New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-03-26
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Own
his granddaughter. MARTHA BABcoCk Aaohi' ''
DID, AS. Boston Houghton. Mihin Co.
The life of Copley. though it has never oeeh INC
subject of so handsomely printed doom as ,no
present has nevertheless been well treated ny
writer's than the late Mrs Amory. 1t trst appeared
a., ,h,, ,or.np;a,Iv aeliehtful book "The Lives OF
the Most Eminent British Painters. Sculptors ana
Architects by Allan Cunningham" where II HIS
twentvtbree pages in the fifth volume and Is pre-
faced nv n portrait engraved from aperture py
Cainsborough This same portrait. by the way
is copied-t seems at least to be the very same-as
nm illustration TO an article Copley by
nubshed in ScIiJnc's Magazine for March, 1851 anu
,berc o;ven 10 Gilbert Stuart AS Allan Cunning
hams book was published in 1882, only seventeen
wears after the artists death, it wond seem as il
his ascription of the portrait to Gainsborough must
have had some authority. And, judging from inc
engraving the portrait has much more the air Oh
work by GaiusbOrough than of one by stuart
Cunnineham's materials for his interesting memoir
were gathered" to quote his OWN words irom
the memories of his companions in art. the affection
of his descendants aud the imperfect authority OF
fugitive references and Academy catalogues" And
il NAV be said that, on the whole nothing has been
written about Copley by anyone since Cunning
hams time that has added materially to our knowl-
edge of him. We do not know that anyone has
contributed single fact of importance to those ac-
cumnlated by the industry of the English blogTa-
pher unless it may be reckoIed important that
Cunningham did not know Copey was mar
ried and had children before he left home for
England. He says, on page l61: "Copley mad con-
tinued bachelor according to the precept OF Key
nOlds that be might be able TO pursue his studies
without Offering up his time and money at the altar
of that expensive idol, WIFE" Nor does Cunning
ham make any allusion to his married
life and only at the end OF Ills
memoir does he speak of his son, Lord Lyndhurst,
The last sentence is as follows "Copley's eminent
son still nhabits the artists house in George-st.,
Hanover-square and all must consider it as honor
able TO this noble person that he has made it his
object to collect works of his fathers pencil where
with TO adorn the apartments in which they were
conceived and PRODUCED Elsewhere be says that
ian American gentleman applied to him for lnforma-
tion and material TO compose narrative OF his life
he felt reluctance which all must feel, about COM
plying with such a request; and while he was
hesitating death interposed." The facts are that
Copley married in 1869 in his thirty-second year
five years before he left home to visit Europe. and
that all his children. the future Lord Lyndhurst iu-
cluded were born in this country.
Two years after Cunnngham's book was pub
]ished William Dunlap put forth his Rise and
Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States"
hurst for information about his fathers life but the
answer that he received was so chilling and dis
courapDr that be contented himself with simply
transferring Cunninghams account to his own
pares Since Duulaps time, several accounts OF tho
artists life have appeared in cycopedias periodi
calls and compendiums of art-histOry Mrs. Elizabeth
Clarke Greene the artists eldest sister, wrote an
article upon her brother for DR.. Liebers American
Encyclopedia. valuable contribution to the
nature of the subject is that which the late
11;y +. Tuckeman wrote for his " Book of the
Arti,ts," G. 7. Putnam & Son, 1867. Until the APP
pearance of Mr. Augustus Thorndike Perkins's A
Sketch of the Life and List of some of the Works
of John Singleton Copey," Boston, 1878, the COM
petest list of the artists American portraits was
contained in the sketch by Mr.. Tuckerman. 1t may
be noted in passing that Mr.. Tuckerman. by slip of
The pen. says COpey died September 30 1915. The
correct date is September o.
1t is no doubt owing in part to the circumstance
that the late Mrs. Amory the author of the most re-
cent biography of Copey, died before ber work was
published that il is unsatisfactory record of
facts The slip-shod arrang cement of the materials
the emphasis given TO unimportant matters, while
essential things are passed slightingly, or not
mentioned at ALL are, perhaps, naturally accounted
for by the lady's inexperience as writer profa-
tory note informs that Mrs. Amory had
been engaged on her task ten years, and that she
left her manuscript complete, yet the reader will
look in vain in the book for the date of Copley's
birth. The nearest alluson to that event is found
in q letter written 10 Lord Lyndhurst
nv member of the family in Ireland
in answer TO inquiries The writer of the letter
SAYS that the father and mother of the artist went
to Boston from IrelandY-Ed.) in 1876, and the
father died in the West Indies about the time of the
birth of the artist in 1897" Yet Mrs. AmoTy might
have read in Cunningham that the artist was, by
the most credible accounts, born at Boston, In
America on the Sd day of July, 1887" Cunning
ham, indeed, seems to have had desire to clam
Copley for Great Britain. His father" he says
twas of English descent had resided long in Ire
land and after marrying lady of that country re-
moved to the New World so nigh the time that his
son was born 10 cOuntenance report which pre-
vailed when he became eminent that he was ma
tive of Ireland. The fact that he was all along
claimed as an American by the general rumor of the
United States might, perhaps have been alleged to
prove little etc, etc." And further on: In what
ever country he was born he was educated in
America and to her he his first inspiration in
artr There seems however. to be doubt to
either the place or the date of Copleys birth, and
at any rate it was certainly to have been expected
that in work of the pretensiOn of Mrs. Amory's
all the facts even the conectural ones would have
been given.
Neither In the introduction nor anywhere in the
book is there more than the slightest reference and
that only once, that we can find to any of the
printed accounts of Copley's life. Whether from
carelessness or from too scrupulous desire not to
repeat what had been said elsewhere, the author
makes no use of the material that lay about her,
and il NAV almost be said that nothing in the his
tory Of the artist seems TO interest her much
g., hot IA SIN he
descent the material prosperity of his life in Eng
land and the devouring fact that he had noble
lord for a son. There is much talk of American
snobbishness and of our insane love of titles but