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THE YELLOW DRAWINGS.

a commission for one hundred drawings, but I suppose at the miserable old price, and as Turner was now rising, he wisely abstained from doing them.

And now I must devote a short chapter more especially to that ill-fated young genius, Girtin, a painter far too little appreciated, and who deserves to rank highest among English artists.

CHAPTER VII.

TURNER'S FRIENDLY RIVAL, GIRTIN.

GIRTIN was born in February, 1775; so that he was only two months older than his companion Turner. It was to Chambers Hall that Turner once said of one of Girtin's yellow drawings, now in the British Museum, "I never in my whole life could make a drawing like that; 1 would at any time have given one of my little fingers to have made such a one." Girtin's father was, I believe, a rope-maker, and was killed out hunting. His widow, with her two boys, the future painter and the future engraver, took rooms over a shop in St. Martin's-le-Grand. She subsequently married a Mr. Vaughan, an eminent pattern-drawer; but this was not till near Girtin's last illness, or after his death. Mr. Chambers Hall purchased his fine collection of thirty-six Girtin drawings (which he afterwards left to the British Museum, where they now lie buried) from Mr. Jackson, the father-in-law of Girtin's half-brother, an eminent builder who contributed to the extension of Pimlico. Jackson bought these drawings of Girtin's brother, who had laid claim to all he could find, in return for money lent. Girtin had died at his brother's house, being too ill to be removed.

Girtin married the only daughter of Mr. Borritt, a rich liveryman of the Goldsmiths' Company, who was fond of art, and had all but adopted the young artist. He regarded his son-in-law with great affection, and for years after could scarcely speak of him with dry eyes. Lord Essex, Lord Harewood, Lord Mulgrave, and Sir George Beaumont, were all patrons of Girtin. Edwards, in his malicious notice of Girtin, says, glancing at him, "Intemperance and irregularity have no claim to longevity." Girtin's son, still living, a surgeon at Islington, says, "My father was almost ascetically temperate, and his taste always leant to the refined and elegant."

Girtin was in early life apprenticed to Dayes, an architectural draughtsman, who had no sympathy for his genius, and treated him as a mere means of making money. Dayes was a conceited, jealous man, who eventually got embarrassed and committed suicide, it was supposed, from envy at the progress of his contemporaries-Turner and his old pupil. His works ("Tour in Yorkshire" and "Art-Biographies") were published after his death for the benefit of his widow.

Girtin, naturally bold and reckless, began soon to find that he was more than paying back by work the premium paid for his apprenticeship. He refused to wash in any more skies for Dayes, and demanded in justice the cancelling of his indentures. Dayes refusing, and finding Girtin obdurate, had him up before the City Chamberlain and committed to Bridewell as a contumacious apprentice.

Here Girtin amused himself by covering the walls of his cell with chalk-landscapes. The turnkey was

THE REFRACTORY APPRENTICE.

103

at once delighted and astonished with these works of the imprisoned genius. He told all his friends about them, and brought many of them to see the frescoed cell. Amongst others, some lord or other; and the Earl of Essex happened to hear of the prison landscapes. He came and was delighted. He went at once to Dayes, bought up the indentures, and burning them before Girtin's eyes, obtained his release, and took him down to the almost regal luxury of Cashiobury, where Girtin, free and happy, produced some of his greatest works; as Fra Lippo Lippi escaped from slavery by means of the portrait he took of the Moor his master, so Girtin, the contumacious apprentice, escaped from Bridewell by decorating the white walls of his cell with chalk landscapes.

At Raphael Smith's-the pupil of Pether-Turner and Girtin met to colour etchings; and afterwards worked together, putting in skies and flat tints for the architects, and touching up sketches and topographical views for amateurs.

That Dayes never forgave his contumacious apprentice is, I think, quite clear from the fact, that when, years after Girtin's death, he himself committed suicide under the pressure of debts, the following detracting account of Girtin was found among his papers, and published by his executors, among other fairer biographies of those contemporaries who had outstripped him in the race, and jealousy at whose success is said to have been one of the accelerating causes of his dreadful death. He says:

"This artist died November the 9th, 1802, after a

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DAYES' OPINION OF TURNER.

long illness, in the twenty-eighth year of his age. Biography is useful to stimulate to acts of industry and virtue; or by exhibiting the contrary, to show the fatal consequences of vice. While our heart bleeds at the premature death of the subject of this paper, it becomes equally an act of justice to warn young persons against the fatal effects of suffering their passions to overpower their reason, and to hurry them into acts of excess that may in the end render life a burden, destroy existence, or bring on a premature old age. Though his drawings are generally too slight, yet they must ever be admired as the offspring of a strong imagination. Had he not trifled away a vigorous constitution, he might have arrived at a very high degree of excellence as a landscapepainter."

Of Turner, in 1804, Dayes says:

"Highly to the credit of this artist, he is indebted principally to his own exertions for the abilities which he possesses as a painter, and for the respectable situation he holds in society. He may be considered a striking instance of how much may be gained by industry (if accompanied by temperance), even without the assistance of a master. The way he acquired his professional powers was by borrowing, where he could, a drawing or picture to copy from, or by making a sketch of any one in the Exhibition early in the morning, and finishing it at home. By such practices, and by a patient perseverance, he has overcome all the difficulties of the art; so that the fine taste and colour which his drawings possess, are scarcely to be found in any other, and are accom