1831.] Memoir of James Northcote, Esq. R.A. at a banker's in the City, we took up the whole of a dinner-time with a ridiculous controversy about Milton and Shakspeare; I am sure we neither of us had the least notion which was right-and when I was heartily ashamed of it, a foolish citizen who was present, added to my confusion by saying, Lord! what would I give to hear two such men as you talk every day!' This quite humbled me: I was ready to sink with vexation: I could have resolved never to open my mouth again. But I can't help thinking W[alluding to the instance mentioned in the preceding quotation] was wrong in supposing I borrow every thing from others. It is not my character. I never could learn my lesson at school; my copy was hardly legible; but if there was a prize to be obtained, or my father to see it, then I could write a very fine hand with all the usual flourishes. What I know of history (and something about heraldry) has been gathered up when I had to enquire into the subject for a picture: if it had been set me as a task, I should have forgotten it immediately. In the same way, when Boydell came and proposed a subject for a picture to me, and pointed out the capabilities, I always said I could make nothing of it: but as soon as he was gone and I was left to myself, the whole then seemed to unfold itself naturally. I never could study the rules of composition, or inake sketches and drawings beforehand; in this, probably running into the opposite error to that of the modern Italian painters, whom Fuseli reproaches with spending their whole lives in preparation. I must begin at once, or I can do nothing. When I set about the Wat Tyler, I was frightened at it: it was the largest work I had ever undertaken there were to be horses and armour, and buildings, and several groups in it; when I looked on it, the canvas seemed ready to fall upon me. But I had committed myself and could not escape; disgrace was behind me, and every step made in advance was so much positively gained. If I had stayed to make a number of designs, and try different experiments, I never should have had the courage to go on. Half the things that people do not succeed in, are through fear of making the attempt. Like the recruit in Farquhar's comedy, you grow wondrous bold when you have once taken list-money.' When you must do a thing, you feel in some measure that you can do it. You have only to commit yourself beyond retreat."-p. 251. : I On another occasion "Northcote spoke of old Alderman Boydell with great regret, and said, He was a man of sense and liberality, and a true patron of the art.""-p. 75. The following may be taken as Northcote's apology for the singularity of some of his dicta: GENT. MAG. August, 1831. 105 "That will never do, to take things literally that are uttered in a moment of irritation. You do not express your own opinion, but one as opposite as possible to that of the person that has provoked you. *** I have often been ashamed myself of speeches I have made in that way, which have been repeated to me as good things, when all I meant was, that I would say any thing sooner than agree to the nonsense or affectation I heard."—p. 6. "Once when Burke called on Sir Joshua Reynolds, Northcote, then a young man, was sitting for one of the children in the picture of Count Ugolino. It is the one in profile with the hand to the face.* Burke came into the painting-room, and said, 'I see that Mr. Northcote is not only an artist, but has a head that would do for Titian to paint.""-p. 39. "Northcote spoke of his journey to Rome, of the beauty of the climate, of the manners of the people, of the imposing effect of the Roman Catholic religion, of its favourableness to the fine arts, of the Churches full of pictures, of the manner in which he passed his time, studying and looking into all the rooms in the Vatican: he had no fault to find with Italy, and no wish to leave 'Gracious and sweet was all he saw in her.' As he talked he looked as if he saw the different objects pass before him, and his eye glittered with familiar recollections." p. 35. it. Mr. Hazlitt's book is full of passages witnessing Mr. Northcote's strong attachment to his art, and his diffidence in his own abilities. The following relates to some of his latest pictorial labours : "J— said I might go on painting yet -he saw no falling-off. They are pleased with it. I have painted the whole family, and the girls would let their mother sit to nobody else. But Lord! every thing one can do seems to fall so short of nature: whether it is the want of skill, or the imperfection of the art, that cannot give the suc cessive movements of expression and changes of countenance, I am always ready to beg pardou of my sitters after I have done, and to say I hope they'll excuse it. The more one knows of the art, and indeed the better one can do, the less one is satisfied."