THE PATH OF DUTY.

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remembrance the fine old German proverb, 'Den muthigen gehort die Welt,' and to act up to its very spirit:—it is thus that soldier and sailor, or inventor and discoverer, must deserve, and, deserving, command success. And the knowledge that we have done as best we could the work which we had set ourselves to do, that we have zealously followed up that 'path of duty' which is also the only true 'path of glory,' will be sufficient to reward us when the dark day cometh, and the silver bowl is broken, though the prizes of success and the laurels of fame be not ours, and we pass away-unheeded, unremembered―

Leaving no memorial but a world
Made better by our lives!

CHAPTER III.

EXAMPLES AND ENCOURAGEMENTS FROM THE LIVES
OF EMINENT ARTISTS.

Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or, indeed, any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

PROLOGUE.

1. ART is a jealous mistress, and he who serves her must be content to deposit at her shrine his best faculties, thoughts, energies, and sympathies; must have eyes only for her, ears only for her; and throw his whole soul into her divine and glorious worship. It is, perhaps, from this entire devotion of heart and mind to one sublime inspiration that we have had so few artists of vicious or illregulated lives. They have no time to stray in the garden bowers of Armida, or to dally with Pleasure in the light of purple skies. Art demands their whole service, their utter faith; will have no half confidence; will share her empire with no other ruler. As Sir Joshua Reynolds taught:'He who is resolved to excel must go to his work, willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night; he will find it no play, but very hard labour.' He who would be an artist must let the morning sun light up his canvas, and the evening lamp shine on his model of clay. Michael Angelo never ceased to work; not even when all Europe rang with be fame of the sculptor of the sublime 'Moses.'

His

WORK MEANS SUCCESS.

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favourite device-an old man in a go-cart, with an hourglass upon it, inscribed Ancora imparo, 'I am still learning!'illustrates the noble idea he had conceived of the needfulness of constant labour. So with the English sculptor Banks; industry with him almost supplied the place of genius, and he was never weary of inculcating upon the minds of his pupils the necessity of their wholly devoting themselves to the beautiful profession they had adopted. The great Titian was emphatically a Worker. He occupied seven years upon his picture of the 'Last Supper.' Many men will paint a picture in a week, but it lives-a week. Why do you charge me fifty crowns,' said a Venetian signor to a sculptor, for a bust that only cost you ten days' labour? 'Because,' replied the artist, ‘I was ten years learning to do my work in ten days.'

2. A similar lesson is taught by the life of Chantrey. He was the son of a poor artisan of Norton, near Sheffield, and born there in 1781. His father died while he was yet a child, and his mother married again, not, however, to the improvement of Chantrey's circumstances, whose duty it. was to drive an ass laden with milk-cans into Sheffield, and supply his mother's customers with milk. Stepfather and stepson did not agree, and he was accordingly placed with a Sheffield grocer; but chancing to pass one day a carver's shop, the latent poetry in his soul was suddenly aroused. He abandoned the loathsome counter and till, and bound himself apprentice to Mr. Ramsey, carver and gilder, for seven years. Mr. Ramsey also dealt in prints and plaster models, and Francis Chantrey was overwhelmed with happiness. He copied the prints, and imitated the models. No public-house pleasures for him; no rioting or excess; when his master's work was done he laboured earnestly at his favourite pursuits-laboured far into the still darkness of the night. Industry and self-denial enabled him to save a sum of 501., with which, at the age of twenty-one, he induced his master to cancel his indentures. Determined to be an artist, he travelled, almost penniless, to London, obtained employment as a carver's assistant, and occupied his leisure hours in the sedulous practice of drawing, modelling,

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CHANTREY'S LABOURS.

and painting in oil. It may be noted, as an encouragement for the persevering, that he was employed as a journeyman upon the decoration of the dining-room of Samuel Rogers, the banker-poet, where he was afterwards a welcome guest, and where, in later life, he would point out with pride the results of his skilful handiwork.

3. After attending for some time the school of the Royal Academy, Chantrey returned to Sheffield, announcing himself as a portrait-painter in oil or crayons. His first commission was given him by a cutler, and his first fee was a guinea; his second patron, a confectioner, was more liberal, and paid him five guineas and a pair of top boots for a portrait in oil. He also proclaimed his ability to model busts in plaster, and a monument to a deceased vicar of Sheffield, from his design, attracted general attention.

In London his studio was a loft over a stable in Newman Mews, where he modelled his first original work for exhibition, a gigantic head of Satan, of which, at a later period, he said to a friend, 'That head was the first thing that I did after I came to London. I worked at it in a garret, with a paper cap on my head; and as I could then afford only one candle, I stuck that one in my cap, that it might move along with me, and give me light whichever way I turned.' This bust was the foundation of Chantrey's fortunes. It was seen by Flaxman, whose noble soul, incapable of jealousy, immediately recognised the young sculptor's genius, and recommended him for the execution of four busts of admirals (Howe, St. Vincent, Duncan, and Nelson) intended to be placed in the Greenwich Naval Asylum. Soon afterwards, he executed his bust of Horne Tooke; a glorious work, so warmly and so justly admired, that it brought him commissions to the amount of 12,000l.

The remainder of his career was a series of brilliant successes. He still worked hard, however, as the record of these successes would show. Painting he had given up, and wholly devoted himself to sculpture; to the rendering of poetry in marble, to making stone eloquent with thought and feeling. Among his most memorable triumphs were: