SAMTTEL PALMER"

AT first sight it might seem that this volume appeals primarily

to artists, and to the personal friends of the painter and etcher Samuel Palmer ; but when we close the book, we feel that there are few persons who will not be the better for reading the record of one whose life was lived nobly and conscientiously, and whose high standard of Art was never for an instant abandoned in order to enrich himself or to pander to the public taste. Even if Palmer had not at last achieved fame, at least among those who know the true value of the word, and who have recognised him as one of our few really great English painters and etchers, the record of his extraordinary patience, his loving study of Nature, his humility before this teacher, his kindliness of disposition and his originality of thought would have made us give a hearty welcome to this Life, in spite of a few failures in its literary form, and its somewhat too great length.

Samuel Palmer was born in 1805. His father was a book- seller living in Surrey Square, in the parish of St. Mary's, Newington, and, though claiming kindred with Richard Hooker, was himself a religions, simple-minded Baptist. While greatly appreciating a literary education, be was somewhat un- certain as to the form it should take with regard to his eldest son, for though he sent him to Merchant Taylors' School, he soon took him away again when he discovered his taste for drawing. Keeping him at home, he permitted him to dabble too early in Art, without any proper or severe training; neverthe- less, he allowed him to read to his heart's content, and helped to lay the foundation of the artist's passion for Milton, Cowper, and other classical authors. This solitude naturally increased the boy's already too sensitive nature, which school-life would have blunted ; indeed, it might probably have saved him, physically and mentally, much suffering in after-life. But this is idle speculation, and a great deal of his father's teaching bore fruit. Every day a portion of the Scriptures was learnt by heart, and this precept repeated, "Custom is the plague of wise men and the idol of fools ;" and never was lesson more taken to heart, for of all the influences which may have affected this artist, certainly " custom " was never one of them. His mother's death, when he was but thirteen years old, caused him intense suffering, and this almost abnormal sensibility never left him, nearly crushing him when death bereaved him of two of his own children. At fourteen he had the pleasure of exhibiting and selling a picture, an event which must have pleased his father, and confirmed him in his line of action, but which served only to bewilder the artistic outlook of the boy, who soon began "to flounder into the deep waters of his profession," getting friendly advice from Stothard, but no real training. It is wonderful that Palmer ever recovered from these early mistakes ; but at last a friend- ship formed with the courageous artist, John Linnel, was his salvation, for through him he was introduced to Varley and Mulready, and this last impressed upon him the meaning of the words " patience " and "accuracy."

Then came, what was perhaps the turning-point of his life, the acquaintance with that strange genius who so much in- fluenced his friends as to blind many of them to his eccen- tricities. One day in October, 1824, Linnel took his young friend to see Blake, and Samuel Palmer records as follows,— (through all his life he indefatigably wrote down his thoughts and doings) :—

" We found him lame in bed, of a scalded foot (or leg). There, not inactive, though sixty years old, but hard-working on a bed covered with books, sat he up like one of the Antique Patriarchs or a dying Michael Angelo. Thus and there was he making, in the leaves of a great book (folio), the sublimest designs from his (not superior) Dante. He said he began them with fear and trembling. I said : 'Oh! I have enough of fear and trembling.' —` Then,' said he, 'you'll do.'" Henceforth Palmer became one of Blake's staunchest ad- mirers, not even hesitating to call him the equal of Michael A ngelo! However, nothing but good. resulted from this

acquaintance with Blake and his circle, for at last it set Palmer on the right road, and, instead of floundering, he began to study the great masters, constantly repeating to himself the advice given to him, "Look at Albert Dfirer." With Blake's help, he enters into the Dreamland of Art, never more to lose hold of the poetry he there imbibed, so that

• The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher. By A. H. Palmer. London Seeley and Co.

what he somewhere says of his teacher is applicable to himself. "He saw everything through Art, and in matters beyond its range exalted it from a witness into a judge." In "the House of the Interpreter," as his disciples called Blake's humble dwelling, Palmer met such men as Richmond, Calvert, Finch, and others ; and these soon formed a coterie, calling themselves "The Ancients," holding monthly meetings, and having for their motto, "Poetry and Sentiment." All were full of enthusiasm, originality, and talent, which the world's neglect never daunted and the world's praise never spoiled. About this time, Palmer and his father removed to a cottage at Shoreham, in Kent, and here, during seven years of congenial work, "the Ancients" would pay them periodical visits, tramping many a mile by day and night with young Palmer, watching the smiles and tears of their mistress Nature, and serving her with untiring devotion. This Shoreham period is full of hope ; the future appeared glorious, and the present intensely interesting, for Palmer was looking "hard, long, and continually" at what he called "real landscape," showing a predilection for sheep, twilight, cornfields, and church spires, the pious Baptist's son having now become a staunch Churchman.

In 1833, Samuel Palmer returned to London, apparently without his father, but constant work was enlivened by occa- sional visits to Devonshire and Cornwall, alone or with one of "the Ancients." We read in Richard Redgrave's Life, a description of his first meeting with Palmer, when he and Cope were sitting by the fire in a Welsh inn one pouring wet day. Suddenly "they saw a figure approaching the inn door, very wet and very strangely clothed ; they first took him for a pedlar, but the pedlar turned out to be a painter ; his wares, pack, &c., were arrangements devised by himself for storing his whole painting apparatus, clothes, necessaries of travel, upon his own person !" In the matter of clothes, all through his life Palmer protested against custom, and his son gives us several amusing stories on this subject. The present writer knew a young lady to whom he promised one of his best etchings if she would get five others of her sex to leave off stays ! Such a bribe would certainly have induced many to become members of the Rational Dress Society, had it then existed.