-p. 314. Mr. Northcote's will has been proved in Doctors' Conimons, and is a very extraordinary document. It first directs that his body shall be kept uninterred as long as it In this figure the face is entirely concealed by the hand. Qu. is it not the next face, which is also in profile? 106 Will of James Northcote, Esq. R.A. can be suffered, to prevent the possibility of being buried alive, and to be inspected by some competent surgeon. He desires to be buried either in the vault under the New St. Mary-le-bone Church, near to his late friends Mr. Cosway and Miss Booth, or in St. Paul's Cathedral, near his late lamented friend and master, Sir Joshua Reynolds. He directs Francis Chantrey, R. A. and sculptor, will execute a fit and proper monument to his memory, for which he orders his executors to pay one thousand pounds; and the same artist to execute a monument for the deceased's brother, Samuel Northcote, to be placed in St. Andrew's Church, Plymouth, at an expense of two hundred pounds. He states, that he has completed the manuscript and executed the designs for a second set of One Hundred Fables, in continuation of the first, which he is desirous should be published as speedily after the death of his sister as may be; and he directs that not less than one thousand, or more than fourteen hundred pounds, shall be expended out of his personal estate, on engraving and publishing such Fables;* and he requests that Mr. Edmund Southey Rogers, one of the King's Messengers, will superintend the publication thereof. He desires his executors, William Hillman, Jo seph Hawker, and Newbold Kinton, will look over his Manuscripts, and therefrom select such as, in their judgment, are of importance to his memory and character, and destroy all the rest. He leaves his house in Argyll-place to his sister rent free, for her life; and if she should not wish to live there, his executors are to let the same for her benefit on lease for seven years. Plate, household furniture, pictures, prints, books, and personal estate to his sister, Mary Northcote, for her life; and after her decease, furniture, &c. or such as shall then remain (but not pictures, books, or plate), to his servant, Elizabeth Gilchrist. After the death of his sister, he gives to Sir Stafford Henry Northcote, of Pynes, in the county of Devon, Baronet, and his heirs for ever, all the pictures of the Northcote family, his bust by Bononi, the two Manuscript volumes of the Account of the Northcote Family; the two volumes of Public Characters, by Cadell and Davies; the Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds; and the Portfolio, con [Aug. taining his Diplomas from the Royal Academy; a volume of Birds, by his father and brother; all to be placed in the Library at Pynes. To his friend, William Hillman, of Argyll-street, 50 volumes of books, such as he may please to select out of his library, after the death of his sister. To Joseph Hawker, Esq. Richmond Herald of Arms, two pictures he may choose, except the Northcote family, and thirty volumes of books, after Hillman has chosen his. The residue of his estate to his executors in trust, to pay dividends and annual proceeds to his said sister, for her life, and after her death, to invest in their own names 1,250l. in the Three per Cent. Annuities upon trust, to pay the interest to his late faithful servant, Charlotte Gilbert, during her life, and after her death to such persons as she may appoint. The said trustees, after the death of said sister, to retain to themselves the following legacies, viz. William Hillman, 1,500/; Joseph Hawker, 500/.; Newhold Kinton, 2001. And to pay likewise the following legacies:-1,500l. duty free, to Elizabeth Gilchrist; 100/. to each of the following individuals-Mrs. Hawker, wife of Joseph Hawker, Adair Hawkins, Prince Hoare, Sir Wm. Knighton, Bart., Lady Knighton, James Carrick Moore, of Caswell, Scotland, Mrs. Moore, his wife, Capt. J. Raigersfeld, R. N., Annabella Plumtree, Walter Roe, William Godwin, Peter Conde, James Ward, R. A., John Jackson, R. A., Philip Rogers, landscape painter, Abraham Johns, Thomas Copeland, J. Taylor, late Editor of the Sun, Nathaniel Howard, William Hazlitt, Abraham Wyvill, artist; and 50l. to Edmund Rogers, King's Messenger, if these persons be living after the death of his sister. To the Minister and Churchwardens for the time being of St. Andrew's, Plymouth, 2001. duty free, to be invested, and the interest to be laid out in bread and meat to the poor of the said parish. In a second codicil he leaves Mary Wilsford, wife of Peter Wilsford, 5001. duty free. Thomas Lister Parker, 1057. and any one picture he may select, not before chosen. Thomas Poynder, of Christ's Hospital, any one other picture not before chosen residue to his executors. Personal property under 25,000l. considerably less than, from the penurious habits of Mr. N., his friends expected. : *It is not to be inferred from this paragraph that the first