either at the enthusiasm with which they were followed, or the success with which they were executed, defaced them, and ordered all such labours to be discontinued in future. For this conduct, it is difficult to find either an excuse or a parallel. But true genius, no power on earth can keep back-it will work its way to distinction through all the obstructions of folly or envy. It loves to expatiate in secrecy over its future plans-it contemplates its growing powers with silent joy, and prepares to come forth on the world, in the fulness of might and the freshness of beauty.

It is related at Sheffield, that during the intervals of ordinary labour, Mr Chantrey was not to be found amusing himself like other young men— that he retired to his lodgings, and light might be seen in his window at midnight-frequently far in the morning and there he might be found working at groupes and figures with anabated diligence and enthusiasm. Of these early efforts, little is visible -except the effect they wrought. It is said, that his mother took great interest and delight in his carly productions; and this venerable woman enjoys the unspeakable felicity of living to rejoice in her son's reputation.

He continued nearly three years in the employment of Ramsay, and the clandestine labours of his leisure hours began to obtain notice. Judicious counsellors seldom fall to the lot of early genius, and Mr Chantrey found friends who, in the warmth of misjudging zeal, wished to obtrude him on the world before his talents were matured, or his hand or his mind disciplined. Others, of more discernment, confirmed him in his natural and correct notions of art, and directed his enthusiasm. Among the latter, was Raphael Smith-himself a man of no common talents. He soon discovered that the young artist's powers to excel in art equalled his ambition-and he encouraged him to pursue the attainment of excellence; for in sculpture, as in poetry and painting, no one is charmed with mediocrity, though all are doomed to endure it.

Sculpture is a profession infinitely more laborious than painting, depend ing on shape and expression for its fascination-demanding an acquaintance not only with varied nature-but with curious and delicate mechanical operations, and with that rare talent

of combining the conceptions of genius with the niceties of acquired skill. The march therefore of the sculptor to distinction is a long one-and with much of this mechanical knowledge Mr Chantrey had to become acquainted when he went to London. He had also other obstacles to surmount-the artificial and unnatural style imported from Italy and France, and which had been supported by the ablest Sculptors of England.

Our sculpture, till lately, never sought to free itself from the absurdities and allegorical subtleties of the foreign school. Nature was working her own free way with art, and working successfully, till our literature, as well as our sculpture, was overwhelmed by a flood which accompanied Charles II. to his throne. Art then fell off from reflecting nature-began to speak an obscure language-full of dark conceits and remote personifications. The common figures of poetry or speech were exalted into monumental heroes and heroines, illustrated by symbols as unintelligible as themselves, Nor did allegory remain pure and unmixed-Death was made to extend his figurative dart at the substantial bosom of a lady, whose husband endeavoured to avert it with an arm of flesh. And the conceits of the sculptor were worse than his allegory-the Duke of Argyle expires on his monument, while the pen of Fame is writ ing him Duke of Greenwich-a title that awaited him,-turning the monument of a hero into the record of a contemptible conceit: and these are favourable specimens.

On a mind unschooled in the conceited pedantries of art, the impres sion must have been curious and bewildering. Art must not pretend to instruct nature-what is not of nature cannot be of art-nothing better can be found to be imitated, and those who wish to excel can only collect the members of beauty together which nature has scattered over creation. The true beau-ideal is only a speculation of man on the perfection of nature-its beauty must be tried by nature, and by her permission must it stand, or by her sentence it must fall. Our poetry, our philosophy, and our actions, reflect the might, and the bold and peculiar character of the people. Should the nation pass away, her works and her deeds will always com mand admiration and awe, and will

tell to future ages the national mind and the national might. Sculpture alone has refused to receive this strong and original stamp-it speaks with no native tongue, it wears no native garb. It grows not out of our minds and souls, nor does it claim limb or linea ment of the heroic islanders.

In his twentieth year, Mr Chantrey purchased the remainder of his engagement from Ramsay, and the separation gave mutual pleasure. In the month of May 1802, he went to London, and began to apply himself with ardent diligence to the study of sculpture. But those who expect this ardour to continue unabated must consent to be disappointed, for in June the same year, we find him on his way to Dublin, resolved to make a tour through Ireland and Scotland. With his motives for this journey, we profess not to be acquainted; these are not regions eminent for the productions of art, and likely to attract young artists. A dangerous fever arrested his progress at Dublin, and he did not entirely recover till the ensuing summer. His illness cured him of love for travelling; he returned to London in autumn, and, with his return, his studies were recommenced.

His application was great, and his progress was rapid and visible. He had already conceived the character of bis works, and wanted only opportunity to invest them with their present truth and tenderness. One of his earliest works is a bust of his friend, Raphael Smith, created with a felicity at that time rare in bust sculpture. Surrounded, as it now is, with the busts of more eminent men, it is usually singled out by strangers as a production of particular merit. Akin to this is his bust of Horne Tooke, to which he has communicated an expression of keen penetration and clear-sighted sagacity. A colossal head of Satan belongs to this period; and, in the attempt to invest this fearful and undefined fiend with character and form, he has by no means lessened his own reputation. Eclipsed, as it is now, with more celebrated works, its gaze of dark and malignant despair never escapes notice.

