I was wretched. . . . The muddy waters of the Humber swept by, and murmured on the shore. The sun was sinking be to me? She whose smile delighted me, loved and loving, for whom I loved to be praised, knew me not, heard me not. And I could not get near her." Touching words are these, from the strong man who had battled long years with the cold neglectful world, and in whose ears the accents of newly-won and welcome applause were still ringing. They show an earnestness and depth of nature, that makes us love him almost more for what he was than what he did.. Evening Star, Guardian Cherubs, The World Before the Flood, and the Bevy of Fair Women, which was soon preferred to a place in the Duke of Suther-hind the hills. What was all the world land's magnificent gallery. The same year the British Institution voted him 1007. as an acknowledgment of his "talents, industry, and perseverance." Still, as though excellence and renown were as far distant as ever, he scribbles among his memoranda the old maxims that had helped him through his severest struggles with difficulty and despair. "RETRENCH-UP EARLYWORK HARD," are still the precepts. "Outline! Outline! Outline!" Skeleton! Anatomy! Figure!" are all words that bespeak old aims. We cannot attempt to name in succession the numerous pictures that his powers, now rapidly maturing, brought yearly to completion. As well by the canons of a narrow criticism might one think to measure rightly the mighty gush of a true poet's song, as in words to convey a definite impression of the glorious blending of imagination and sense on the painter's canvass. The poet has this advantage among his fellows-his ethereal measures are echoed over sea and shore, and in ten thousand hearts become " a joy for ever;" the painter is confined to space, his faine lies buried, as it were, in chambers of imagery, and only those who enter can carry away a due remembrance of its form and features; the one, like a divinity, is everywhere for all worshippers, the other has his shrines, and must have pilgrims. A blow, more deeply felt by Etty than any temporary failure could have been in his increasingly successful career, was the death of his mother, in 1829. She had reached her seventy-sixth year, when she died almost suddenly, at Hull; but her loss came upon the artist as a surprise. "All men think all men mortal but themselves;" and the fond heart, absorbing the objects of affection in itself, never thinks of them but as coeval with its own vitality. Etty loved his mother with an intensity and fervour hardly shared by any of her children. He hurried to the funeral. "I felt," he writes, describing to his niece his journey to Hull, "I felt as if at once almost all that tied me to life was cut asunder; and as if the best thing that could happen to me was to lay me down beside her. The sun smiled, but not for me. I passed happy and smiling faces; but 66 Returning to his studio, Etty completed a second picture from the story of Judith-her Coming Forth-one of the pendants promised to his Scottish patrons. The other-the Maid of Judith waiting outside the Tent-was the fruit of his next year's industry. This period was richly productive; his works, both numerous and various, evincing a steady progress. In the summer of 1830, he indulged in another trip to Paris, chiefly memorable from the outbreaking of the Revolution during his sojourn there. The three glorious days" found him busy at the Louvre-neither barricades nor angry crowds, could prevent his painting. The second day he was at his post, nothing daunted by the rattling of the musketry through the streets without; but, at its close, his Studies were thrust into a cupboard behind the door, and he was compelled to allow them to remain there till the storm was over, glad enough then to regain them at all. Amidst the horrors surrounding him, as if by some fatality attendant on his travelling abroad, Etty was again in love-"deeply, desperately, almost hopelessly." As before, the fever had its course, its delirium, and finally its cure. 66 Henceforth, Etty's life may be characterised, in his own glowing gladsome words applied to his whole career, as one long summer's day." There was little incident to diversify it. The routine of the painting-room was broken only by an annual journey to his native city, or occasional visits to his friends. To Scotland he went for the first time in 1831, and was received in the most gratifying manner by his sympathising patrons there; the visit was afterwards repeated, and with still greater éclât. To the Continent also he made one or two more hurried trips, not forgetting a pilgrimage to the land of Rubens. His days were full of rich enjoyment; his art remaining an exhaustless source of pleasure, and his simple habits and contented spirit discovering an element of happiness in constantly recurring things; the roll of the river, the flush of the sunset, the quiet comfort of home had unfailing charms. Almost might it be said The meanest floweret of the vale, Undoubtedly his religion lay at the basis of this peace, and also of much of his success; yet it lacked sympathy with the highest spiritual objects, and shadowed forth more of the artist than the Christian. Very characteristic is his evident leaning, in his later years, to the Ancient Faith of Raphael and Michael Angelo. "Oh that I could have seen my country," he breaks out in one of his letters, "when her brows were crowned with gems, like what our abbeys, our cathedrals, and churches once were! When schism had not split the Christian world into fighting