178 MAN'S BEST HELP IS IN HIMSELF. I afterwards succeeded in obtaining a proper magnifier, which was of the utmost use to me. An incident occurred while I was engraving the plate which had caused me to abandon it altogether. It sometimes happened that I was obliged to lay it aside for a considerable time, when other work pressed; and in order to guard it against rust, I was accustomed to rub over the graven parts with oil. But on examining the plate after one of such intervals, I found that the oil had become a dark sticky substance, extremely difficult to get out. I tried to pick it out with a needle, but found that it would almost take as much time as to engrave the parts afresh. I was in great despair at this, but at length hit upon the expedient of boiling it in water containing soda, and afterwards rubbing the engraved parts with a toothbrush; and, to my delight, found the plan succeeded perfectly. My greatest difficulties now over, patience and perseverance were all that were needed to bring my labours to a successful issue.' The plate was in due time produced, having occupied in its execution the leisure time of five years. Its engraver still continues, we believe, his course of successful industry, and to 'point the moral' of his pure and honourable life, that our fortune is in our own hands, and that' Heaven helps those who help themselves.' When Moscheles had completed the arrangement of Beethoven's 'Fidelio' for the piano, he took the score to the great maestro, who, observing that he had written on the last page, Finis, with God's help,' immediately wrote underneath, Nay, man, help thyself!' Jupiter looks but coldly upon those who will not themselves put their shoulders to the wheel, and for every man there is a prosperous future, if he has the courage to hope and the energy to dare. 11. Not less in the pursuit of music than in the study of sculpture or painting is this self-devotion upon which we so strongly insist an absolute necessity. Run over the roll, a bright and glorious one, of eminent musicians, and you shall scarcely find thereon the name of one that was not an indefatigable plodder, giving himself up wholly to the art he cultivated. Look at Handel: he accomplished WORK IS HAPPINESS. 179 When in his lifetime the work of a dozen ordinary men. a boy his father forbade him the practice of music, but he concealed a small clavichord in a garret, and studied it with suppressed affection when the family were all asleep. At the age of seven he was removed to the Court of the Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, to whom his sister's husband was valet, and there he contrived to obtain access to the organ loft, and practise on that sublime but difficult instrument. The Duke, accidentally hearing him play, was surprised at his proficiency, and remonstrated with his father on the folly of attempting to crush a genius so extraordinary. The lad was accordingly placed under proper instructors, and when but twenty years old brought out his first opera, Almira.' He now entered upon a career as remarkable for its industry as its success, and produced those magnificent oratorios which place him as indisputably at the head of all musical composers as Shakspeare is at the head of dramatic poets. In one year his prolific genius gave birth to the chefs d'œuvre of 'Saul,'' Israel in Egypt,' and Alexander's Feast,' besides the opera of Jupiter in Argos,' and 'Twelve Grand Concertos.' 6 12. 'Work' said Mozart, 'is my chief happiness,' and of the truth of the saying his brief life was a remarkable illustration. He was born in 1756; he died in 1792. In the interval he wrote six grand operas, each of which is immortal; the glorious 'Requiem,' the serenata of Ascanio in Alba,' besides masses, concertos, symphonies, and sonatas in wonderful profusion and almost unapproachable excellence. When he was four years old he could play pieces on the harpsichord with accuracy and good taste. In his fifth year he produced an elaborate concerto, and in his sixth, was introduced to the Court of Vienna, when the Emperor Joseph, a connoisseur of some ability, was surprised at the extent and fertility of his resources. Thenceforth his whole life was devoted to his art, and his correspondence is almost entirely occupied with the details of his labours, and a record of his progress. Not even the visible approach of death could quench his ardour. The Zauberflote,' 'La Clemenza di Tito,' and the 'Requiem,' were among his last efforts. The composition of the latter, in the decline of his bodily powers, and under severe mental excitement, hastened his end; he was seized with repeated fainting fits, brought on by his extreme assiduity in writing, in one of which he expired. As he drew near to death, the grandeur of his ideas became still more obvious; the music of the Requiem is truly funereal, a mixture of sublimity and heartfelt entreaty; and it was the excitement produced by the crowd of images which came unsought before his mind that hastened his death. A few hours before that event took place, he is reported to have said, 'Now I begin to see what might be done in music.' Like the fabled Dying Swan, his last song was his own dirge: : At first to the ear The warble was low, and full, and clear, Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole, In support of the propositions we have put forward, we again proceed to furnish some detailed biographical illustrations EXAMPLES. JOHN FLAXMAN. 