The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 15, 1863,

POLICE INTELLIGENCE—This Day.

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

DISGRACEFUL CONDUCT IN THE STREETS.—Henry
Williamson, a clerk, who gave the address 25, Retnming-
ton-street, City-road, was charged beforo Mr. Knox with
disgraceful conduct to several females, and also with as-
saulting Mr. James Kean, a tailor, residing at 53, Maddox-
street, Regent-street. _ .

Mr. Lean said that he was turning the corner of Little
Argyle-street, about 10 o'clock the previous night, when
he saw the prisoner go up to a respectable female, and seiza
her in a most improper manner, turning her quite round.
He followed the prisoner, and before he got to the end of
Argyle street ho saw him assault in a similar manner six
more females, one of them an elderly woman. He then
seized the prisoner, and said, "You scamp, you shall not
,go unpunished," and had a severe struggle with him, in
the course of which his sleeve was torn, and he
was struck twice and thrown down by the pri-
soner; but being determined that he should not
escape, he retained his hold, end at last he was
secured and taken to the station. The female did not go to
the station, being too frightened at prismer's conduct, and
glad to get away.

Police-constable Kettlewell, 38 C, said that hearing cries
of "Police" he went to Argyle-street, and the last witness
gave the prisoner in charge for indecently assaulting females
and assulting him (Mr. Kean). The prisoner denied t►he
charge, but when at the station told the inspector that he
had only raised the female's clothes about two inches.
Prisoner said that all he had got to say was that he was
drunk at the time, and was now very sorry,
Mr. Knox said that if the females had been present he
should have sent the prisoner for trial for his abominable
conduct. As it was he should treat the case as one of
drunk and disorderly conduct, and inflict upon him the
highest penalty ho could, namely, 40s. or a month.

WESTMINSTER.
DARING ':IATTEMPTED ROBBERY IN A DWELLING-
HOUSE,—COURAGEOUS CONDUCT OF A FEMALE —A man
of respectable appearance, named Henry Cameron, was
charged before Mr. Selfe with entering the house 132,
Worcester-street, Pimlico, for the purpose of committing a
felony.

Georgiana Southwood, dressmaker, said that abcut half-
past eight o'clock the previous night she was going out
on business when she saw two men on the steps lead-
ing to the street door in conversation with each other. She
was absent about five minutes. On her return she saw one
of the men standing at the porch of the door, and said to
him " What do you do there ?" She had no sooner said
so than she next heard the wide window-blind cracking. In
minute after she saw tbe prisoner look out of the window,
and leap from there to the steps of the street door.
Mr. Selfe—Upon seeing that what did you do ?
Witness—l rushed up to him and seized hold of him by
his collar. I said to him What business had you in my
parlour ?" He struggled, and said "Let me go." Re
tried to get away, and in the struggle we both fell. I called
for help, and kept my hold of the prisoner till some one
came to my assistance,

Mr. Selfe—Did the prisoner do you any injury?
Witness—He caught hold of my fingers and forced them
back—he nearly broke them.
Mr. Selfe—How did he get in ?
Witness—He must have got in at the window, which was
left open.
- - - - - -

The Prisoner said he had been drinking,
Prosecutrix—You were not drunk or I shouli have smelt
you when I had you down.

Eva Lynn, a little girl about 12 years of age, proved
having heard the prosecutrix call out "help," and who told
her to go for a policeman. She went for one and met a cab-
man. She told him to go the assistance of the prosecutris,
and then went for a policeman.

B 144, having stated that he found 801740 lucifer matches
on the prisoner,

Mr. Selfe said that he should remand him, and directed
the police to make inquiries about him,
The prisoner was remanded.

THAMES.

MURDEROUS ASSAULT.—Annie Johnsen, a tall, mas-
culine woman, very smartly dressed, was brought before
Mr. Leigh charged with committing a violent assault on
Ann Moore, the wife of a sailor.