fanatics; when the dignity of Christ's holy temple and of his worship were thought improved by making the Fine Arts handmaids thereto, and the finest efforts of the soul of man were made subservient to His glory." Or again, after vespers, at his beloved minster: "The sun declining in golden splendour shines gloriously through the great West window. Behind, the stupendous East window; and on either hand, the glorious transepts, with their lofty stained glass glorious! springing to the heaven, which certainly must have inspired the mortals who built it. Oh! Holy Mother of the Church! dear Catholic Church! how deeply I venerate thee; thou, who produced such glorious efforts." Meanwhile the Academy Exhibitions were extending his fame. In 1832, the Temple of Vice attracted general notice; and Youth at the Helm and Pleasure at the Prow, now in the Vernon Gallery, was then produced. Hylas and the Nymphs-Venus and her Satellites sold for less than three hundred guineas, though sixteen hundred have since been vainly profferred for it-Adam and Eve -Venus, Cupid, Psyche-and numerous other pictures of similar subjects rapidly followed. Of his colossal paintings Benaiah, completed in 1829, deserves to be mentioned; and Ulysses and the Sirens, exhibited in 1837. In the latter he declared that twenty years' labour was concentrated, although the actual execution occupied less than five months. Many of the details were complained of as repulsive; some protested against the dead men's bones, and others pointed reproachfully to the bare-bosomed Siren; but Etty had realised his purpose-he wished to affright and disgust; for its moral was, "The wages of sin is death." Contemporaneously with this was painted Samson and Delilah, pronounced by Mr. Gilchrist to be "the very perfection of the Cabinet Historic." Etty sold them both to a merchant for £250-a sum, as so in many other cases, perceived to be below their worth; the mere money value of the Sirens alone is estimated at £2,000. These efforts were followed, in 1838, by the Good Samaritan, and later by the Rape of Proserpine, an em bodiment of the lines In that fair field of Euna gathering flowers, Perseus and Andromeda, Bathers surprised by a Swan, The Dunce, Magdalen, The Entombment, The Graces, Hesperus and his Daughters Three, were some of the subjects next treated by him. The constantly-recurring nudities of his productions became a subject of frequent remark and condemnation, and led many to draw an inference respecting his character which we have seen was by no means founded on fact. "I have never wished," he wrote, in defence of himself, "to seduce others from the path and practice of virtue, which alone leads to happiness here and hereafter; and if in any of my pictures an immoral sentiment has been aimed at, I consent it should be burned." "To the pure all things are pure," was his constant motto; only a mind essentially vicious, and utterly blind to the spiritual meaning of all true art, could, he believed, abuse his pictures. Extreme beauty and purity in his idea were twin sisters; and the glowing hues with which he invested the human form were only a reflection of the original splendour shed by the Creator upon His creatures. As in words Milton. portrayed Eve "on the soft, downy bank damasked with flowers," as the fairest of God's gifts to man, the chief bliss and beauty of his earthly Eden, so Etty wished to paint her daughters as, in his own words, "the most glorious of her works." The picture-dealers, meantime, were bringing him ample employment. His income had been gradually increasing for several years; at first he was contented to add to it by occasional portraitpainting, till at last a ready sale was found for his other works. His prices, always moderate, began to advance, though there was still a wide difference between what he demanded and their ultimate value. In these successes the kind friends who had helped him in his earliest struggles, and to whom, indeed, for a long time he was indebted for support, were not forgotten. Every obligation was scrupulously discharged. In matters of business-to him an occult science-Etty placed himself entirely in the hands of his brother Walter, paying him his receipts, and drawing whatever was necessary to meet current expenses. As late as 1831, we find a balance of 8047. against the painter; but progressive payments rapidly modified this unfavourable aspect of affairs; and in ten years from that date, the arrears being fully acquitted, he invested his first savings in the Three per Cents. In little more than three years, the "Etty Fund," as friends denominated it, had swollen to 5,000l.; and when he died, besides his house, he left, as the proceeds of his art, some 17,000l., to which must be added 5,000l. realised by the sale of his studies, copies, and unfinished pictures-a much smaller sum than would have been obtained, had they not all been thrown on the market at once. The Royal patronage was for the first time extended to Etty in 1843, when he was commissioned by Prince Albert to execute one of a series of frescoes, designed to decorate the new Summer Temple, in Buckingham Pa lace Gardens. Throughout it proved an ungrateful task, alien to old habits and predilections. Never could patron commit a much greater mistake than thus to summon a great colourist, in the prime of his power and his fame, to new and untried fields of art. The experiment was a failure; and the fresco, when finished, was removed by request. The painter received 401. as a compensation for his labours-a pitiful reward for the time expended, now when his 66 66 reputation secured him abundant occupation; and the more evidently such, from the fact that the fresco itself was sold by a dealer soon afterwards for 4007. Etty had meanwhile, however, a more congenial object before him. It was his ambition to paint "three times three" colossal pictures, that would make his name immortal. The Joan of Arc, a series of three- -to complete the number-was already sketched. "She keeps her place in my best affections. When the triple epics are completed, triple thanks to God for sustaining me, will break forth from my heart's fountain. 