him is the grand staircase at Burleigh, 

 the seat of the marquis of Exeter. This splendid 

 work was commenced in the year 1798, and occu- 

 pied the artist for the four summer months of four 

 successive years. The subject is intemperance ; 

 the principal group consisting of Marc Anthony 

 and Cleopatra, surrounded by sylphs, bacchanals, &c. 

 Mr Stothard also designed the ceiling of the ad- 

 vocates' library at Edinburgh ; and, among other 

 commissions, he was called upon to furnish designs 

 for the basso-relievos of the grand staircase of 

 Buckingham palace, in which style of decorative 

 ornament no man was better skilled. There is 

 good reason to believe that some of the most dis- 

 tinguished works of English sculpture, produced 

 in Mr Stothard's time, have owed their origin to 

 his designs; and the chasers in gold and silver, par- 

 ticularly those employed by Messrs Rundell and 

 Bridge, and Messrs Green and Ward, were con- 

 tinually indebted to his creative art. In his design 

 for the Shield of Achilles, he evinced a thorough 

 knowledge of early Greece ; in his design for the 

 Wellington Shield, the bearing of an English officer 

 is given in the most masterly manner. Of the lat- 

 ter he made an elaborate etching with his own 

 hand. One of the last of his productions of im- 

 portance was a drawing which he made of the pro- 

 cession of the Flitch of Bacon, which was finely 

 engraved by Mr Watt. 



Mr Stothard's style was certainly mannered ; 

 but in character and expression truth and nature 

 ever prevailed. He was not without a sufficient 

 skill in colouring; and where bright and vivid tints 

 were required by the nature of his subject, he 

 found no difficulty in producing them. In some of 

 his works there is an evident leaning towards the 

 olden and Albert Durer times of art. Like his 

 friend Flaxman, he was fond of studying the an- 

 cient monuments in Westminster Abbey, many of 

 which are in the purest style of composition. Nor 

 does it detract from his merit, or from the charac- 

 ter of his genius, that he occasionally transfused 

 the spirit of some of the most distinguished mas- 

 ters into his pictures ; for he did so without losing 

 an iota of his own originality and invention. There 

 are not wanting examples among the works of Mr 

 Stothard in which the grace of Raphael, the gaiety 

 of Watteau, and the fire of Rubens, may be un- 

 equivocally recognised. His works are of two clas- 

 ses, those which illustrate poetry and prose, and 

 those which embody his own sentiments and con- 

 ceptions : the former are the more numerous, but 

 some of the latter are the most felicitous of his 

 pictures, and please us with unlooked-for loveli- 

 ness, and unexpected beauty. His excellence was 

 the same in every department of composition 

 whether serious or comic, domestic or imaginative, 

 pastoral or sublime. Heneverpainted pretty pictures 

 to please the eye; his productions always appealed 

 to the mind. Though humour and pathos flowed 

 alike from his pencil, his humour never degenerated 

 into caricature, nor his pathos into affectation 

 or insipidity. There is scarcely an author of any 

 note whose pages he has left unembellished ; nor is 

 there any poet whose excellence he can be up- 

 braided for not feeling. 



As a man, his character was simplicity itself. He 

 was always liberal in opening the rich stores of his 

 knowledge toall who stood in need of his aid. Nevi T 

 3 E2 