Sometime in 1810, he fixed his residence in Pimlico, and constructed a study of very modest dimensions. The absolute nature and singular felicity of his busts procured him immediate and extensive employment. Their fidelity

to the living image, and the power and ease with which the character is expressed, the free and unconstrained attitude, have been often remarked and acknowledged. In this department of art his earliest busts placed him beyond rivalship, and there he is likely to continue. His name and his works were already known beyond the limits of London, when he became the successful candidate for a statue of George III. for that city. Competition among artists in finished works is the fair race of reputation, and public criticism compels genius to finish her labours with an elegant and scrupulous exactness. Not so with sketches and drawings. Simplicity is the presiding star of art-a simple design has a mean look, and a man may make imposing sketches on paper, who has not the capacity to follow them to finished excellence. Gentlemen, whether of the city or the plain, may be imposed upon by handsome sketches, as Fluellan was by the valour of ancient Pistol ;"He spoke as brave words, look you, as a man would wish to hear on a summer day." In truth, genius must feel reluctance at thus measuring its might in the dark with inferior minds, and the field of adventure is usually occupied either by men of moderate or dubious merit, or youths, who are willing to risk a chance for distinction. Thus an inferior hand has been permitted to profane the dust of the illustrious Robert Burns. A statue of the inspired peasant from the hand of his fellow-plowman, Chantrey, was what his fame deserved, and what Scotland, had she consulted her fame, would have given.

A curious circumstance had nearly deprived London of the fine statue of the king. To the study of sculpture, it seems Mr Chantrey had added that of painting, and some of his pictures are still to be found: of their merits, we are unable, from personal inspection to speak, but we have been told, by one well qualified to judge, that they do his sculpture no discredit. His pencil portraits are esteemed by many as admirable as his busts, and are still more difficult to be obtained. When he presented his design for the king's statue, it was approved of in preference to others, but a member of the Common Council observed, that the successful artist was a painter, and therefore incapable of executing the work of a sculptor. Sir William Cur

tis said, "You hear this, young man, what say you are you a painter or a sculptor.' "I live by sculpture," was the reply, and the statue was immediately confided to his hands-a statue of equal ease and dignity will not readily be found.

He had made some progress in this work, when he was employed by Mr Johnes of Hafod, the accomplished translator of Froissart, to make a monument a very extensive one-in memory of his only daughter. This was a congenial task, and confided to his hands under circumstances honourable to English sculpture. It has long been finished, and is a production of beauty and tenderness-a scene of domestic sorrow exalted by meditation. Invention does not consist in investing abstract ideas with human form-in conferring substance on an empty shade or in creating forms, unsanctioned by human belief, either written or traditional. Much genius has been squandered in attempting to create an elegant and intelligible race of allegorical beings, but for the want of human belief in their existence, the absence of flesh and blood, nothing can atone. No one ever sympathised with the grief of Britannia, or shared their feelings with that cold, cloudy, and obscure generation. Mr Chantrey's talents refuse all intercourse with this figurative and frozen race.

A statue of President Blair, a judge of singular capacity and penetration, and a statue of the late Lord Melville, were required for Edinburgh, and Mr Chantrey was employed to execute them. He has acquitted himself with great felicity. The calm, contemplative, and penetrating mind of Blair is visibly expressed in the marble. It must be difficult to work with a poet's eye in productions which the artist's own mind has not selected and consecrated. During his stay in Scotland, he modelled a bust of the eminent Playfair, in which he appears to have hit off the face and intellect of the man-and they were both remarkable ones-at one heat. Many artists obtain their likenesses by patient and frequent retouchings-Mr Chantrey generally seizes on the character in one hour's work. Once, and but once only, we saw a bust on which he had bestowed a single hour;-the likeness was roughed out of the clay with the happiest fidelity and vigour. We saw, too, the finished work-his hand had

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passed over it in a more delicate mar ner-but the general resemblance was not rendered more perfect. His bust of the lady of a Scottish judge belongs to this period-Nature furnished him with a beautiful form, and his art reflects back Nature.

On his return from Scotland, he was employed by the government to execute monuments for St Pauls, in memory of Colonel Cadogan and General Bowes, and afterwards of General Gillespie. These subjects are embodied in a manner almost strictly historical, and may be said to form portions of British history. Though the walls of our churches are encumbered with monuments in memory of our warriors, no heroes were ever so unhappy. Sculptors have lavished their bad taste in the service of government. Fame, and valour, and wisdom, and Britannia, are the eternal vassals of monotonous art. A great evil in allegory is the limited and particular attributes of each figure each possesses an changeable vocation, and this proscription hangs over them as a spell. The art, too, of humble talents is apt to evaporate in allegory-it is less difficult to exaggerate than be natural, and vast repose is obtained among the divinities of abstract ideas. Simple nature, in ungifted hands, looks degraded and mean; but a master-spirit works it up at once into tenderness and majesty.