The complainant had received very serious injuries ; her
nose was broken and strapped up with surgical plaisters,
and there were other contusions on her head and face.
The case was a simple one, and deposed to by many wit-
nesses. The prisoner had an old grudge against the com-
plainant, who was passing along Phillip-street, St, George-
in-the-East, yesterday evening, when the prisoner, who was
standing at her door, went into her kitchen, and brought
out a poker, with which she attacked the complainant,
and while using the worst possible oaths and imprecations
struck her several times over the head and body. The last
blow fell on the complainant's nose, and was dealt with
such great severity, that the poker was broken in two, the
complainant fell grievously wounded, and she was in-
sensible for some time afterwards.

The broken poker, in two pieces, was produced, and it
appeared the complainant lost a good deal of blood.
Mr. Joseph, Smith, solicitor, in defence, said the com-
plainant was the aggresses, and called a witness, Catherine
Dayment, who admitted a poker was used.
Mr. Leigh said a savage assault had been committed
by the prisoner. He fined him £3, and, in default of pay-
ment,l2l days' imprisonment.

EUGENE DEL ACROIX.

This celebrated artist, says the fforning Post, had been
ill for about two months with chest disease, and for a long
time his life had been despaired of. Ho died in his 66th
year, having been born at Cbarenton St. 111aurice, near
Paris, April 26, 1798, or, in the then current slang, 7
Floreal, An. VI.

Charles Delacroix Constant, father of the future artist,
was elected deputy for the department of the Marne in
1792; voted for the death of Louis XVI. ; was one of the
most violent of the Thermidorians ; became Minister of
Foreign Affairs under the Directory, and was succeeded by
Talleyrand in 1797 ; was for a time Ambassador to Ilol-
land, and died, in 1805, Prefect of B3rdeaux. lie was 58
when Eugene was born, his elder son being already a soldier
and his daughter of ma rziageable age.
_ _ _

It is somewhat startling to find that an infant of three
years old had been all but drowned, all hut burnt, 411 but
poisoned, and all but hanged—himself being the execu
tioner ; but it is true enough of Eugene Delacroix. When
in arms his nurse fell with him into the sea, and was only
saved by the courage of some sailors, who probably were
the cause of the calamity, the bonne being more attentive
to them than to her charge. Then the child's cradle caught
fire, and he received serious injuries. Thirdly, he was
nearly killed by some verdigris incautiously left in his way ;
and lastly, he nearly finished his carrer by hanging himself,
to see what the sensations were, without taking care to have
a chair near his feet when turned off. This fourth escape
is the only incident of which there is a shadow of doubt,
but anyhow he had as many "squeaks for his life" as
Horace of old.

