HOLLAND'S MEMORIALS OF CHANTREY THE SCULPTOR..

THESE " memorials " are intended as a contribution of facts re- lating to the life of Chantrey, especially upon matters respecting which other biographers have been silent or misinformed. The principal part of the undertaking refers to the sculptor's youth and struggles m " Hallamshire," a district of which Sheffield is the capital, and in a parish of which, called Norton, Chantrey was born ; but his London life after he had risen to celebrity is introduced occasionally, by means of letters to his friends in Shef- field, and sometimes more directly. The book is divided into six sections, with indicative titles. 1. The Boyhood of Genius. 2. Chantrey as a Portrait-painter. 3. Pen and Pencil Sketches. 4. The Sculptor in Sheffield. 5. London Life and Works. 6. Mortu- ary Memorials. Of these, the first four parts refer to his early life and struggles, either before he left Sheffield, or before his fame was established and he became a permanent resident in the Metro- polis. The titles of the fifth and sixth parts explain themselves. It is probable that Mr. Holland has too discursive and diffuse a genius to succeed in a regular biography, which should be planned with the unity of a work of art; but he is well qualified for the laxer task which he has undertaken—that of investigating parti- cular points and collecting facts. He has a turn for genealogy, with sufficient taste and discrimination to rate mere names and dates at their value, and only to exhibit fully those things which contain the conclusion sought to be impressed,—the worldly cir- cumstances and probable character of the ancestral line. He has, what generally accompanies an antiquarian, a liking for facts, anecdotes, and gossip, with the tenacious industry which will hunt out a truth, however minute, through any intervening obstacles. He has also a taste for art, with the seemingly gregarious habits that taste induces, and a good sound judgment. But Mr. Holland is not a mere antiquary or connoisseur. He can animate his facts with a worldly knowledggee, and a little acidity, which is not the less sharp for being mildly administered. His mode of composition is too discursive ; his style somewhat diffuse, and at times obscure in its expression, though not in its meaning, want of practice or of careful revision. But his diction, like his character, is of the world ; there is nothing of the mere Writer about him. His man- ner, in painter's phrase, i4 somewhat after that of Mr. Bolton Cor- ney, and his object noti-ery dissimilar. Biographers writing after Chantrey had attained distinction— and the two most eminent, the late Allan Cunningham, and Mr. Jones, R.A., under what may be termed a Belgravian influence, have made the best of their case, and rather more. than their facts warrant. These errors Mr. Holland sets himself to refute, and by means of dates and documents does so effectively. The patrimonial property lost—the " small farm of his own ' which Chantrey's father cultivated—the theory of education which that same father contemplated for his son, and the design in after life of making a gentleman of the great sculptor by breeding him an attorney-at- law—are ruthlessly overthrown. The whole family appear to have been in humble circumstances ; some in respectable service, some as village mechanics or "master men," and Chantrey's grand- father and father rented a farm of forty-five acres as tenants of the Offieys of Norton. The father's " depression of spirits " from the loss of ancestral property seems to be a mere iiam in all points. The reverse of depression was his character, and his bane. In Mr. Holland's words, "he sung a good song, told a tale, or bandied a joke, but too cleverly for his own welfare. The public-house was not far off; and still nearer was the hospitable residence of Squire New- ton, among whose eccentricities, was a too frequent preference of the hilarious frankness of persons in a grade of life below his own, to the more formal intercourse of the neighbouring gentry. With him Frank Chantrey' was a great favourite.', During his father's lifetime, the future sculptor had learned his letters at home and "as much more as a spoiled child might be expected to acquire before the age of six" at a dame school. He was then transferred to the village schoolmaster, Thomas Fox ; and the prac- tical result of his father's theory of education is shown as follows. "I have seen the register-book of this worthy pedagogue, from which it aPpears that Francis Chantrey began to learn to read with him, April 16, 1787; to write, in January 1788; and accounts, in October 1792. After several-weekly and even monthly intervals of non-attendance, during which he was doubt usefully occupied at home, his place in the list of scholars is, on the 3d July 1797, filled up with the name of another boy."

His father died in 1793, (some years previously to the last date,) leaving his widow in narrow circumstances, and Francis twelve years of age—not eight, as stated by Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones was also wrong by a year in the date of his here's birth ; it was 1781, not 1782.