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Amid a wide increase of business, Mr Chantrey omitted no opportunity of improving his talents and his taste. In 1814, he visited Paris, when the Louvre was filled with the plundered sculptures of Italy, and admired, in common with all mankind, the grace, the beauty, and serene majesty of these wonderful works. Of the works of the French themselves, his praise was very limited. In the succeeding year he paid the Louvre another visit, during the stormy period of its occupation by the English and Prussians. He was accompanied by Mrs Chantrey, and his intimate friend, Stothard the painter. He returned by the way of Rouen, and filled his sketch-book with drawings of the pure and impressive Gothic architecture of that ancient city. It has been said that acquaintance with the divine works of Greece dispirits rather than encourages a young artist. Images of other men's perfections are present to his mindideas of unattainable excellence damp

his ardour; and the power of imagining something noble and original is swallowed up in the contemplation. This may be true of second-rate minds; but the master-spirits rise up to an equality of rank, and run the race of excellence in awe, and with ardour. French sculpture profited little by the admirable models which the sweeping ambition of Bonaparte reft from other nations. The inordinate vanity of the nation, and the pride of the reigning family, encouraged sculpture to an unlimited extent. Yet with all the feverish impatience for distinction which rendered that reign remarkable, not a single figure was created that deserves to go down to posterity. The French have no conception of the awful repose and majesty of the ancient figures, and into native grace and simple elegance they never deviate. Their grave and austere matrons are the tragic dames of the drama, and their virgins the dancing damsels of the opera.

On Mr Chantrey's return from France, he modelled his famous group of Children, now placed in Lichfield Cathedral, and certainly a work more opposite to the foreign style could not well be imagined. The sisters lie asleep in each other's arms, in the most unconstrained and graceful repose; the snow-drops, which the youngest had plucked, are undropped from her hand. Never was sleep, and innocent and artless beauty, more happily expressed. It is a lovely and a fearful thing to look on those beautiful and breathless images of death. They were placed in the exhibition by the side of the Hebe and Terphsicore of Canovathe goddesses obtained few admirers compared to them. So eager was the press to see them, that a look could not always be obtained-mothers stood over them and wept; and the deep impression they made on the public mind must be permanent.

A work of such pathetic beauty, and finished with such exquisite skill, is an unusual sight, and its reward was no common one. The artist received various orders for poetic figures and groups, and the choice of the subject was left to his own judgment. Such commissions are new to English sculpture. The work selected for Lord Egremont has been made publicly known-a colossal figure of Satan: The sketch has been some time finished; and we may soon expect to see the fiend invested with the visible and aw

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ful grandeur of his character. A subject selected from Christian belief is worthy of a Christian people. guardian angel, a just man made perfect, must be dearer to us than all the dumb gods of the heathens. They exist in our faith and our feeling-we believe they watch over us, and will welcome our translation to a happier state. But the gods of the Greeks have not lived in superstition these eighteen hundred years. We do not feel for them-we do not love them, neither do we fear them. What is Jupiter to us, or we to Jupiter. They are not glorious by association with Paradise, like our angels of light-nor terrible, like those of darkness. We are neither inspired by their power, nor elevated by their majesty. Revelling among forgotten gods has long been the reproach of sculptors. The Christian world has had no Raphaels in marble.

A devotional statue of Lady St Vincent is a work created in the artist's happiest manner. The figure is kneeling-the hands folded in resignation over the bosom-the head gently and meekly bowed, and the face impressed deeply with the motionless and holy composure of devotion. All attempt at display is avoided—a simple and negligent drapery covers the figure. It is now placed in the chancel of Caverswell-church, in Staffordshire.

Along with many other productions, his next important work was a statue of Louisa Russel, one of the Duke of Bedford's daughters. The child stands on tiptoe, with delight fondling a dove in her bosom, an almost breathing and moving image of arch-simplicity and innocent grace. It is finished with the same felicity in which it is conceived. The truth and nature of this figure was proved, had proof been necessary, by a singular incident. A child of three years old came into the study of the artist-it fixed its eyes on the lovely marble child-went and held up its hands to the statue, and called aloud and laughed with the evident hope of being attended to. This figure is now at Woburn-abbey, in company with a group of the Graces from the chisel of Canova.

Many of Mr Chantrey's finest busts belong to this period. His head of John Rennie, the civil-engineer, is by many reckoned his masterpiece; and we have heard that the sculptor seems not unwilling to allow it that preference. Naturally it is a head of evident exten◄