Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/252

 P. 1. Cyrus, being yet a child, told Astyages, who would persuade him to drink wine, that he feared it was poison, having observed that in Astyages himself it occasioned reelings and other strange disorders.

P. 316. Diogenes was blamed for throwing some wine out of his glass. I had rather throw that down, said he, than that that should throw me down.

P. 72. One that was very superstitious being amazed that a mouse had gnawed his stocking, it would have been a wonder indeed, said Cato, if the stocking should have eat the mouse.

P. 170. The prognosticators making it a great prodigy that a serpent had wound itself round the key of Leotichides’ door, No, said he, but it would be one, should the key wind itself about the serpent.

 

I found this meritorious artist’s name in the books of the French Church of Threadncedle Street, and. have claimed him as a grandson of the great Isaac Casaubon; the registration of his betrothal, marking him a stedfast Protestant, declares that his father was Pierre Casaubon, who had settled in Germany. But as the maiden name of Pierre’s wife was Sibelle Aikin, there can be little doubt that he himself was an immigrant from England. Frederic Casaubon was betrothed to Anne Le Blanc, native of Paris, daughter of Guillaume Le Blanc and Susanne Brondre, at London, on May 21, 1673.

When Horace Walpole was compiling his memorials of English painters, he made use of the previous researches of “Graham” (as he calls him) in the same field. This [Richard?] Graham, as I am led to believe, published a regular book, but I have been unsuccessful in my search for that book. But a learned correspondent has called my attention to a translation from the French of Roger de Piles’ “Art of Painting and Lives of the Painters,” to which translation, published in 1706, there is appended an “Essay towards an English School, with the lives and characters of 100 painters;” this Essay is said to be partly by Graham. And in it I find a brief memoir of Frederic Casaubon, evidently the same person who in his above-mentioned betrothal is said to be a native of “Soulingen, near Cologne;” his birth-place accounts for his surname having sometimes been spelt Kerseboom, while his English refugee ancestry explains the spelling Causabon, which his grandfather had often to tolerate. Having convinced myself and my readers (I hope) of his ancestry, I now copy the essayists’ memoir of this accomplished painter.

“He was born at Solingen, a city of Germany, in the year 1623. At eighteen years of age he went to Amsterdam, to be instructed in the art of painting, but by whom is uncertain. From thence he removed to Paris in 1650, and worked some years under Monsieur Le Brun; but afterwards was sent to Italy by the Chancellor of France, and maintained there by that minister fourteen years, two whereof he spent with Nicholas Poussin, of whose manner he was so nice an imitator that some of his pieces have been taken for his. Thus qualified for History Painting he came to England; but not finding encouragement here in that way, he bent his studies towards portraits, wherein he was not unsuccessful either as to drawing or likeness. He was the first that brought over the manner of painting on glass (not with a print as the common way now is), in which he performed some histories and heads exceedingly well. Perspective he understood thoroughly, having been disciple to two excellent masters in that art. He spoke five languages admirably well, and was in short an accomplished painter. He died in London in the year 1690, and lies buried in St. Andrew’s, Holborn.”  

The first Le Pipre in England was a Walloon refugee in Canterbury about the period of Duke Alva’s bloody tribunal. He founded a wealthy Kentish family. We are indebted to “Graham” and Walpole for the mention of the “gentleman artist” Francis Le Pipre (they spell the name Le Piper, but erroneously, because his family never anglicised the surname). The epithet “gentleman” was applied to him, partly because he did not take money for his paintings, drawings, and etchings — partly (I regret to say) because he was known in London as a man of the world, somewhat prodigal in his habits and irregular in his life. “He would often go away (say the essayists) and let his friends know nothing of his departure, make the tour of France and the Netherlands afoot, and sometimes his frolic carried him as far as Grand Cairo. He never advised his friends and relations of his return any more than he gave them notice of his intended absence, which he did to surprise them