Mrs. Chantrey soon married again ; but Mr. Holland omits the date of that event. A contemporary states that the marriage took place while her weeds were yet fresh ; and that though Chantrey, in after years, contributed liberally to her wants, he never forgave

• Memorials of Sir Francis Chantrey, R.A., Sculptor, in Hallamslaire and Else- where. By John Holland. Published by Longman and Co.

her marriage,—always addressing his letters to " Mrs. Chantrey," and, it would appear from anecdotes told by Mr. Hollaid, not al- ways addressing her directly, even on occasions of great interest to a mother. When he was a successful competitor for the statue of George the Third, to be erected in Guildhall, ht could write in- stantly to his friends, but he deputed one of them to tell his mother.

"The decision in his favour was made known on the 4th of April : under that date, and before leaving the Guildhall, he addressed the following note to his friend at Doncaster.

" My dear Inchbald—Tell Mr. Smith that I am appointed to execute the statue of his Majesty for the Council Chamber, Guildhall It has been de- cided within this half hour. There were fifteen models against me. Ex- cuse haste.

" ' Truly yours, CKANTREY. " P.S. A fortunate day for me—I can now afford to drink your health hi a bottle of wine—which I will do tonight'

"At the same time, and nearly in the same terms, he wrote to Rhodes, adding, Pray let my mother know of this my good fortune.' The instant, therefore, after Rhodes had read the letter, he went to Norton, and made the communication to Mrs. Hall ; who, on hearing it, literally wept for joy. Not so Aunt Leggitt,' who was present ; and is said very coolly to have taken her share if credit in the result, through the rudimentary instructions which she had given her nephew in childhood, in making and baking figures in pastry ! In Mr. Rhodes's amusing recitals of this story, originated those grave statements relative to Chantrey's very early taste for modelling, which have been repeated with so many variations, but which have no foundation in fact, and the bearing of which the sculptor himself always repudiated."

Job Hall, the sculptor's unacknowledged stepfather, was a man in humble life, of good character, but of no acquirements, for ha could not even write his name. But he had that bearing and for- bearing spirit which often accompanies humble circumstances. At his death, he left what he had to his widow for her life, and the bulk of it after her decease to Francis. The sculptor had a keen eye for worldly advantages, and was not apt to miss an oppor- tunity in that direction ; it would be curious to know whether he took this legacy.

According to Mr. Holland, Chantrey's dissatisfaction with the marriage did not originate so much in objection to the character of Hall, or to its undue haste, as on account of its effect upon his own position. For some years Chantrey had a hard life of it ; now attending school, now working at odd jobs about the farm, and, as a more regular employment, driving "an ass daily with milk- barrels between Norton and Sheffield." In 1797 these mean own- pations were ended by Chantrey's being placed with a " factor" at Sheffield,—an odd term to designate a grocer in England; and which tempts us to believe, in spite of the strength of evidence, that Mr. Birks, instead of a genuine tea-dealer, was "an inland merchant" in a small way—Anglicd, kept a chandler's shop. This situation proved more distasteful than farm-work or driving asses.

"Nor was he, according to all accounts, slow to put himself right ; for his mother having called to see him, he walked out with her into the town, explained the misery of his present position, and then, taking her to the shop- window of Mr. Ramsay, carver and gilder, in High Street, besought of her to get him placed in that establishment : he accordingly left the grocer's service ; and the parties thus brought into temporary connexion never met afterwards but once, when Mr. Birks went in 1806, as many other persona did, to look at Chantrey work on the model of Mr. Wilkinson's bust : the quondam pupil appeared glad to see his old master ; I may add, that the latter is still alive. It was now arranged that the youth should go into Ramsay's establishment. This was, apparently, the most important turning- point of his history and fortunes. "As this period of the sculptor's history has been especially obscured by indistinctness and mistakes, I may as well cite, as the best of all evidence, the very terms of the indenture of apprenticeship—' made the 19th of Sep- tember 1797, between Francis Chantrey, of Norton, in the county of Derby, and Job Hall, of Norton aforesaid, farmer, and Thomas Fox, of Norton aforesaid, schoolmaster, friends of the said Francis Chantrey, of the one part, and Robert Ramsay, of Sheffield, in the county of York, carver and gilder, of the other part witnesseth—that the said Francis Chantrey, of his own good liking, and by and with the counsel of his friends, bath put, bound, and by these presents doth put and bind himself servant,' &c."

