er, seeking principles in his own mind, and
elaborating, without master or school, rules and laws of art, led onward
by the mere thirst for excellence, and advancing, under the influence of
causes which he himself, perhaps, could not have defined, along a path
marked out for him only in his own mind. He was one of those children of
genius whom contemporaries so often stigmatise as ignorant, because they
have struck out a track for themselves, and whose ardour is to be
chilled neither by censure nor failures; whence, on the contrary, they
derive fresh vigour and courage. Aided only by his own lofty instincts,
he attained to the true understanding of what historical painting should
be. Scriptural subjects, the last and loftiest step of high art, chiefly
occupied his pencil. Free from the feverish irritable vanity and paltry
envy so common amongst artists, he was a firm, upright, honourable man,
a little rough and unpolished in externals--the husk rather rugged--and
with a share of honest pride and independent feeling which sometimes
imparted to his manner an air of mingled bluntness and condescension. 'I
care nothing for your fine folks,' he would say. 'I don't work for them.
I don't paint drawing-room pictures. Those who understand my work best
reward me for it. I do not blame fashionable people for not
understanding art: how should they? They understand their cards; they
are judges of wine and horses. 'Tis enough. When they do pick up a crude
notion or two on the subject of painting, they become intolerable by
their assumption. I prefer, a thousand times, the man who honestly
confesses he knows nothing about art, to your ignoramus who comes in
with a solemn affectation of connoisseurship, claiming to be a judge,
talking about things he does not understand, and consequently talking
nonsense.' By no means a covetous man, my father painted for very modest
remuneration, contented to earn sufficient for the support of his
family, and for providing the means of exercising his art. Generous in
the extreme, his hand was ever open to less successful artists. Imbued
with a fervent and profound sense of religion, it was that, perhaps,
which enabled him to communicate to the faces he painted an elevation of
religious sentiment that the most brilliant pencils often fall to give.
In course of time, and aided by obstinate industry and unflinching
perseverance, his talent attracted the attention and commanded the
respect even of those wh