Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/48

 simple and noble that it may be dismissed with a few words. He was above all things faithful — faithful to one clear idea of art, Faithful to one dearly loved woman. Except a certain sarcastic humour and a bnuque independence not agreeable to all, no one has noted any defect in his conduct and dispoeition, which evidently endeared him unusually to all who knew him. No neglected genius ever bore the disappointments of life more bravely and patiently. Of his genius there can be no doubt. If its range was narrow it was eminently sincere and original. In these qualities few artists can compare with him. He was the first to paint the greenness and moisture of his native country, the first to paint the noon sunshine with its white light pouring down through the leaves and sparkling in the foliage and the grass (an effect which gave rise to the expression of 'Constable's snow '1, the first to paint truly the sun-shot clouds of a showery sky, the first to represent faithfully the rich colours of an English Bummer landscape, the first to abandon the old brown grounding of the Dutch school and to lay his tints at once fresh and air in exact imitation of nature, the first to paint so strongly the volume of trees and clouds, the body and substance of the earth, the first to suggest so fully not only the sights but the sounds of nature, the gurgle of the water, the rustle of the trees. Otter painters have made us see nature at a distance or through a window; he alone has planted our feet in her midst. Fuseli's often misquoted remark, that Constable 'makes me call for my great coat and umbrella,' was no 'slight tribute to his originality and skill and Blake once said of one of his sketches, 'This is not drawing, but inspiration.' Much has been written about Constable's art: it has been unjustly depreciated by some (including Ruskin); but his claim tc be considered the founder of the school of faithful landscape is now widely recognised at home and abroad, and the artist nimself would scarcely have wished for a higher title to immortality.

 CONSTABLE, MARMADUKE (1466?–1518), of Flamborough, is known as 'Little Sir Marmaduke.' His life is summed up in the following inscription on a brass tablet in Flamborough church (the spelling is modernised):— Here lieth Marmaduke Constable of Flaymburght, knight, Who made adventure into France for the right of the same; Passed over with King Edward the Fourth, that noble knight, And also with noble King Harry the Seventh of that name. He was also at Barvik at the winning of the same And by King Edward chosen captain then first of any on, And ruled and governed there his time without But for all that, as ye see, he lieth under this

At Brankiston Field, where the King of Scats was slain He then being of the age of threescore and ten, With the good Duke of Norfolk that journey he hath ta'en And couragely advanced himself among other there and then, The king being in France with great number of English men. He, nothing heeding his age there, but Jeoparde him as one With his sons, brethren, servants, and kinsmen, But now, as ye see, he lieth under this stone. The family of Constable take their name from the office of constable of Chester, to which Hugh d'Avronches, earl of Chester in the Conqueror's time, appointed his kinsman Nigel, baron of Haulton. Nigel's descendant John, constable of Chester under Richard I, assumed the name and claimed the lands of Lacy, baron of Pontefract, Roger de Lacy, son of this John (and father of John de Lacy, earl of Lincoln), gave the lordship of Flamborough lo his brother Robert, surnamed Le Constable, founder of the house of Flamborough, who died in 1216. The following is taken from the diary of a Spanish envoy 'to England and Scotland in 1635 (, Aarsberetninger, iii. 243): 'He (Sir John Campbell, a Scottish courtier) saia likewise that in England there was a noble family, Constable, who received their fief from a former king of the Danes. Even now the custom is that each year at Christmas the head of the family goes to the sea shore and looking towards the north calls out three times that if any one will receive the rent in the name of the king of the Danes he is ready to give it. And then he fixes a coin into an arrow and shoots it as far as he can out into the sea. Camwel (Campbell) said