Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/228

Rh are vividly painted by Forster in his ‘Life of Dickens.’ They seem to have consisted partly in a ‘grand enjoyment of idleness,’ in keen observation under a mask of indifference, in a varied knowledge of literature, and complete unconsciousness of his own genius and good looks.

In 1839 he exhibited a ‘Scene from the Burletta of Midas,’ ‘The second Adventure of Gil Blas,’ and ‘Robin Hood’ (sold in 1859 for 1,370l. 5s.) In 1840 he was elected R.A., and exhibited the ‘Banquet Scene in Macbeth,’ with Macready again. Another illustration of ‘Gil Blas,’ the admirable scene from ‘Twelfth Night’ (Malvolio and the Countess, now in the National Gallery), and the still more famous portrait of Charles Dickens (painted 1839), which was engraved as a frontispiece for an edition of ‘Nicholas Nickleby,’ and also for Forster's ‘Life of Dickens.’ It is now also in the National Gallery. ‘We have here,’ said Thackeray, ‘the real identical man, Dickens, the inward as well as the outward of him.’ In this year he went to Paris. In 1841 he exhibited ‘The Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘Hunt the Slipper at Neighbour Flamborough's—unexpected Visit of the fine Ladies,’ from ‘The Vicar of Wakefield.’ In 1842, the ‘Origin of the Harp’ (one of several illustrations to Moore's ‘Irish Melodies’) and ‘The Play Scene in Hamlet,’ the most powerful of all his scenes from Shakespeare, but like most of them too theatrical. In this year he took a memorable trip to Cornwall with his friends Forster, Dickens, and Stanfield, one result of which was a landscape exhibited in 1843, ‘Waterfall at St. Wighton's Keive, near Tintagel, Cornwall,’ which, after belonging to both Dickens and Forster, is now in the South Kensington Museum (Forster's bequest). The girl at the waterfall is a portrait of a member of the Dickens family. With this was exhibited a scene from ‘Gil Blas,’ ‘The Actor's Reception of the Author.’ In 1844 he exhibited a portrait of Harrison Ainsworth, a ‘Scene from Comus—Sabrina releasing the Lady from the Enchanted Chair,’ which was repeated on the walls of the summer-house in Buckingham Palace Gardens, and a ‘Scene from Undine.’ In this year he sent a fresco-painting of ‘The Knight’ to the competition in Westminster Hall for the decoration of the houses of parliament; and though this received no reward, the commissioners are said to have selected, at this or some other time, a design by Maclise of ‘Alfred the Great in the Danish Camp,’ of which he made a picture, exhibited 1852. He paid a visit this year to Paris, where he was greatly struck with the superiority of the French artists; in comparison with whom, he wrote to Forster, ‘we in London are the smallest and most wretched set of snivellers that ever took pencil in hand.’ No doubt he had in mind his possible employment in mural decoration, and he paid so many visits to Delaroche's famous painting in the ‘École des Beaux-arts,’ that the custodian at last refused to take a fee. It was perhaps from the disturbance of his previous aims in art, caused by this visit to Paris, that in 1845—for the first time since 1829—he did not contribute to the exhibition of the Royal Academy, and from this time a larger and more serious spirit pervades his art. In June 1845 he met Dickens and his wife at Brussels on their return from Italy, and spent a week with them in company with Douglas Jerrold and Forster. In 1846 he sent only one picture, ‘The Ordeal by Touch;’ but in this year he received a commission to paint in fresco his noble design of ‘The Spirit of Chivalry,’ in an arch behind the strangers' gallery in the throne room of the House of Lords, where it still remains unseen. This was finished in 1847, and was afterwards joined in its obscurity by ‘The Spirit of Justice,’ which had been previously allotted to W. C. Thomas. A sketch for this design is in the British Museum. In 1847 appeared the well-known ‘Noah's Sacrifice’ (engraved by Simmons), two illustrations to Moore's ‘Irish Melodies,’ and in 1848 a portrait of John Forster as Kitely in ‘Every Man in his Humour,’ as acted by Charles Dickens and his friends; and another of Mrs. Charles Dickens, which the artist presented to her husband.

Between this year and 1859 his contributions to the Academy were somewhat irregular, and he sent nothing in 1849, 1853, 1856, and 1858; but to this period belong some of his most celebrated pictures: ‘Caxton's Printing Office in the Almonry at Westminster’ (1851); ‘Alfred the Great in the Tent of Guthrun’ (1852); ‘Marriage of Strongbow’ (1854)—this picture was bought by Lord Northwich for 4,000l., and sold in 1879 for 800l.; ‘Scene from “As you like it,” Orlando about to engage with the Duke's Wrestler’ (1855); ‘Peter the Great in Deptford Dockyard’ (1857), now at Holloway College; and the fine series of forty-one drawings of ‘The Story of the Norman Conquest,’ which had occupied his leisure for twelve years.

In 1855 Maclise acted as a juror of the Paris Exhibition, and afterwards took a tour in Italy with his brother Joseph, and during all or the greater part of the period (1848–59) intermittent negotiations seem