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778 THE LEADER. [Ko. 437, Attest 7, 1858...
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MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF THE LATE THOMAS SE...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Actinologia Britannic A. Actinologia Bri...
dry descriptions ; but there is nothing like a ramble on the coast with net and can , or across the downs , hammer in hand , to enlist our best sympathies in the pursuit of those new pages of natural sciencethe geology and the zoolosgr of the deep .
778 The Leader. [Ko. 437, Attest 7, 1858...
778 THE LEADER . [ Ko . 437 , Attest 7 , 1858 .
Memoir And Letters Of The Late Thomas Se...
MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF THE LATE THOMAS SEDDON , AETIST . Menunr and Letters qftha Latt Thomas Seddon , Artitl . . By his Brother . James Nisbet and Co . Tko 3 Tas Seddon was born in 1821 , of a family long connected with , and nov , we l ) elieve , very eminent in the trade of cabinet working . He was taken into his father ' s employ after leaving school , and the dryliess of mere business being found utterly unconge srial to him , he was sent in 1841 to Pans to study ornamental art . He returned after a twelvemonth
« n unsettled character . He hated work religiously , ut good natural instincts got the upper hand , ana , until 1848 , he wasf the industrious art-designer for tiie factory , studying literature and art by nisrht . In 1850 , he was at great pains to establish a school for the instruction of workmen in drawing . This was hardly successful , and while preparing for an exposition , of bis pupils' work , he contracted severe rheumatic fever , which had an important bearing upon iris future career . Upon his recovery in 1851 , when he was in his thirtieth year , it was found that his continuous services could be dispensed with at the place of business , and he set up as a professional artist .
At the end of 1853 he landed at Alexandria , and iwtween Egypt and Palestine spent one year in the Bast . Fragments of his letters and journals during that perioa make up the Memoir before us ; and tliough they possess few points of interest not < jonamon . to those of other travellers , and are deficient where we most looked for excellence , there are still some nice " bits" of word-painting and some pleasant little travelling experiences among them . The finer quality of our artist's nature was brought but strongly on one sad occasion . He had accidentally met in the Desert with a young Englishman , who was near death , and in order to soothe his last weeks of suffering :, took up his abode with
him in the true spirit of the good Samaritan . He -encamped beside him with Hohnan Hunt , in full view of the Pyramids , of which he began a sunset view , _ . and never left him until be had closed his eyes in peace . There are several passages in the journal which show that , though a religious man at heart , Seddon . was neither ascetic nor fanatic . There are signs of both humour and geniality in the following : — To-day my boy ' s mother came to me , and asked me to write a paper to prevent her husband ' s beating her . In vain I represented that it was a very delicate thing
to interfere in ; that , in fact , the beating was a very good thing , and would make her the better ; and , finally , that I could not write in Arabic , and that nobody in the village could-write English . She said that English would do just as well ; so , as it was no use insisting , she brought me some paper , and I wrote , " I hereby order Abdallah Ebu Kateen not to beat El biut esma Miriam biut l ' el Zobeid , hia wife , under pain of my heavy displeasure ; and if he persists , I shall send the Howager Hunt to settle him . ( Signed ) Tkomas Seddon . " The lady was delighted , and blessed me , and knelt down sm & kissed my hand : and her son and she called me all
the grand names in the world . After the death of the traveller , Seddon took possession of his quarters—a tomb at the Pyramidswhile Mr . Hunt lodged in Cairo , lie stopped a month in his " oven , " and after a fortnight at Cairo started with his companion , Hunt , for the Holy Laud on . the 10 th of May . At Damietta , her MajK ^ t y ' s consul , a Syrian , entertained the painters : — Alter dinner ( says the diary ) we began to smoke . The ¦ Axat pipe * ' were six feet long , with amber mouth-pieces ; . and . overy ten minutes a set with longer steins and richer mouth-pieces were introduced , till , after examining a -whole arsenal of guns and piatols and exterminating the JtaseiavB several times , the pipes had become eighteen
feet long , with amber tops- as large as hen ' s eggs , -wreathed in diamonds ; and as nothing short of a email / palm-tree could come next , we took our leave . They arrived on the 3 rd of June at Jerusalem , by ¦ way of Joppa , and Seddon soon pitched hia tent upon Aceldama , in full view of the Holy City , look-¦ ing over the King ' s gardens , up the valley of -Jehoshaphat . Here Seddon lived for more than four months , and really and truly devoted himself to painting the picture of Jerusalem novr placed in the national collection . On June the 30 th , when only three weeks had paMed over his head , uo describes his existence a follow * : —
