The Sun.
London, England, 1855-05-07 00:00:00

bryo Titian was promoted to another.academy pre-
sided over by a certain Mr. Hall, at Pocklington:
after remaining in which retreat for about two
years William Ettywas taken home to be—appren-
ticed. Apprenticed he really was, when between
eleven and twelve-years of age, on the'Bth of Oc-
tober, 1798, to a Hull letter-press printer ; Etty's
master in the craft being Robert Peelci publisher
of the Hull Packet, a local Mereley newspaper.
Wonderful now is it to remember( if the future artist;
renowned among so. many living painters of cele-
brity, that no less than -a tenth of his life was passed
(inertly for his artistic fame) in Mr. Peck's Hull
printing establishment. The 'happy day of his re-
lease arrived, of course, at last—the "golden hour
of tselve " struck at length on the 23d Of October,
1805, when William Etty was entiancipated from
the uncongenial thraldom of his apprenticeship..
Not, however, before he hail faithfully discharged
every duty requiring to he fulfilled " to the satis-
faction of the Master and the credit of the Ap-
prentice," as was set forth in so many words by
Robert Peck in his endorsement of the youth's in-
dentures. Nearly a month after the date of that
endorsement, Etty was still working as a journey-
man printer. At length the signal came
or the dawn of his ambition— the summons
arriving at Hull from a beneficent uncle, Mr.
Bodley, of the firm of Bodley,. Etty, and odley,
gold-lace merchants. Thereupon in his nineteenth
year, William Etty fairly commenced his career of
fame, arriving in the winter of 1805 and 18)6,• in
what he calls the " dear city" of London, whence
he was ultimately to return hOme to die in his
native York, with the ripened and lasting glory of
having established his name among the blazoned
catalogue of our more illustrious Academicians.
Although his parents were Methodists, and possi-
bly may have been Whigs or Radicals into the bar-
gain, William Etty was, it appears, in politics a
Tory, and in religion a member of the Church
Establishment. We all know what he was in Art.
More particularly all those are aware of the posi-
tion Etty really attained as a celouris', and as a
delineator of the " human (form) divine" who en-
joyed the luxury we well remember to, have par-
ticipated in ourselves, during the summer of 1.849,
when so many of Etty's paintings were collected
together in the Adelphi, within the compass of a
single exhibition. A glorious • show—the last of
the artist's triumphs—the crowning one among all
his many brilliant successes—for, as we have eeen,
before the close of the November of the same' year
he had expired.
Orthodox we have already describ:d Etty as
being both in regard to Toryism and the Church
Establishment. Nevertheless it is impossible not
to observe throughout his correspondence the evi-
dence of a romantic attachment to the genius of
Roman Catholicism. His tender love of his Art
was something extraordinary. His ever-gentle
and ever-lively affection for his native city, "dear
old Ebor," was no less remarkable. Yet to neither
of these can we assert his devotion to the abstract
ideal of the Papacy to have beau subordinate.
As to his Art—we know how William Etty ex-
ultedover his escape from the printer's office 'to
the painter's atelier. How be rejoiced over the
first presentation to him of a box of water-colours.
How his heart was gladdened when Uncle Bailey
paid down a hundred guineas on the 2d of July,
18)7, for the privilege of placing him as a pupil
for one. year under Sir Thomas Lawrence. How
his toil was lightened on the 29th of October, 1814,
by his nomination as A.R.A. ; and yet more, how
his whole soul became sunned with joy on the
.19th
of February, 1828, when the magic initials A.A.
marked his elevation from the honour of Associate
to the dignity of Academician. Nay, yet more,
we cannot but remember in reference to the last
and greatest of his artistic successes already parti-
cularised—we mean in regard to the collective
exhibition of his works in 1849 at the So-
ciety of Arts' Gallery in John-street, Adelphi—
we cannot but remember, we say, in reference
to that noteworthy occasion, how the painter (writ-
ing to one of his friends) proudly acknowledged
that sitting "down in a chair in the midst of these
my children "—" I then felt it to he something to
be William Etty." Beyond all which we cannot
but recognise his enthusiastic passion fir his Art as
perhaps most significantly testified, am.mg all these
especial indications of it, by the circumstance tha:
a little later on in that same year, 1849, as he stood
in the midst of his works—his " children," as we
have seen he tenderly designated them —Etty was
observed to be "in tears"—on the morning of the
clearing away after the close of the Exhibition.
