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in execution, variety, and utility, and durability, are combined in so eminent a degree, they must carry with them irrefragable proofs of a superior hand, and an infinitely larger portion of wisdom.

Nature has ever stood unrivalledshe must ever remain so. Her treasures have never been, and it is certain they never will be, exhausted. She pours forth her beauties and luxuriances with an unsparing and lavish hand, in every possible variety, to en

gage the heart, to charm the ear, and to delight the eye. She will ever be sought after by the curious mind, and she will never disappoint the true admirer. Art, exalted and adorned as she certainly is, will ever look up to nature as her great original-as the beautifier of all her productions—as the charm of all her fascinations-the source of all her excellence. Art, when uncorrupted, will be content to follow nature, will delight to acknowledge her superiority.

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* Nollekens and his Times: comprehending a Life of that celebrated Sculptor, &c. &c. By John Thomas Smith, Keeper of the Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1828.

with a few years to boot, we shall know why he left him his gold-laced proceed at once to communicate a part of our pleasure to our readers.

Mr. Smith was for three years a pupil of Nollekens, an acquaintance of nearly sixty years' duration, and one of his executors; so that he was well fitted for the task he has here discharged. Nollekens himself was the son of an indifferent painter (originally from Antwerp), born in England in 1737, a Roman Catholic in the little religion he professed, and for ten years a student under Scheemakers. In early life he obtained several premiums for models from the Society of Arts; and in 1760 went to Rome. Here he wrought, and among other productions acquired fame and emolument from busts which he made of Garrick and Sterne; and about this period we find the following records :

"Whilst Mr. Nollekens was at Rome, he was recognised by Mr. Garrick with the familiar exclamation of, What! let me look at you! are you the little fellow to whom we gave the prizes at the Society of Arts?' 'Yes, sir,' being the answer, Mr. G. invited him to breakfast the next morning, and kindly sat to him for his bust, for which he paid him 127. 12s.; and I have not only often heard Mr. Nollekens affirm that the payment was made in gold,' but that this was the first busto he ever modelled. Sterne also sat to him when at Rome; and that bust brought him into great notice. With this performance Nollekens continued to be pleased even to his second childhood, and often mentioned a picture which Dance had made of him leaning upon Sterne's head. During his residence in Italy he gained the Pope's gold medal for a basso-relievo. Barry, the historical painter, who was extremely intimate with Nollekens at Rome, took the liberty one night, when they were about to leave the English coffee-house, to exchange hats with him; Barry's was edged with lace, and Nollekens's was a very shabby plain one. Upon his returning the hat the next morning, he was requested by Nollekens to let him

hat. Why, to tell you the truth, my dear Joey,' answered Barry, I fully expected assassination last night: and I was to have been known by my laced hat.' This villanous transaction, which might have proved fatal to Nollekens, I have often heard him relate; and he generally added, 'It's what the Old Bailey people would call a true bill against Jem.'

"The patrons of Nollekens, being characters professing taste and possessing wealth, employed him as a very shrewd collector of antique fragments; some of which he bought on his own account; and, after he had dexterously restored them with heads and limbs, he stained them with tobacco-water, and sold them, sometimes by way of favor, for enormous sums. My old friend, Mr. George Arnald, A. R. A., favored me with the following anecdote, which he received immediately from Mr. Nollekens, concerning some of these fragments. Jenkins, a notorious dealer in antiques and old pictures, who resided at Rome for that purpose, had been commissioned by Mr. Locke of Norbury Park, to send him any piece of sculpture which he thought might suit him, at a price not exceeding one hundred guineas; but Mr. Locke, immediately upon the receipt of a head of Minerva, which he did not like, sent it back again, paying the carriage and all other expenses. Nollekens, who was then also a resident in Rome, having purchased a trunk of a Minerva for fifty pounds, found, upon the return of this head, that its proportion and character accorded with his torso. This discovery induced him to accept an offer made by Jenkins of the head itself; and two hundred and twenty guineas to share the profits. After Nollekens had made it up into a figure, or, what is called by the venders of botched antiques, 'restored it,' which he did at the expense of about twenty guineas more for stone and labor, it proved a most fortunate hit, for they sold it for the enormous sum of one thousand guineas! and it is now

Exchange of London, as a holder to a considerable amount.'

In 1771, enriched by such rascally pursuits, he was elected an associate, and in the following year a royal academician; and his practice in London increased to the utmost extent. He then married a Miss Welch (daughter of Justice Welch, and the Pekuah in Rasselas); an admirable match, if penuriousness and selfish wretchedness could make a match admirable. was not surpassed by Elwes himself; and of her likeness, praised be the sex! we never read of a sufficiently miserly prototype.

