Mexico weekly ledger., 1876-12-07
THE WHITE LADY OF WATFORD

OF all the thousands who, passing
through the English collection in the
Centennial Exhibition of pictures, have
stopped with something like amaze
ment in their admiration before Pettie's
wonderful work that hangs between the
three Tademas and the portrait of Sir
Joshua Reynolds, how many know the
story of the picture, Dr. even it's history?
Every body must stop and gaze at it,
and, although what we technically call
q "nude," it is unlike any other repre-
~sentation of the female form and char
acter that is to be found in these crowd
ed galleries. The canvas is only 80 by
40 inches, and represents a beautiful
girl standing upon the edge of a brook
in a dense and tangled grove. 1t is
night, and a soft ray of moonlight fall
ing through the trees touches her white
face and body, and glorifies thera with
a luster which, though purely material,
instantly suggests to the senses that
preternaturaI shining white !" spoken
of in Scripture, and always associated in
our minds with the spiritual body.
You do not ask yourself why the girl
is there in the shadows of the wood I'M
attired, for it appears eminently proper
that she should be there. She is indeed
a part of the scene. With one hand
resting upon the bole of an old oak, she
leans slightly forward as if to look un-
der the i~nterlacing branches into the
darkness and distance where there
glimmers a PARKWAY light. The night
airs lift the ends of her long tresses
gently and ripple the surface of the
black pool. She is listening.
Any thing more beautiful than the at
titude and expression of the woman I
have not seen conveyed in color. Every
line in her body is a curve of beauty,
indicating health, elasticity, vigor and
grace; but the combination is softened
and enriched with an ideality that is
rare. The unobtrusive innocence and
chastity, the luminous poetic atmos-
phere, the mystery and romance, aside
from the technical excellence of the
work, give the picture a character and
a charm at once distinctive and novel.
1t is a portrait of a woman who lived
in the latter part of the eighteenth GEN.
fury, and the artist made an attempt to
commemorate In actual incident in her
life. The facts of that life have been
gathered by that arduous antiquary,
William Beckworth Forse, and it is up
on the basis of his strange but intensely
interesting narrative that Mr.. Petite
made his picture.
From this narrative we learn that Sir
William Richardson lived in Hereford
shire on IN ancestral estate of several
hundred acres, which ran to the base
of the Malvern hills, and was partly
overlooked by the remains of an old
Roman fortress, still to be seen, and
which is known as the "Herefordshire
Beacon" Sir William lost his wife
while visiting the Marqnesas islands in
1894, where he had been sent as a gov
ernment commissioner. The lady had
but Just arrived and was being brought
ashore, when the boats containing her
party were attacked by a large body of
naked savages who We're in the water,
and who had successfully disarmed sus-
picion by pretending to exhibit their
skill as swimmers. Lady Richardson,
who was pregnant at the time, was
saved from violence, and the savages
were repulsed, but the fright proved
TOO great, and, after giving birth to a
female child, she died.
Heartbroken, Sir William returned
to England, a few months later, with
his child, and, retiring from public
service, settled upon his. estate in Here
fordshire, where his daughter grew up.
At the age of IS, she was beautiful
enough to attract the attention of all
the neighboring gentry. But with all
her loveliness she possessed certain
traits of character which neither edu-
cation nor association could eradicate
modify. Accomplished and refined,
she stilfevinced a curious love of free
dom and 3 strange passion for the
water. No one in the county could as
cepd the Malvern hills as she, and often
her father and his companion found
her, when still q mere child, worn out