His career at the College Louis le Grand was a brilliant
one : here, by the way, he made friends with the since Dr.
Louis Veron. His drawing •master, finding that his per-
formances were far superior to those of his fellow •pupils,
advised him to put himself under a great master—David,
for instance. The old organist of Bordeaux Cathedral, a
friend of Mozart's, gave lessons to his sister, and tormented
his mother's life out to have him brought up to the musical
profession. his aliter visum. At 18 the youth entered the
studio of Baron Guerin, the professor at the school of the
fine arts, who numbered Ary Scheffer and Gelricault among
his aeres. The selection of Guerin was unlucky, and master
and pupil soon found out the difference of their ideas on
art. Eugene was even now a sharp observer, and possessed
a powerful imagination; he could not follow in the steps of
his master's classicism. The baron could make nothing of
him : "But," said he, " let him stay here; he has got
money, it is better that he should make daubs than debts"
(2nieux rant qu'il fasse des croates quc des dates.) Still he
gave Eugene no encouragement whatever. In 1822 the
youthful artist sent to the Exhibition the now famous
"Dante and Virgil in Hell." He begged Guerin to go and
see it at his studio, in the Rue de la Planche, at the bottom
of the Faubourg St. Germain, and, after much ungracious
grumbling, the baron went. The old classicist was petrified.
Here was a revolution. " What is it all about ?" "It is
Dante visiting Virgil in Hell, my dear master—there are the
souls of the damned —." "Not done sufficiently brown,"
sneered Guerin. "The thing is absurd," said the muter,
"exaggerated—absurd. Playing a Michael Angelo, are
you ? Your servant, sir." The picture was not rejected,
however; it commenced undoubtedly a revolution in art,
and it subjected its author to violent abuse, as well as to
enthusiastic applause. Meeting Guerin one day, when in
the height of his young triumph, Delacroix was received
with anything but congratulation. " Puffed out, elated, I
suppose ? After all, this triumph oaly proves —." "That
you would have rejected the picture, my dear master, had
you been a judge: you are always so kind to me." "Pooh!
pooh ! I never had any kindness for heretics. A day will
come when your picture will be burnt on the Place de la
Greve." " They have occasionally burnt good things there,
my dear master " Here, the chronicler says, the conver-
sation was broken off, for the baron was apparently in a
state of incipient apoplexy. It was scandalously put about
by Delacroix's enemies that Gericault had had a large share
in Dante and Virgil, the redeeming points being those from
the hand of the author of the " Shipwreck of the Medusa,"
the blemishes Delacroix's own. This was of course a false-
hood. Among all the criticisms to which Eugene was sub-
jected there was one honest and generous one by M. Thiers
in the Constitutionnel. He nobly proclaimed the excellence
of the work, predicted the future fame of the artist, praised
the colouring and the style, which "combined the boldness
of Michael Angelo with the fertility of Rubens." BaronGros
also stood by him, and invited him to atudyunder him, an offer
which was declined, perhaps happily, for the author of
" Sappho at the Promontory of Leucas" could hardly help
seeing a future rival in Eugene Delacroix. Thiers said
that in Delacroix, Destouehes, Drollet, Cogniet, and Du-
bufe, he saw the rise of a new generation of artists who
would do France honour. M. Thiers had a penchant for
revolutions in art as well as politics.
The " Massacre at Scio " (1824) produced a great sensa-
tion ; it was the most dramatic picture to which the cen-
tury had given birth. The contrast between the splendour
of the sun and the fierce hatred of man, the groups of half-
naked Greeks, the quivering flesh, the corpses scattered
about, the infants pressing the bosoms of their dying
mothers, were terrible in their reality. Hastceforth there
was deadly war declared against Delacroix. His opponents
did what they could to exclude him from the exhibitions,
but in vain, though one remarkable picture, "The Educa-
tion of the Virgin," was rejected. Many well-wishers,
among them M. Sosthenes de la Rochefouald, urged him
to altar his course, or he could have no Government en-
gagements. Luckily he had three or four hundred a year
of his own, and he answered one and all with the Scrip-
tural " Etiam si manes, ego non." In 1826 he produced
"The Death of Marino Faliero," " Greece—the Ruins of
Missolonghi" (for the benefit of the Greek revolutionists),
and other pictures. In 1827 appeared " Tasso in the Mad-
house," and "Cardinal Richelieu Officiating in the Chapel
of the Palais Royal, surrounded by guards "—a splen-
did picture, burnt, unfortunately, during the Revolution
of February, 1848 ; in 1829, "the Combat between the