He

“During the time (says his biographer) I was with him, he now and then gave a dinner, particularly when his steadfast friend Lord Yarborough, then the Hon. Mr. Pelham, sent his annual present of venison; and it is most surprising to consider how many persons of good sense and high talent visited Mrs. Nollekens, though it pro

at Newby in Yorkshire. The late celebrated Charles Townley and the late Henry Blundell, Esqrs. were two of his principal customers for antiques. Mr. Nollekens was likewise an indefatigable inquirer after terracottas, executed by the most celebrated sculptors, Michael Angelo, John di Bologna, Fiamingo, &c. The best of these he reserved for himself until the day of his death. The late Earl of Besborough and the late Lord Selsey were much attached to Mr. Nollekens at this time, but his greatest friend was the late Lord Yarborough. For that nobleman he executed many very considerable works in marble, for which he received most liberal and immediate payment. Nollekens, who wished upon all occasions to save every shilling he possibly could, was successful in another manœuvre. He actually succeeded as a smuggler of silk stockings, gloves, and lace; his contrivance was truly ingenious, and perhaps it was the first time that the custom-bably was principally owing to the good house officers had ever been so taken in. His method was this: all his plaster busts being hollow, he stuffed them full of the above articles, and then spread an outside coating of plaster at the back across the shoulders of each, so that the busts appeared like solid casts. His mode of living when at Rome was most filthy: he had an old woman, who, as he stated, did for him,' and she was so good a cook, that she would often give him a dish for dinner, which cost him no more than three-pence. Nearly opposite to my lodgings,' he said, 'there lived a porkbutcher, who put out at his door at the end of the week a plateful of what he called cuttings, bits of skin, bits of gristle, and bits of fat, which he sold for two-pence, and my old lady dished them up with a little pepper and a little salt; and with a slice of bread, and sometimes a bit of vegetable, I made a very nice dinner.' Whenever good dinners were mentioned, he was sure to say, Ay, I never tasted a better dish than my Roman cuttings.' By this time, the name of Nollekens was pretty well known on the Stock 31 ATHENEUM, VOL. 1, 3d series.

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character her father and sister held in society. Dr. Johnson and Miss Williams were often there, and they generally arrived in a hackney-coach, on account of Miss Williams's blindness. When the doctor sat to Mr. Nollekens for his bust, he was very much displeased at the manner in which the head had been loaded with hair, which the sculptor insisted upon, as it made him look more like an ancient poet. The sittings were not very favorable, which rather vexed the artist, who, upon opening the street-door, a vulgarity he was addicted to, peevishly whined-Now, doctor, you did say you would give my busto half an hour before dinner, and the dinner has been waiting this long time.' To which the doctor's reply was, 'Bow-wow-wow!' The bust is a wonderfully fine one, and very like, but certainly the sort of hair is objectionable; having been modelled from the flowing locks of a sturdy Irish beggar, originally a street pavior, who, after he had sat an hour, refused to take a shilling, stating that he could have made more by begging! Doctor Johnson also considered this

bust like him; but, whilst he acknowledged the sculptor's ability in his art, he could not avoid observing to his friend Boswell, when they were looking at it in Nollekens's studio, It is amazing what ignorance of certain points one sometimes finds in men of eminence' though, from want of knowing the sculptor, a visitor, when viewing his studio, was heard to say, What a mind the man must have from whom all these emanated!" "

"His singular and parsimonious habits were most observable in his domestic life. Coals were articles of great consideration with Mr. Nollekens; and these he so rigidly economised, that they were always sent early, before his men came to work, in order that he might have leisure time for counting the sacks, and disposing of the large coals in what was originally designed by the builder of his house for a wine-cellar, so that he might lock them up for parlor use. Candles were never lighted at the commencement of the evening; and whenever they heard a knock at the door, they would wait until they heard a second rap, lest the first should have been a runaway and their candle wasted. Mr. and Mrs. Nollekens used a flat candlestick when there was any thing to be done; and I have been assured that a pair of moulds, by being well nursed, and put out when company went away, once lasted them a whole year!"

My old school-fellow, Smith, the grocer, of Margaret-street, has been frequently heard to declare, that when ever Mrs. Nollekens purchased tea and sugar at his father's shop, she always requested, just at the moment she was quitting the counter, to have either a clove or a bit of cinnamon, to take some unpleasant taste out of her mouth; but she never was seen to apply it to the part so affected; so that, with Nollekens's nutmegs, which he pocketed from the table at the Academy dinners, they contrived to accumulate a little stock of spices, without any expense whatever."