Want of space forbids us to do more than note the chief events that followed ; his happy marriage with the artist's daughter, Hannah Linnel, herself an artist ; his two.

years' residence with her in Italy, where both worked cease- lessly, he from Nature, whilst she copied old masters ; his return to London and struggles with poverty, when lessons had of necessity to be given, for his oil pictures would not sell, and so from force of circumstance be gave up oils for water- colours. In 1840, he writes :—" Supposing lessons stop, and nothing more is earned—avoid snuff, two candles, sugar in tea, waste of butter and soap, but it is more difficult at present to get than to save. Query : Go into the country for one month and make little drawings for sale." But perseverance won the day ; in 1843 be was elected Associate of the Old Society of Water-Colours (of which he became member in 1854), and henceforth his slowly rising reputation saved him from the terrible alternative of making little drawings for sale. All who remember his splendid series of Miltonic water- colours, executed for Mr. Valpy, and exhibited at South Ken- sington Museum, can be in no doubt as to his right to be called a great colourist.

The rest of his life may be summed up in two words, "hard work," with few events, save the removal from London to High. Ashes, on Leith Hill, for the sake of his eldest son's health But country air could not save him, and his death was a crushing blow to the father (as had previously been the loss of a little daughter) ; indeed, he never recovered from it, but became a changed man, in spite of the depth of a religious faith which taught him resignation. From this period he threw himself more into the art of etching, especially after his retirement to Furze Hill, not far from Red Hill Junction, a lovely situation 400 ft. above the sea, where he could enjoy the view and the quiet, and where he could now afford to pore over his copper-plates, his acids, and his etching-needles, and with patient care unravel the mysteries of this fascinating art. Here he died in May, 1881, working hard to the end, leaving a stainless memory, and possessing, as he says of some one else, "asymmetrical soul, a thing very beautiful and very rare." We have given this outline of the artist's life, not in order

to save others the trouble of reading the book, but to incite them to do so, for we cannot quote Palmer's many wise and pithy remarks on life and art. He had a passion for literature at a time when many artists thought art enough without much cultivation of the mind, not recognising that the true artist, like the true poet, should be a prophet, enter- ing deeply into the heart of things, and, in order to do this, that his own intellectual powers must be cultivated to the utmost. It is not enough to produce pictures—there are already too many in the world—but what is required from painters is the revelation of new and original thought.

As Samuel Palmer's permanent fame will, we think, be greatly heightened by, if it does not rest chiefly upon, his etchings (though only thirteen in number), it may be well to say a few words about this art of which the public knows so little, that any scribble in pen-and-ink is called an etching. Now, how- ever, that we have a Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, with its famous President, Seymour Haden, we may hope for a better appreciation of this great art, an art practised by Albert Diirer, Rembrandt, Meryon, Turner, and many other great men ; an art capable of giving us the first inspiration of the artist's mind, as well as his mature thought, but which is eminently capable also of betraying his weakness ; for, as Mr. Hamerton says—himself a friend and correspondent of Palmer—" the art of etching has no mechanical attractive- ness. If an etching has no meaning, it can interest nobody."

Samuel Palmer belonged to the time when etching was still wholly the artist's work with his needle, and not a conjunction of artist and printer; for him it was the best exponent of the artist-author's thought. His soul was vexed by retroussage, which he looked upon as a mean substitute for real work. "Sometimes," says he, "it has been very effective, but in most instances is as inferior to linear as to become quite another art ; but then," he adds in gentle irony, "as it produces effect quite as satisfactory to the public eye in about one-fifth of the time, it beats linear etching out of the market." Out of the "market," perhaps, but not, let us hope, out of the realm of Art. The writer has before him one of Palmer's beautiful etchings, called "The Early Ploughman." Any one who compares it with many a modern etching will see why the old artist mourned, and will the better be enabled to appreciate the value of the true etched line, capable of throwing its tiny shadow on the paper, as against the effective smudge which may, and often does, hide incompetent knowledge. This etching shows us Dawn lifting the curtain of Night, and flinging the promise of a lovely day on many a soft cloud above. Below this light we get the dark hill, the distant rocks, the bridge-spanned stream, and upon the other side the stately cypresses, which somehow remind us of Milton, whilst in the foreground there is the ploughman with his team of oxen, and further back a woman bearing a pitcher of water upon her head. The whole is exquisitely proportioned, and worked out with consummate skill and thought ; even the flight of birds helps out the movement of the awakening day, though every detail is subordinate to the central idea. As we gaze, the picture seems to us to be full of colour, such subtle magic can the poet's mind evoke when allied to the cunning hand of a master-etcher.

But we must leave the subject, hoping that some of our enthusiasm for the artist will be transferred to the reader, and we cannot do better than close this notice with Mr. Hamerton's words about the subject of it :—" As for the thoughts he has to express, they are pure poetry, and come to him f rota the rich realm of the imagination which the poets only can find at all, and which they find everywhere."