series was brought out at Mr. Northcote's expense. The fact is quite the reverse. Mr. Lawford, the bookseller, bought the MS. for 80l. and paid every expense attending it. We have been favoured by Mr. Lawford with the sight of an interesting letter by that father of modern woodcutting, Thomas Bewick (written within nine months of his decease), in which, after highly praising the "Fables," which he says "is altogether a brilliant book," he adds, "Little did I think, while I was whistling at my work-bench, that wood engraving would be brought so conspicuously forward, and that I should have pupils to take the lead in that branch of art in the great metropolis-but, old as I am, and tottering on the downhill of life, my ardour is not a bit abated, and I hope those who have succeeded me will pursue that department of engraving still further towards perfection." 1831.] Mr. URBAN, [ 107 ] CORONATION OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND. With an Engraving, p. 120. A CIRCUMSTANTIAL account of an English Coronation in the fourteenth century, accompanied by representations of the crowns worn by divers English monarchs from the time of Edward the Confessor to Charles II., may not at the present moment be uninteresting to your readers. The office of Chief Magistrate, originating in the necessity which all communities must find for a leader, as the dispenser of laws, and the organ for their general voice, was most probably in its first establishment elective. Accordingly, in our Coronation ceremony, we find a vestige of this primitive form, in the appeal made by the Archbishop to the people, for their approval and consent that the person presented to them should be crowned their King.* The discordant opinions of men, the intervention of partial interests, and the consequent rise of factions, each of which had their favourite chief and object to promote, suggested the necessity of making this elective office hereditary. Such is the Crown of Great Britain, subject, however, as a great lawyer has observed, to limitation and change of the succession, by the Great Council of the Nation. How frequently this power has been exercised, will be obvious to every one acquainted with English history. The wisdom of Parliament, by the 1st and 2d of William and Mary, and by 12th and 13th of William, fixed the succession in the protestant descendants of Sophia, Electress and Duchess dowager of Hanover, younger daughter of Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I. The son and heir of Sophia was George I. Thus the hereditary succession to the Crown, according to the common or customary law, was at once preserved and restricted within limits, highly ex *The custom of the Archbishop demanding of the people, at the Consecration of a King, whether they would accept him as such, and obey him, was derived from the Saxon times, and has been the uniform practice time immemorial; but it is dis tinctly noticed at the Coronation of Richard the Second, owing to that being the first English Coronation of which we have minute details. pedient, at that and all future time, for the preservation of our free constitution and the Protestant religion. The feudal pomp and service which has ever attached to the ceremony of crowning a British King, may in these days of universal reformation (it will be well if that word may be coupled by future historians of the time with a record of essential improvement) be thought an uselessly expensive display of obsolete customs. Yet, on the other hand, it may be observed that customs which exhibit the tenure on which every man holds his fee according to the ancient constitution of the land, never, while that constitution exists, can become trifling and unimportant. The King is by common consent the fountain of honour, of property, and of the public peace. If a man hold his land of him by the service of tendering a rose on Midsummer-day, that rent is not to be sneered at as trifling and ridiculous; it is rather a demonstration on what generous terms the Constitution of Great Britain ex acts the fealty due to her monarch, That she looks chiefly to the loyalty of heart, and that not gain, but faithful adherence to the great keystone of the social bond, is her object. It may therefore be matter not unworthy of consideration, how far the services and attendance of the Nobles and the Tenants of the Crown by Grand Serjeanty, on occasion of a Coronation, can be, even in these days, wisely dispensed with; such dispensation might be to omit an useful admonition that they hold all from the people through their chosen and hereditary Chief Magistrate. The dignity of the Crown is the concentrated dignity of the people; in being loyal to it we are loyal to ourselves. The homage paid to the Crown of Great Britain (under its happy and wholesome limitations), is homage to the great body of the nation. However these customs may in future days