Mr. Holland has collected many facts or traditions respecting Chantrey's residence with Ramsay; and, r eking them out with his own commentary, he presents a good idea of the manner in which the born artist acquired the elementary knowledge and sucked in the spirit of art. From the time he left Ramsay, about 1802, till 1809, when his marriage (not in 1811, as Mr. Jones says) enabled him to discharge some debts and start as a housekeeper and respectable man,—and his engagement to furnish the busts of four Admirals for Greenwich Hospital gave him professional eclat,—the materials are tolerably full ; but they leave the complete artistic career yet obscure and fragmentary. Perhaps this obscurity exists even to 1810, when Chantrey is found going to Windsor to model a bust of George the Third; for his then reputation did not chal- lenge royal patronage. But his indefatigable exertions, and his readiness to turn his hand to anything, are clearly indicated. He painted portraits in oil, crayons, or miniature; he sculptured busts.; when he went to London he studied indefatigably at the Academy ; and when higher employment failed and need pressed. him, he re- sorted to his old master's art and carved for an upholsterer, at five shillings a day. He visited Sheffield during the Academy vaca- tions, and did not scruple in the province to announce his willing- ness to be employed, in a manner rather resembling a professor of the curing art than a votary of the fine arts. The researches of Mr. Holland have exhumed. some singular memorials of the great sculptor. This was the first appeal, while yet a resident in Shef- field, and soon after he had left Ramsay. " In the Sheffield Iris newspaper of April 22, 1802, appeared the .following advertisement—'F. Chantrey, with all due deference, begs permission, to in- form the ladies and gentlemen of Sheffield and its vicinity, that during his stay here, he wishes to employ his time in taking of portraits in crayons and miniatures at the pleasure of the person who shall do him the honour to sit. F. C., though a young artist, has had the opportunity of acquiring improve- anent from n.aaet attention to the 'works and .produedonaof idessral3mitly Arnold, 8re., gantlet:aim of-eminenoe. He trusts m .being -Nippy pridnoe good and satisfactory likenesses ; And.no exertion shall be wanting oa his part to render his humble efforts deserving some small share of public pa- tronage. Terms—from two 'to three guineas. 24 Paradise Square." In '1804 he had combined se.ulpture NiritliPo,,trait-painting ; as appears by the 'folloviing, also taken from the SU:fad Iris. setaaeriaue nzip POILTRAIT-y9.INTING. "F. Chantrey.respectbilly. Solicits the patronage of the laflies and. entle- men-of Sheffield and'its envir ons, in the above arts, during the recess of the Royal Academy ; which he hopes to merit from the specemens 'haste offer to their attentionAt this apartments,NO.14 Norfolk Street. As models from life are not generally -attempted in the eonatry, F. C. hopes to meet the li- beral eentimen is of an impartial.publie."

The "hit 7 which made Chantrey's fortune was the bust of Horne Tooke.: it procured him commissions to the extort of 12,0001. He was further indebted to' the politician.philologist for putting himself in the Way of avoiding composition like the last sentence 'of the above advertisement.

." When lie cameinto contact with Mome 'Tooke in 1810, and when for- tune-was beginning to smile on him, he asked that celebrated individual how he might at that -time best remedy the felt deficiency of his early edua cation? Twkaadvised the ardent young man not to trouble himself about 'creek and Latin, but to read the best translations of the ancient classics, and such other works in English as -were .pointed out; and at the same time to -attend, us far as practicable, the lectures which were given in London on al- most every subject. I know this was the preceptor's Advice ; how advert- tageouslyit-wasfollowed bythe pupil, the world has long known ; -indeed, the ertent and accuracy of -Chautrey's information, even on matters that dorm the staple of academic teaching, were very remark able."

We could readily extend these extracts, as well in relation to if hartrey and his works as by sensible observations on art; but quite enough las been done to give an idea of these memorials. nay. will belound amusing and agreeable reading,.and will be in- dispensable to the future biographer of Ertmeis Chantrey.