Part 7 (1/2)

After the death of her father, Angelica took up her abode in Rome; she would get up early, take up her palette and brush, and paint on till sunset in winter, till nearly six in the summer. In the evening, when she could no longer see to paint, she would go out and see her friends, and several nights in the week she would open her rooms to receive visitors. A hall, filled with statues and busts, led to her studio and other rooms, where hung her pictures by the great masters, heads by Vand.y.k.e and Rembrandt, her own portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and many other pictures.

Not only by the rich was she known and loved, but also by the poor. Her charity and kindness were boundless; she did not simply give her money to the many beggars who abound in Italy, but she tried to improve their condition, and help them to work for themselves.

Having obtained news of the death of her husband, Angelica Kaufmann married a Venetian artist; together they painted, together they enjoyed the grand Italian art, and when, in 1795, he died, Angelica seemed overwhelmed. This was the beginning of a series of troubles. She lost a great deal of the money she had saved owing to the failure of a bank and the unsettled state of England, which often prevented her money from arriving. ”But I have two hands still left,” she would say, ”and I can still work.” In 1802 her health failed. She went to Switzerland for change, but on her return her cough came back. Her strength grew less, her hand lost its cunning, and at last her busy fingers could no longer hold the brush.

In the summer of 1807 she died. People of all ranks gathered together at her funeral in Rome; artists, n.o.bility, poor, and rich came alike to do her honour. Her coffin was borne by girls in white, and like the great master Raphael, her two last pictures were carried behind the coffin, on which was placed a model of her right hand in plaster, with a paint-brush between its fingers.

Compared to the great and powerful artists before her, she was no mighty genius; her figures are more full of grace than force or energy; there is a sameness of design, which has called forth the saying, ”To see one is to see all,” but what she has painted she has painted truly. ”Her pencil was faithful to art and womanhood,” and we are proud to think that Angelica Kaufmann was one of the greatest artist-women the world has ever seen.

HANNAH MORE (1745-1833).

Hannah More was one of the first women who devoted her life to the poor.

She had been in London society; she knew most of the leading men of the day; she could have lived a comfortable life in the midst of great people; but she chose rather to build herself a little house in the country, and there to work with her sister Patty among the rough miners of Somersets.h.i.+re.

She was one of the younger daughters of Jacob More, a schoolmaster, near Gloucester. Her grandmother was a vigorous old woman, who even at the age of eighty used to get up at four in the morning with great energy.

Hannah learnt to read at the age of three. While still small enough to sit on her father's knee, she learnt Greek and Roman history; he used to repeat the speeches of the great men of old in the Greek or Latin tongue, which delighted the child, and then translate them till the eager little eyes sparkled ”like diamonds.” Her nurse had lived in the family of Dryden, and little Hannah heard many a story of the poet from her nurse's lips.

When quite small, it was her delight to get a sc.r.a.p of paper, scribble a little poem or essay, and hide it in a dark corner, where the servant kept her brush or duster. Sometimes the little sister who slept with her, probably Patty, would creep downstairs in the dark to get her a piece of paper and a candle to write by. To possess a whole quire of paper was the child's greatest ambition.

One of her elder sisters went to a school in Bristol from Mondays till Sat.u.r.days, and from Sat.u.r.day to Monday little Hannah set herself diligently to learn French from her sister. When she was sixteen, she also went to Bristol, and there she met many clever people, who were charmed with her, and looked on her bright conversation and manner as proofs of dawning genius.

Once, when she was ill, a well-known doctor was called in to attend her.

He had paid her many visits, when one day she began to talk to him on many interesting subjects. At last he went; but when he was half-way downstairs, he cried out, ”Bless me! I quite forgot to ask the girl how she was!” and returning to the room he inquired tenderly, ”And how are you to-day my poor child?”

The following year she wrote a drama called ”The Search after Happiness.”

”The public have taken ten thousand copies,” she says, ”but _I_ have not the patience to read it!”

When she went to London she was introduced to Garrick the actor, Sir Joshua Reynolds the artist, and many other clever people. Sir Joshua Reynolds one day took her to see Dr. Johnson, or ”Dictionary Johnson,” as she called him. She was very nervous, as no one knew how the great doctor would receive her, or what temper he would be in. But it was all right.

He came to meet her ”with good humour on his countenance,” and with royal grace greeted her with a verse out of her own ”Morning Hymn.”

When she went to see him one day alone, he was out. So Hannah More went into his parlour, and seated herself in his great chair, hoping to feel inspired by so doing. When Dr. Johnson entered, she explained to him why she was sitting there; at which he went into fits of laughing, and cried out that it was a chair he _never_ sat in.

After this he became a frequent visitor at the house of the five sisters--

”I have spent a happy evening,” he cried one night. ”I love you all five; I am glad I came. I will come and see you again.”

In 1777, Hannah More wrote a play called ”Percy.” Hidden in the corner of a box at the theatre, she anxiously watched the performance of her play; she heard her hero speak through the voice of her friend Garrick; she saw her audience--even the men--shedding tears, and she knew it was a success.

So much did her writings apply to the feelings of her audience, that after the performance of one of her plays called the ”Fatal Falsehood,” when a lady said to her servant girl, who had been to the play, that her eyes looked red, as if she had been crying, the girl answered:

”Well, ma'am, if I did, it was no harm; a great many respectable people cried too!”

The death of David Garrick affected Hannah More deeply. Mrs. Garrick sent for her at once in her trouble, and, though ill in bed at the time, Hannah More came to comfort her friend. After this she spent much time with Mrs. Garrick, often in the depths of the country giving up her time to reading and writing, and taking long walks to the pretty villages round.