'The night cometh;' and I must work while it is day, lest I be weighed in the balance, like Belshazzar, and found wanting.' At a later period, he visited Orleans to catch the inspiration of the place; and on his return, toiled with unfailing energy to realize the conception. He had to battle with a triple league" of weather, asthma, cough," that every year now became a more formidable foe; but victory, as it had always favoured him, did not desert him at the last. On Monday, May 5th, in his sixty-first year, the colossal Three left his studio, to take their chance in the world. "I painted on the picture," he wrote to his brother a few days previously, "I painted on the picture till Saturday night, and then gave Sunday for a general revision of it alone, and completion of the portions not yet done. By one o'clock, on Easter Sunday, I felt that I ought to go to the Abbey, and return thanks to Almighty God, for having so mercifully dealt with me as to enable me to complete so far this colossal effort; and that nothing should prevent me, I went, and never did the glorious Abbey look more beautiful. . . . I spent the evening in peace." In the first of the trio, the painter pictures his heroine as having found the sword she had dreamt of, and devoting herself and it to the service of her God and country; in the second, as under the influence of that inspiration, riding to victory; in the third, as clasping her crucifix and invoking Heaven from the midst of the flames. They added dignity to the Exhibition, despite some faults, from the circumstances of their execution, and perhaps also some lack of originality in the grouping of the figures; and they were speedily purchased for 2,5007. Feeling himself free once more to 66 return to the fanciful range of subject which had engaged his attention of late, Etty commenced the Fleur de Liswhich Mr. Gilchrist describes to be as signal a triumph as ever came to life under Etty's hands; for glory of Colour, and lyrical glow, as it were, unsurpassed, nay, unapproached by any master. In no other picture," he adds, " ancient or modern, is sunlight, 'the glow of summer noonday,' given to equal perfection." But the painter's work was nearly done. The thought of realizing a competence for himself and niece had induced him to labour, were it possible, even more closely each successive year. His health gave renewed symptoms of failure; and his persistance, notwithstanding friendly warning and entreaty, in braving the fogs that intervened between Buckingham-street and Trafalgar-square, at length made it clear that the only chance of prolonging his life lay in removal from London. If he had to die, he might as well die, he would plead, at the Academy as at home. Others thought differently; and the attractions of his native city, that no vicissitudes or successes had lessened in his eyes, came also to the rescue. York had throughout his career been a central object of interest; the burning of the Minster twice in ten years had affected him as nothing else could but the loss of friends; in every discussion respecting proposed improvements and demolitions, he had taken a most active part, enlisting all his influence on the side of the antique and picturesque; and indeed, in whatever he deemed to concern its honour or prosperity, the strength of his attachment at once appeared. A final retirement and settlement had for some time been in prospective; and having purchased a house, he removed thither in June, 1848-to die within a stone's throw of the place where he was born, and from which he had gone forth a poor printer's boy to become a world-famed painter. Here, in the absence of his usual avocations, he wrote the short and desultory 66 Autobiography," which appeared in the Art Union Journal. There was yet one crowning triumph in store. The Society of Arts proposed to secure his pictures, if possible, for their second collective exhibition of the works of living painters. Every effort was put forth to that end, and ultimately one hundred and thirty-three samples of his achievement were hung together within their rooms. "If ever I felt proud," he avowed some months later to an old friend, "it was when, after great anxiety, exertion, and fatigue, I had completed the arrangement of them; and sat me down in a chair, in the midst of these my children. I then felt it was something to be William Etty." Thus in the last year of his life he became truly known; such a display of varied, creative power, alike harmonious, and imposing, overpowered objectors, and extorted unanimous admiration. Yet some of his finest works were absent, and of course hundreds of inferior productions. Before his retirement, he had exhibited more than two hundred and forty paintings; and it is calculated that not much under two thousand pictures, finished and unfinished, and of varying scope and extent, remain in evidence of his industry and genius. He held that colour was the proper province of the painter, as form, of the