Giaour and the Pasha" (for the museum at Nantes), " The
Giaour after the Combat," and several small pictures for
the Gallery Colbert; in 1830, "Liberty Guiding the People
on the Barricades" (at the Louvre) ; in 1831, "The Mur-
der of the Bishop of Liege" (from" Quentin Durward"),
"The Wild Boar of the Ardennes," and " Boissy d'Anglas
at the Sitting of the Prairie!, An. III."
The Revolution of 1830 terminated the artist's proscrip-
tion. M. Thiers procured for him the engagement to de-
corate the Salon du Roi, in the Palace Bourbon. His re-
presentations of Justice, War, Agriculture, and Industry
adorn the ceiling, and his bold qualities had full play in
this work. He also painted the five cupolas of the library,
with four tableaux in each, and the two hemicycles at the
extremities. Next Delacroix was employed to paint the
cupola of the Luxembourg Library in the Champs Elysies,
and he selected his subject from the fourth chapter of
Dante's "Inferno," decorating the hemicycle above the
window with the picture of "Alexander Locking up
Homer's Works in a Golden Casket," and " Justinian
Writing his Code." He decorated also the ceiling and
pentices of one of the waiting-rooms in the Hotel de Ville,
with the history of the Theban Hercules and many mytho-
logical personages. At the Louvre ho painted the ceiling
of the Apollo Gallery with " Apollo Conquering the
Python."
Before this, however, M. Thiers had procured the ap-
pointment of M. Delacroix as attaché to the embassy sent
in 1832 by Louis Philippe to the Sultan of Morocco—
Abd-er Rhaman. This was nearly the only foreign journey
he ever took, for he never visited Italy for fear of losing his
originality I He carefully studied African manners and
costumes, and the fruits of his trip are to be seen in his
" Moorish Scenes," his " Algerian Women"* (now at the
Luxembourg), his "Interior of a Court in Morocco," his
" Arab Mountebanks," &c.
The following pictures, with others, appeared between
1833 a'bd 1838, " Charles V. Playing the Organ in the
Monastery of St. Just," the "Death of Charles the Rash
after the Battle of Nancy," the " Convent of the Domini-
cans at Madrid," the " Prisoner of Chinon," " Christ at
Calvary," the Battle of Taillebourg" (in the Versailles
Museum), " Christ in the Garden of Olivet" (for St. Paul's
Church, Paris), "Justinian" (for the hall of the Council
of State), the "Apparition of Mephistopheles to Faust,"
"A Wounded Herdsman of the Campagna Slaking his
Thirst on the Brink of a Marsh," "A young Turk Caress-
ing his Horse," "The blind Milton Dictating ' Paradise
Lost' to his Daughters," and " Sardanapalus Dying in the
midst of his Wives," a gorgeous picture of Oriental luxury
and voluptuousness which Delacroix called his " Waterloo,"
as it gave him a prominent place among artists, and beat
down prejudices at once.
It would be impossible to give an enumeration of all the
pictures of this prolific artist ; they would occupy half a
column of this paper. One or two remarkable efforts of his
genius may be mentioned. In 1838 his " Medea" (now in
the Lille Museum) produced a great sensation. Medea is
represented as having poisoned Creusa, and flying with her
children. She bears a poinard in her hand, and looks round
to see if Jason is pursuing her, in which case she will kill
the children. Her body is full of light, but her terrible
eyes quite in the shade. The next year a half length of
Cleopatra preparing for death was jutted from Delacroix's
studio. Cleopatra has received a basket of figs from her
slave, and is thinking, her chin on her hand, when she
espies an aspic among the figs, and there is no doubt what
her thoughts turn on then—
`` fortis et esperas
Tractare serpentes, ut strum
Corpora combiberet vencnum
Deliberate, morte ferocior."
Next we have hamlet contemplating h the sombre
the attitude of the figures in harmeny wi . The Ship-
subject in spite of some negligence of de gr"
• 81awful to contem-
wreck" (1841) is a noble picture. It. haif.aaked men a
plate the calm sea, the deep silence, the
r and death, draw-
prey to despair, to the horrors of hung
f being eaten. This wett-
ing lots for the frightful chance,odini e the sktull of Yorick,
episode in the second
derful picture represents the dma
, ~ The
canto of "Don Juan.' on " the seventh there
" the third day there came a calm ,
was no wind."
each other; all was gone,
sun rose red and fiery •,. on
" They glared upon
Water, and wine, and
The longings of the cannibal i their arise,
Although they spoke not, nwolfish eyes."
food, and might see
you
od,
IWe can only mention by name such well-known pictures

may be said of this fine picture that the artist has,
a------p*parlt
d beauty of the character, to three or tour
may by design, sacrificed correctness of design, and
the nobleness an
bold and brilliant touches more or 452 hartaoxkiaeclo The
pica= is a marvel for oolourbg,