"He for many years made one at

the table of what was at this time called the Royal Academy Club; and so strongly was he bent upon saving all he could privately conceal, that he did not mind paying two guineas a-year for his admission ticket, in order to indulge himself with a few nutmegs, which he contrived to pocket privately; for as red-wine negus was the principal beverage, nutmegs were us ed. Now it generally happened, if another bowl was wanted, that the nutmegs were missing. Nollekens, who had frequently been seen to pocket them, was one day requested by Rossi, the sculptor, to see if they had not fallen under the table; upon which Nollekens actually went crawling beneath upon his hands and knees, pretending to look for them, though at that very time they were in his waistcoat pocket. He was so old a stager at this monopoly of nutmegs, that he would sometimes engage the maker of the negus in conversation, looking at him full in the face, whilst he slyly, and unobserved as he thought, conveyed away the spice like the fellow who is stealing the bank note from the blind man in that admirable print of the Royal Cock-pit, by Hogarth.-I believe it is generally considered, that those who are miserly in their own houses, almost to a state of starvation, when they visit their friends or dine in public, but particularly when they are travelling, and know that they will be called upon with a pretty long bill,

lay in what they call a good stock of every thing, or of all the good things the landlord thinks proper to spread before them. This was certainly the case with Nollekens when he visited Harrowgate, in order to take the water for his diseased mouth. He informed his wife that he took three halfpints of water at a time, and as he knew the bills would be pretty large at the inn, he was determined to indulge in the good things of this world; so that one day he managed to get through a nice roast chicken, with two nice tarts and some nice jellies.' Another day he took nearly two pounds of venison, the fat of which

was at least two inches thick;' at breakfast he always managed two muffins, and got through a plate of toast; and he took good care to put a French roll in his pocket, for fear he should find himself hungry when he was walking on the common by himself."

Mrs. Nollekens appears to have been one of the most unamiable women that ever existed. Take the following as an example out of many: "At the corner of her house there was a small part of the street railed in, on which she gave a poor woman leave to place a table with a few apples for sale upon a bit of an old napkin. To this miserably-hooded widow she was seen to go, when she intended to treat the family with a dumpling, with the question of Pray, Goody, how many apples can you let me have for a penny ?' Bless your kindness! you shall have three.' 'Three!' exclaimed the lady, smiling, 'no, you must let me have four;' and touching her left thumb with the forefinger of her right hand, she continued, 'for there's my husband, myself, and two servants, and we must have one a-piece.' Well,' observed the miserable dependent, you must take them.'

"With the drapery of the bust of George III., Nollekens had more anxiety and trouble than with any of his other productions: he assured Mr. Joseph, the Associate of the Royal Academy, that after throwing the cloth once or twice every day for nearly a fortnight, it came excellently well, by mere chance, from the following circumstance. Just as he was about to make another trial with his drapery, his servant came to him for money for butter; he threw the cloth carelessly over the shoulders of his lay-man, in order to give her the money, when he was forcibly struck with the beautiful manner in which the folds had fallen; and he hastily exclaimed, pushing her away, Go, go, get the butter.' And he has frequently been heard to say, that that drape

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ry was by far the best he ever cast for a busto."

"To prove the wonderfully sagacious and retentive memory of Mrs. Garrick's little dog Biddy, and how much it must have noticed its master when rehearsing his parts at home, I shall give (says Mr. S.) the following most extraordinary anecdote, as nearly as I can, in the manner in which Mrs. Garrick related it to me a short time before her death. 'One evening, after Mr. Garrick and I were seated in our box at Drury-lane Theatre, he said, Surely there is something wrong on the stage, and added, he would go and see what it was. Shortly after this, when the curtain was drawn up, I saw a person come forward to speak a new prologue, in the dress of a country bumpkin, whose features seemed new to me; and whilst I was wondering who it could possibly be, I felt my little dog's tail wag, for he was seated in my lap, his usual place at the theatre, looking towards the stage. Aha!' said I, what, do you know him? is it your master? then you have seen him practise his part?' "

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"During my long intimacy with Mr. Nollekens, I never once heard him mention the name of the sweetest bard that ever sang, from whose luxuriant garden most artists have gathered their choicest flowers. To the beauties of the immortal Shakspeare he was absolutely insensible, nor did he ever visit the theatre when his plays were performed; though he was actively alive to a pantomime, and frequently spake of the capital and curious tricks in Harlequin Sorcerer. He also recollected with pleasure Mr. Rich's wonderful and singular power of scratching his ear with his foot like a dog; and the street-exhibition of Punch and his wife delighted him beyond expression.

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"Miss Welch brought down upon herself his eternal hatred, by kindly venturing to improve him in his spelling. She was a friendly and benevolent woman; and I am indebted to her

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