Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/412

 Cox 1819, and at the Hereford grammar school for some years from 1815, receiving only six guineas a year from the latter. He also taught at a school kept by Miss Poole, and at others at Leominster and neighbouring places. He gave lessons in many private families, some at a distance from Hereford. About 1812 he began to make etchings (soft ground) on copper from his own drawings, for his educational works on landscape art. The first of these was published by S. & J. Fuller, London, 1814, and is called ‘A Treatise on Landscape Painting and Effect in Water-colours, from the first Rudiments to the finished Picture, with examples in outline effect and colouring.’ This work was illustrated by a number of soft etchings and coloured aquatints. It was followed in 1816 by ‘Progressive Lessons in Landscape for young beginners,’ a series of twenty-four soft etchings without letterpress. In 1820 appeared some views of Bath (Lansdowne Crescent, the Pump Room, &c.), and in 1825 his ‘Young Artists' Companion, or Drawing-Book of Studies,’ &c. All these works were published by S. & J. Fuller, London. During his stay near Hereford he (except in 1815 and 1817) contributed regularly to the exhibitions of the Society of Painters in Water-colours. He sent twenty-three drawings in 1824, thirty-three in 1825, and twenty-two in 1826. He also, both at Parry's Cottage and Ashtree House, took pupil-boarders at the rate of 70l. or seventy guineas for board, lodging, and instruction. By dint of all this industry and the exercise of economy, Cox, though still poorly paid for his work, managed not only to live but to save a little. Every year he went to London before the exhibitions opened, generally stopping at Birmingham on his way, to see his old friends and sell drawings. In London he usually spent a month or more, and gave lessons to his old pupils, and every year he took a sketching holiday. In 1819 he went to North Devon and Bath, in 1826 to Brussels with his brother-in-law, and through Holland with his kind friends the Hoptons of Canon-Frome Court; but North Wales was his usual resort then as afterwards. So few were the striking events in his life that the entry of Ann Fowler into his service in 1818 (who was never to leave him till his death) and the painting a large drawing in recollection of Turner's picture of Carthage become facts of importance. This drawing was large and highly finished, far brighter in colouring than Cox's usual work. It was sold at the Exhibition of Water-colours in 1825 for 50l., and was afterwards in the Quilter collection.

In 1827 Cox removed to London, and took up his residence at 9 Foxley Road, Kennington Common, where he remained till 1841. In 1829 and 1832 he made short trips to France, visiting Calais, Boulogne, St. Omer, and Dieppe; and between these years he made the acquaintance of William Stone Ellis, Norman Wilkinson, and William Roberts, who, with Charles Birch, were his principal companions on his sketching tours. In 1829 he took lodgings at Gravesend for a while; in 1831 he went with his son to Derbyshire, and made drawings of Haddon Hall, going afterwards to the lakes. In 1834 he accompanied Ellis to Lancaster, and made studies of the Ulverston Sands, Bolsover Castle, and Bolton Abbey. In 1836 he visited Rowsley, Bath, and Buxton, and took a tour in Wales to make sketches for Thomas Roscoe's ‘Wanderings and Excursions, &c., in North Wales’ (1836) and ‘Wanderings and Excursions, &c., in South Wales’ (1837). He made altogether thirty-four drawings for these works, which were engraved by William Radcliffe [q. v.] In 1837 he visited Lord Clive at Powis Castle, and stayed at Seabrook, near Hythe, where he drew Lymne Castle, introduced into a celebrated water-colour drawing called ‘Peace and War.’ His life is indeed little more than an itinerary and a record of hard work in painting and teaching, accompanied by continual increase of power and slow progress in public favour.

He now began to have a great desire to paint in oils. He had, as has been stated, sketched in oils as early as 1812, but had not hitherto painted any oil picture, or at least not one of any importance. Mr. Roberts was his great encourager and instructor in this new departure. In 1839, when W. J. Müller [q. v.] returned from his journeys in Greece and Egypt, Cox was introduced to him by Mr. George Fripp, the well-known artist. Cox was at that time fifty-six years old and Müller twenty-seven, but the elder went, and went again, to see the young genius paint. He wondered at the ease and rapidity of his execution, and he watched him with that humility and desire to learn which were his constant qualities through life. One of the pictures which he watched Müller paint was the famous ‘Ammunition Waggon.’ Some of Cox's friends endeavoured to deter him from his resolve to paint in oils, but he was determined to succeed, and he did. One of his oil pictures, ‘Washing Day,’ painted in 1843, or four years after his lessons from Müller, sold at Christie's in 1872 for 945l., and this is far below the prices which his later oil pictures have fetched in recent years. He soon preferred the new medium, and it is now becoming generally recognised that it was