Again, as to York. Etty's unflagging affection
for his birth-place, and everything • relating to it,
was manifested during his life by a multitude of
incidents of which we have here preserved to us
the commemorative particulars. How continually
he spoke of his native city as having been the na-
tive city also of Flaxman, the sculptor, and of
Alcuin,the!earned. How he struggled hardearel, in
some measure be it said, successfully, to secure the
preservation of the ancient walls surrounding Ehor,
together with the four antique bars and barbicans
—the North Bar of Bootham, the South of Mickle-
vate the East 'of Walmgate, arid the West of'
M.nl—treasures to Etty, though rubbish to the
York Corporation. How genially he cried out,
through a sanguine letter to a favourite correspon-
dent on the 21st of July, 1843, in the then vague
but cherished anticipation of ultim ttely removing
from London to a permanent residence in his birth-
place— " Happy Willy Etty, in the thought of
living in dear old York !" A dream realised in the
end, but, as it unhappily chanced, only on the very
eve, as it were, of the painter's dissolution'. Further
than this, Etty's love for'York we find betrayed in
the most copious effusions of tenderness through
every reference male by him, and such references
are frequent—to that archaeological cynosure of
neighbouring eyes, that (to him) architectural pa-
ragon of perfection, his beloved York Minster—to
his travelled, Yorkshire, fancy, T 1 blest, and
grandest of all God's cathedrals.
demon Thus weog findde.
Etty execrating, as a fiend or
struction, the cc crackbrained fanatic Martin
(brother of the celebrated painter), who set
tire to his glorious minster in the February
of 1829. Thus, again, we find him " bursting
into tears" when, years afterwards, he hears that,
on the 22d. of Allay, 1840, the same magnificent
edifice was partially destroyed by a second Con-
flagratien. While, nine years further on, we rind
hinvapostrophising the saute holy structure, in im-
passioned hyberbole, as his " Bride—she " whose
Breiw is bound round with rubies and sapphires,
with amethysts, with emeralds"—she " who is
so lovely to mine eyes, so _dear to my heart, so
captivating to my imagination I"
It is indisputable, however, that, besides bid Art,
besides his birth-place, possibly we should rather
say because of his tender affection for both York
and Painting—William Etty cherish d a deep, and
earnest, as we have renaarkedalready, a "romantic
and enthusiastic love of Catholicism.' Although to
the last a staunch and orthodox Protestant ! And
so we find Mr. Gilchrist talking of his (Etty's) "pre-
dilection for the Catholics." We find Etty himself
dilating warmly upon "that ancient and truly pd.etic
religion"—the Roman Catholic. We- find him
" attending mass," and reading with gusto the
" Ages of Faith"—in fact, as .his biographer
him, "an Amateur Romanist." Indeed, Mr.. Gi-
lchrist candidly avows, in reference to Etty's ethi-
cal predilections—" His sympathies were all with
the religion of the Old Times, with the builders of
York and Westminster, the painters of the Vatican,-
of the Sistine, and.of the Palaces. of Venice"—the
" Ancient Faith," as Etty himself called it, " that
of Alfred, St. Augustine, St.'Bernard, St. Brtino,
and Fenelon—not forgetting Michael Angelo, and
a host of other good an great men." To it he was
wont to insist the world was indebted for the second
existence of " sculpture, music, painting, and archi-
tecture." To it, moreover, he maintained that we
(English) were indebted for the " introduction of
Christianity." Wherefore, knowing all these ardent
sentiments of bid in reference to Catholicism, it is
assuredly not by any means marvellous to over-
bear Etty at one time exclaiming indignantly—
" They call those which -produced obese noble
works (such, of course, for example, asYork Minster)
the darker ages ;" adding, " with all tlieir gaelightl
defy them to prove theirs lighter." Neither is it;
wholly bewildering to hearken to him at another.
ejaculating passionately, "Oh ! Holy Mother
Church ! dear Catholic Church ! how deeply I
venerate thee—thou who produced such glorious
efforts"—as (say) the beloved York Cathedral.-- It
is observable in all this how strongly the enthusiasm
of the artist burnt through prejudiesa,-- hoive ver
seemingly incombustible in their nature, through
hereditary methodism and individual orthodoxy—
, religious antipathies and political predilectiona—
burnt, so to speak, perennially upon the altar of
his heart, the vestal fires of homage. to the Sublime
and Beautiful.
As the hiogripher of William Etty, as the nar-
rator of his p-rsoual history awl the celebrant of
his artistic genius, Mr. Gilchrist has the indisput-
inritalrikfeall3tieefore us, vividly
able merit of bringing the man -as lie actually was
le)ormoancitieilinl in his more or less re-
characteristics. Everybody who reads
these two volumes, however cursorily, before 4.-
gortahteiitr
e. William
has acquired an intimate
acquaintance with the individual of Whom they are
short, broad. and avykward dress
d
propria persona—ltia lovenly—his frame
Etty stands before' tes
give;as his face long t c his .arge;
and sandy : " one of thegodu'es'tl-aloiotkii'rn
pitted.
in pith the
his brow
small-pox ; his eyes hlit?al7 gild
•
says Mr. Gilchrist ; what
"a sight"—yet with a
" revelation of egneeirigiuysatrhue
a young lail oddest-looking
I creatures,'l
wi cokudlv iciac
s"asziogun manual
a veri
ti:fb e y
kohl.
coluntenance, too, ;diving
,:,snalueothrwuiiits- ibotthirinee,
3 or