1. THOSE who have had an opportunity-and who has not?-of gazing upon Flaxman's fine monument to 'silvertongued Murray, Earl of Mansfield, in Westminster Abbey, or his classic illustrations of Homer and Dante, Eschylus and Hesiod-illustrations redolent with the true spirit of antique Art-cannot fail to have felt the force, power, and beauty of the genius of the sculptor; than whom, until John Gibson appeared, England had produced no artist of so pure and refined an imagination. Flaxman rose to the highest place in his profession, not by the aid of adventitious circumstances, but by the strength of his FLAXMAN'S YOUTII. 181 devotion to his art, and the assiduity with which he followed out the cherished object of his aspirations. John Flaxman was born at York in the year 1755. His father, a modeller of plaster casts, soon afterwards removed to London, where he settled in New Street, Covent Garden, and obtained employment from Roubilliac the sculptor. He also kept a shop for the sale of busts and statuettes, and casts from the antique, in plaster. The boy Flaxman's health was so infirm that, behind the counter in this shop, he actually sat, supported by pillows, reading, or gazing dreamily upon the works of Art around him-Venus springing from the Sea, Ajax defying the Thunder, the immortal group of the Laocoon, or the still beauty of the Belvidere Apollo. On one occasion, a clergyman named Matthews observed him trying to plough his way through a volume apparently very difficult, and, finding that it was a Cornelius Nepos, he told him it was hardly a book suitable for his age or acquirements, but he would bring him a proper one on the morrow. He kept his word, and thus commenced an acquaintance which ripened into a life-long friendship. The young Flaxman was supplied with the works of our best classics, with the evergreen 'Don Quixote,' Pope's translation of 'Homer,' with Milton and Spenser, and similar volumes, on which his imagination eagerly fed, until the hand laboured to embody what the brain conceived. In black chalk he covered sheet after sheet of canvas with sturdy Hectors and graceful Venuses, with 'ox-eyed' Junos and 'blue-eyed' Minervas; the glorious visions of Homer having a greater attraction for his youthful fancy than the dreams of any other poet. His father showed some of these imperfect sketches to Roubilliac, who had little sympathy-as his sculptures prove -with the simplicity of the antique, and at the boy's crude semi-classicalities the prosperous sculptor only grunted out a coarse-tempered pshaw!' Flaxman, however, was not discouraged, but continued to labour at his books and drawings, to model in wax, and clay, and plaster, and to take impressions from every seal or medal on which he could lay his hands. A cripple, and unable to limp about 182 CLIMBING THE STEEP. except with the aid of crutches, application became to him all the more a necessity and a pleasure, and the youthful student was laying up stores of poetry and fancy which afterwards served him well. It is only the weaker order 2. As he grew older he grew stronger, and, being able in time to walk without help, he went frequently to the house of his patrons-Mr. and Mrs. Matthews-who gave him lessons in Greek and Latin, and assisted him to an appreciation of what was true and beautiful in the books he read. He continued his sketches in black chalk, but apparently with little success, if the story be true, that on showing his drawing of an eye to the artist Mortimer, the latter ironically exclaimed, 'Is it an oyster?' Genius, however, is not to be slain by ridicule. of minds that succumb to the 'slings and arrows' of illnatured wit. The boy-artist continued to draw, and daily to draw better, until he at length obtained a commission to make six original studies from Homer, in black chalk. He felt now that his foot was on the first step of the ladder, and gazed steadily at the laurel crown which shone in the depths afar. The work was carefully done; was liberally rewarded; and Flaxman gained a feeling of confidence in his own powers. 3. In 1770 he was admitted a student at the Royal Academy, where he formed an acquaintance, based on kindred sympathies and congenial tastes, with Blake→ 'Pictor Ignotus'-then in his twenty-first, and Thomas Stothard, then in his fifteenth year. Flaxman's abilities were speedily recognised by his fellow-students; nor was their estimate of his powers falsified by the event. He won the silver medal in 1771, and it was supposed, in the following year, that he would gain the gold one. It was acquired, however, by one Engleheart, whose after-career passed in utter obscurity. The defeat nerved the young artist to fresh endeavours. He was determined to show what stuff there was in him, and silently addressed himself to a course of severe and systematic study. Meanwhile, to assist in the maintenance of his family, he was constrained to labour at his father's trade, and to fill up the intervals of study with |