sculptor, and no man ever more fully unfolded its glories. His perpetual study of the Life, made him the rival of Rubens as a painter of flesh; and contributed to place him among the most successful and eminent of his Art. As a draughtsman, perhaps, he failed; but his pictures display a largeness of style that more than compensates for minor defects. Not pos sessing that imaginative power which ranks the artist with the great poet, he still felt the soul of beauty in things earthly, and many of his paintings are real poems. As The excitement attendant on the Exhibition, without doubt accelerated Etty's death. After a five months' arduous campaign in town, he returned to York; and in little more than six weeks from that time he was compelled to yield to the weight of increasing disease. he lay on his bed, he was deeply affected by a glimpse of the sun, setting bloodred in beauty and majesty. It was the last of the gorgeous scenes of time he was permitted to see, for he himself was passing away. He died on the 13th of November, 1854. Biography is but a picture-a study in the Life School. Happy the man whose character will bear portrayal in its unadorned simplicity, and in whose actions there shines forth a high purpose and a resolute will-an example powerful to win, and worthy of our admiration. 273 NEAR the shore of lake Leman, in the Canton de Vaud, lies the village of Clarens, rendered famous by the "Nouvelle Heloise" of Jean Jacques Rousseau. It is one of the most enchanting spots in the world. In the horizon, Mont Blanc lifts his brow covered with perpetual snows, and around him mountains of less lofty mien form the court of the monarch of the Alps. At the base of this magnificent amphitheatre are spread the calm and limpid waters of the lake, and here and there on its surface the traveller's eye perceives the white sail of some barque of Savoy. On a small peninsula stands the Castle of Chillon, to which Lord Byron has devoted an immortal poem. At some distance is seen the little town of Vevey, surrounded with a smiling champaign, cultivated with all the care and skill bestowed upon the grounds of an aristocratic domain; and above Vevey, on the slope of a verdant hill, lies Clarens with its rustic roofs and cemetery. There, under an unpretending monument, repose the mortal remains of ALEXANDRE VINET. It is not without lively emotion that the writer commences these pages, dedicated to the memory of one of the most excellent and amiable servants of Christ that have adorned our age; of an old friend, too, with whom for sixteen years he laboured in connexion with the Semeur, a periodical of which more will be said in the course of this notice. The remembrance of this association is one of the privileges of his life. But friendship shall not prevent impartiality; on the contrary, if there were need, it would supply an additional motive for the fullest sincerity in criticism as in eulogy, for M. Vinet had even more humility than talent, and he would not excuse in his biographer any excess of panegyric. M. Alexandre Vinet was born at Ouchy, near Lausanne, 17th June, 1797. His father, who was the schoolmaster of the village, maintained in his household the old method of severity; and the young Alexandre passed his first years under a rigid discipline. This was a great advantage for a spirit naturally pure and elevated; he thus learned to understand and to respect the rule of duty, and he never forgot the precious teaching of the paternal roof. He studied classies and theology at the Academy of Lausanne. Nothing remarkable occurred at the commencement of his career. M. Vinet had not yet had opportunity for the display of his rare mental powers. There is even reason to suppose that theology, at that time too much neglected at Lausanne, had few attractions for him, and that is taste rather inclined towards literature. We shall only mention that, at the death of a venerable Professor of the Academy, he was chosen to pronounce over the tomb words of gratitude and farewell-a mark of deference on the part of his fellow-students, who did not think that the future would so fully confirm their choice. At the age of twenty he was appointed to the professorship of the French language and literature at Basle, in German Switzerland. His duties were honourable, but laborious and thankless. The citizens of Basle, who were more interested in commerce than the Belles Lettres, were also somewhat prejudiced against the young professor from French Switzerland. In course of time, however, M. Vinet surmounted these difficulties. The zeal and diligence which he brought to his work, the sweetness of his disposition, the dignity of his manners and of his whole bearing, the ability of which he gave proofs more and more striking, all obtained for him a well-deserved influence. He became, by degrees, the centre of a movement at once literary and religious. The Council of State of Basle gave him a higher chair in the University; and when, at the end of twenty years, he left the city to return to his own country, his departure caused universal regret. Up to the period of his ordination, which took place in 1819, and even for some time afterwards, M. Vinet manifested no decided piety. It was only in 1823 or 1824 that he began to give serious attention to sacred things, and to seek peace for his own conscience in them. What passed in this solemn strife, this tragical passage from darkness to light? It is impossible to give a connected account of the workings of M. Vinet's mind at this crisis. He has not followed the example of so many T |