Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/187

 common work, but not wholly pleasing, was also finely engraved by Sharp. Another of his historical pictures, ‘The Surrender of Admiral de Windt to Admiral Duncan’ (afterwards Lord Camperdown), near Camperdown (11 Oct. 1797), helped to maintain his popularity. He also painted a fine portrait of Admiral Duncan, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798, and engraved, but remained in the family of the artist till Lord Lyndhurst's death. The larger picture was bought by Lord Camperdown in 1802 for a thousand guineas, and is now at Camperdown, the family seat in Scotland. Another of Copley's best historical pictures, now in the public library of Boston, U.S., for which it was bought by subscription, represents Charles I demanding in the House of Commons (4 Jan. 1642) the surrender of Hampden, Pym, Hollis, and Hazelrigg. This work, begun in 1785, occupied some years in execution. It contained no fewer than fifty-eight likenesses, all taken from contemporary portraits, which in most cases had to be studied by Copley in the country houses where they were preserved, it being his invariable rule to spare no pains in giving to his historical pieces the interest of actual portraiture. This picture, unhappily lost to England, is warmly prized in its home across the Atlantic, where every work that came from Copley's hand while in America has been carefully chronicled, and his name, as one of Boston's sons, is cherished with genuine pride. It has been given to Copley Square, one of the finest features of the town—a square, built upon part of the property above mentioned as belonging to Copley. This property, which if preserved to the family would have been in itself a fine fortune, was unfortunately sacrificed either by the malversation or ignorance of Copley's agent. Young Copley went over to America in 1795 in the hope of recovering it, but found there was no alternative but to accept of a compromise of all his father's claims for a few thousand pounds. This loss fell heavily upon Copley. He had a strong personal attachment to the property, and to lose it became every day more serious, with the expenses of a rising family growing upon him, and the demand for his pictures falling off during the protracted European war, when the purses of the British public were too much exhausted to have much to spare for works of art. ‘At this moment,’ Copley writes to his son-in-law Mr. Green (4 March 1812), ‘all pursuits which are not among those which are the essentials of life are at an end.’ Still Copley worked on with untiring industry. He was especially happy in a home presided over by a wife conspicuous no less for good sense than for her sweet and cultivated manners, and in children who loved him, and gave him no pain, who appreciated his genius, and vied with each other in making him forget the anxieties of contracted means. To the last he was a true enthusiast in his art. With his brush in his hand every care and anxiety, Lord Lyndhurst used to say, was forgotten. He loved books also. His daughters read to him while he worked, and when his easel work for the day was done, he turned to his favourite poets for refreshment and relaxation. In 1800 his eldest daughter was most happily married to Mr. Gardiner Greene, a merchant of Boston, U.S. From this gentleman, and from his own son, who was making his way successfully at the bar, Copley received very considerable assistance in his later years. In August 1815 he was struck down by paralysis, and died on 9 Sept. following. His debts were found largely to exceed the value of his estate, but they were undertaken by his son and fully discharged. He was survived by Mrs. Copley, who died in 1836 at the age of ninety-one, and by his daughter Mary, who attained the great age of ninety-five, dying in 1868. The industry of Copley never flagged. Before he left America it has been ascertained that he had executed at least 290 oil paintings, forty crayon portraits, and nineteen miniatures. These have all along been highly prized by his countrymen, many of whom seized the opportunity of a visit to Europe to have their portraits painted by him. It is probably by his portraits that Copley's reputation will be longest maintained. There are many of them scattered throughout England. As a rule they bear the stamp of individuality, are well modelled, and rich in colour. In Buckingham Palace a fine specimen of what he could do in this way exists in the portraits of three daughters of George III playing in a garden, where the accessories are imagined, and treated with a fancy and care that are characteristic of the thoroughness which Copley put into his work. It has been engraved, as most of Copley's important pictures were, but the engraving does no justice to the picture. Copley, like Reynolds, made experiments in colours, but not, like Reynolds, so far as we can ascertain, to the prejudice of his pictures. Allan Cunningham, who had seen the fine specimens of his work which Lord Lyndhurst collected wherever he could, and which at his death were again scattered, speaks highly of Copley's powers as a colourist. His ‘Samuel reproving Saul for sparing the Amalekites’ is mentioned by him as ‘a fine bit of colouring, with good feeling and good drawing too.’ ‘Copley,’ he adds, ‘shares with West the re-