The perfect monotony of my daily life furnishes no materials at all for letter-writing . I never aee a European except on Sundays , unless Hunt or some one looks in , perhaps for five minutes , during their morning or eveniug walk or ride , to shake hands and tell me that the report they gave me last week of a great defeat of the Kussians is completely false . I get up before sunrise , breakfast and paint till eleven , then read , darn , dine , or sleep till two ; then , paint till six ; then I have to return , pat up my things , and go out for a walk , ana just as I go out every one else is obliged to go in , for the gun fires at sunset—seven o ' clock—and the gates are fibut a quarter of an hour afterwards . Of the view from his plateau lie savs : —«
The hills are of a light grey limestone , lying in strata , so that the hill-sides form a succession of terraces naturally . At present tlie colour varies singularly . Whenever the light shines directly on them the hills look white , with lines of yellow running along them from the day , parched herbage ; but wken the sun is high , so that the sides of the rocky ledges are in shadow , the hill is of a glorious purple , mixed with the golden and brown tints of the herbage . The white rock is also very susceptible of colour from the rays of the morning
or evening sun , and the little earth , that is visible , being reddish . The Mount of Olives every evening is of a wonderfully beautiful rather red purple . The slopes of the Mount of 01 ive 3 , opposite the temple , and the sides of Mount Zion , are covered with the flat stone tablets of the modern Jewish graves . At a little distance it seems as if the whole hill-side vrere covered with a flock of sheep . My tent is pitched in the midst of Aceldama . I am surrounded by the older sepulchres of the ancient Jews- —large chambers hewn out of the solid rock iu the face of the perpendicular side of the vallev of Hinnom .
with tlie exception of a week ' s compulsory absence , from illness , and a three days' trip to Hebron and Bethlehem , Seddon painted at Aceldama until the 19 th of October . He had stuck to his easel to the exclusion of all else . We were surprised to fiud that he had not even reached the Dead Sea , though you may almost look into it from the " purple brows of Olivet . " But his heart—and here is the secret of men's strength and weakness too—had been locked up all the while at Dinan , and to Diiian he repaired , as soon as he could reasonably excuse himself for leaving Palestine . He lost no time , for though he tarried a day in Paris to < lo commissions and buy sonic colours , he was in Diuan on the 4 th of ^ November , and from Dinan he wrote thus to his brother a week after : —
Indeed I must appear very absurd and changeable , but I atn not so . To feel a life ' s happiness hanging on the result of my poor hands' work , with the thousand difficulties , with illness and with the fear of it , to work on constantly , without seeing a soul—for at Jerusalem I never saw a Christian soul except on Sundays . —is enough to make one anxious . Hunt could not understand my not sacrificing everything to art , and conceived a very mean opinion of me , when , after fruitlessly urging me to stay and entirely complete my picture , I told him that I would toss all my pictures into the fire rather than stay a moment after the time I had fixed .
Yes , tlie secret of the unfinished pictures , the uiwisited Dead Sea , and tlie disappointed Hunt , was solved at Dinan , where lie went to paint foregrounds but was soon engaged to be married . In January , 1855 , he removed to London , took an exhibition studio in Beiners-street , and got Mr . Hus'kiu there in a propitious mood , ami became a fashionable artist . Duchesses and great Lords went to liis ^ handsome rooms , which were prettily arranged . ' So did the Honourable Arthur Gordon . Seddon was a man of business , too , and to an extent , we apprehend , which ought to be most shocking to your true P . R . B ., for when Mr . Gordon wanted . " the small dromedary , " which Seddon was obliged to say was sold , he nevertheless offered 1 o paint him ti duplicate " with an alteration in the man . " Oh ! 4 A 1 I if 1- » r * fc-f IVt rin t \\ t \ A ¦ ¦ w \ l ! nAi « . I MM . - ^ ^ . A ... ! .. ai £ UiJUlU
same time , of tie realitv . Tlie creator n , ™ 7 — vapour in the air at this time of the ve-u 44 t " ° distances of the utmost softues * , while 1 alt * ™^ * sunset , the black , black outline of the tree ^ against a sky of flame . below , Soin < i into the nin « f ? , violet , and . ' little to the south the Xf S ^ Sj of the moon glittered on the full-toned violet d-v . So Seddon found out , \ vc may suppose * ' on l , ;« second journey , that while he dreamed - from ZX to month , poor soul o intensely sharpened cue and feeling on his isolated plateau of Aceldama -US in his toAccll under the shadow of tile 1 W , these had been , in fact and in trut-li , getth ^ VeakS and weaker from day to day He leelune e ° ousclUs foe the first time , when he returned to the East how false had been the heretofore so welcome testimonies of his friends , - to the wondrous truth and beauty of lus work . Pool- Seddou had "lining « p