be disposed of, one thing is certain, that the ceremony of Coronation, and the solemn pledge which the Monarch gives his people before the Almighty to govern them in justice and mercy, according to the ancient laws and customs (those bulwarks of our liberty which we have derived 108 Coronation of the Kings of England. from our Saxon ancestors), and to support the reformed English Church, can never, while the British monarchy endures, be omitted. This most important ceremony which takes place in the Church, has been practised in all probability with much uniformity from the time of the Saxon Kings. The pageant and services of the feast were perhaps introduced at the Norman Conquest. Of this conjecture, the introduction of the armed Champion will afford some presumptive evidence; it seems an indication that the Normans had and held the empire of the land by the right of the sword; and we may observe, that the succession of armed Knights who have thrown down their gauntlet of defence to all counterclaim, and who boldly proclaim in their motto and very name Pro Rege Dimico," bear on their shield the arms of the duchy of Normandy. No one who regards historical recollections connected with his country, would like to see this splendid and imposing relic of an iron age entirely forgotten. The period chosen for describing an [Aug. English Coronation is one in which a chivalrous spirit and a taste for costly pageantry was at its height; the authorities which have been consulted are chiefly MS. documents in the British Museum; the collection was made some years since, but the abler and more erudite labours of another hand appearing shortly after, it was determined to lay it aside. As however it is original as far as relates to the sources from which it is derived, as its arrangement is different from other works, and as it has here and there some particulars which they do not contain, now the subject is likely to become peculiarly opportune I have ventured to commit it to the press. In closing this prefatory notice, I may be allowed to express an earnest hope that on the great solemnity of the Consecration of the King of these Realms, which is now approaching, the headlong rage of party will be stilled, and all differences of opinion forgotten, in an universal feeling of respect and loyalty towards our rightful and anointed King. Yours, &c. A. J. K. Some account of the CORONATION of KING RICHARD THE SECOND, in the year 1377, derived from original MSS. in the British Museum, illustrating the splendid Ceremonies and Services which attach to the Consecration of the Monarchs of Great Britain. Of the Coronation of King Richard the Second, we have more detailed records than of those of any of the preceding monarchs. It was appointed to take place on the morrow after the translation of St. Swithin (16 July, 1377).* John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and King of Castile and Leon, presented himself before the King and his Counsel as Earl of Leicester, and claimed the office of High Steward or Grand Seneschal of Eng *In the seventh volume of Rymer's Fœdera, are found the following mandates respecting the preparations for this Coronation; by which it appears the necessary workmen for the purpose were compulsorily impressed. The Latin originals, when translated, run thus: The King, to all and singular Sheriffs, Nobles, Bailiffs, Ministers, and others his Liegemen, within as well as without the liberties (of London), to whom these letters shall come, health. Know ye that we have appointed our beloved William Hanway, clerk, to take and provide by himself and his deputies, stone, mortar, and other necessaries for our works, which we have ordained to be executed in our palace of Westminster for the solemnity of our coronation. And to take Carpenters and all other workmen necessary for the works aforesaid in our city of London, and counties of Middlesex and Surrey, and to put them on the works aforesaid, to remain on the same at our command, as shall be necessary. And all those whom he shall find perverse or disobedient in this matter, to arrest, take, and commit them to our prisons, there to remain until by deliberation we shall be induced otherwise to ordain. And therefore we command and strictly enjoin, that to the said William and his deputies aforesaid, in all and singular the premises to be done and executed, ye shall he acting, aiding, and answering, as often and according as by William himself, aforesaid, or his deputies, ye shall be warned on our part respecting this matter. In witness whereof we have caused these our letters to be made patent. By an order couched in terms precisely similar, Thomas de Thoroton is appointed Pavillioner, to impress tent-makers for preparing the tents appointed to be made for the solemnity of the Coronation. Richard's grandfather, Edward the Third, died on the 6th June, 1877, in the 51st year of his reign. |