one ot those rarest and greatest of men ' s disco yenes—his own-shortcomings ; -, but it was written m the book that he was not to work out , or profit bj . it . . The shadow of the -hand of death was ou Ima when the passage iust quoted was written , lhat was on the 3 rd ot . November , and in a week the disease broke out . lie was missed from his accustomed place in church , anil the Rev Mr Lieder rode down after service , lie moved liim . in .-x state of extreme prostration , to his own house wlierc , bx spite of all that medical skill and Christian kindness could do , he sank peacefully and h only on tlie 23 rd , in his thirty-sixth year . It might-be- by some esteemed more generous to the memory of Thomas Seddon , ris -well as to thr
surviving biographer , pardonably blinded by affection , that the present volume should be passed over in silence , thaa that wo should take exception to its publication-. But sonic allowance must be . " made for , tli & fi ' ctfulness of the reviewer , avho , hoping for a kcSirnet vtithiu . V the . memoirs before us , discovered , after diligent perusal , nothirig but a dry husk . It was well known during Mr . Scddon ' s lifetime that he was backed to be excellent , and , in course of time ,
eminent , by an influential and talented cliquewell known , also , that a feeling and well-written , tliougli extravagant , eulogy had been pronounced u pon him" by the gifted autlior of '' Modern Painters " at a'posthumous . exhibition , of . bis performances . A . sum . of nearly GOO / , had been raised by public subscription for the purchase of bis beloved ' chefd'oeuvre , the " Jerusalem , " now hanging in Mailborough House . . "Men knew Unit he had tracked
the Nile , painted . ' the Pyramids on the spot , and had camped , with Ilohnaa Hunt for friend and fellow-traveller , in . Palestine . One hoped 1 o lind , if not in the Memoir , at least in the Letters , some traces of the poet-painter ' s mind , and of its progress during the approximation ami after the fusion of religious and artistic devotion , which is the vaunted , blazon of the art-sect of Seddon ' s adoption . One looked , at least , for some interesting references to the pi-p-Uanhaelilc Gamaliel by the disciple who sat so long at iiis feet beside the great ibunl o ( inspiration ' . The affectionate remarks of t lie editor , again , who , ia his preface , lent yet farflicr stimulus to curiosity , si ill added to cnir disappointment , when , after careful perusal of the Memoir , we found Ibc woll-sprin # of our hopes an ulLor mirage .
For it i , s the belief and hope of the wlilur ( lie says ) that the following pages will allow to tlaj ^ a who are now struggling in the arduous path of art how , -with a uoblo Jiud unselfish tiini , one haa toilocl aud ticxi in the same before them ; that seeing sometimes bis footprints in the ¦ way , they may take heart again in their discouragements ; and , above all , that they may learn , with him , to hold art , and success , and till things , but secondary to the one thing needful .
""« ¦ " •» »* vyu m v «> n ——« . UU . ( I JLJ 1 U UiUIJ [ Jlligll was very successful , and the artist was married at Paris on the 30 th of June . His exhibition of 1856 was not so productive as tlie first , and he determined to leave wife and child and revisit the East . It was a right and truly business-like step . lie had made his mark as a painter of Eastern subjects , and while he chose eo to continue , it was prdwablo lie would bo valued by a public who might not receive him in another groove . So wile ami child were left , and he set out again for Jerusalem ou the 12 th of October , never to return . Cairo was reached on the 23 rd , and a few days after wo find , in a letter to Hunt , still at Jerusalem , the following ingenious confessional criticism upon hia last Eastern work : & confession we ram fully appreciate : —
Here was promise : and wp were more than surprised when hard upon it , in the very opening passage of the work , followed the more practical caution to the reader against lioping for anything but an . evcry-day sketch of an ordinary person , a sketch free from startling incidents and dazzling traits . But , in truth , our whole notice of the work before us might well have been condensed into those few words . The heroism , we were tempted by the preface to sock for , if it existed , in Thomas
Seddon , has been suppressed iu his memoirs . Iso struggle , apparently , mid bis " noble rage" against " chill penury . " No icy world " froze the genial current of his soul . " ¦ j .- 'lo had indulgent parents , troops of affectionate friends , p osition and easy circumstances at his back , and ( it we nro wrong it ia the fault of the biographer ) rather drifted into art than took its difficult -heights by diligent sic ^ e mid perilous storm . As a sign and an encouragement to the struggling artist his Biography will he as useless us would bo that of any religious
In thla second visit , though the . zest of novelty is gone , y « t all strikes mo with deeper interest than before . I find that my impressions of atmospheric ofl ' ects had lost the wonderful delicacy , and glory of colour At tka
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 7, 1858, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07081858/page/18/
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