This black and white view of the vicissitudes of Cosway's career is due, in the first instance, to Mr. J.T. Smith, engraver, antiquarian, and author of the _Life of Nollekens_ and other books. Mr. Shipley, from Northampton, brother of the Bishop of St. Asaph, and founder of the Society of Arts, had established a drawing school at No. 229 in the Strand. Cosway, when quite a lad, says Smith, obtained the notice of Shipley, and was engaged by him to attend in the studio and carry to and fro the tea and coffee with which the housekeeper of the establishment was permitted to provide the students at a cost of threepence per head. Nollekens and the father of Smith were among the students, and good-naturedly, the story goes on to say, gave the boy Richard Cosway instruction in drawing, and encouraged him to compete for the prizes he afterwards obtained from the Society of Arts. These particulars probably Smith obtained from his father or from Nollekens--if indeed they be not wholly due not so much to his own invention as to the confusion of names and misconception of incidents to which every one is liable who puts too great a strain upon his memory. Allan Cunningham, it may be observed, relates facts concerning Cosway's origin and youth which go far towards controverting the errand-boy episode in his life, as chronicled by Smith. Richard Cosway was born in 1740, at Tiverton, in Devonshire, a county singularly productive of famous artists, having given birth among others to Haydon, Northcote, and Reynolds. The father of Cosway was the master of the grammar-school at Tiverton: his uncle was for some time mayor; and the family, originally Flemish, and engaged in woollen manufactures, was possessed of considerable property in the town and neighbourhood. To the connexion of the Cosways with Flanders was ascribed their ownership of certain valuable works by Rubens, which first lit up a love of painting in the heart of young Cosway, and made him an idle schoolboy and an indefatigable artist. The master of Tiverton school was naturally indignant at the want of scholarly application of his son and pupil; was for birching him into better behaviour, forbidding him to ply his pencil at all under heavy penalties. The boy's uncle, the mayor, and a judicious friend and neighbour, one Mr. Oliver Peard, seem to have better appreciated the situation. They interposed on behalf of the young artist, and succeeded in obtaining for him permission to make drawings during such times as he could be spared from the grammar-school. But at last it appears to be agreed on all hands that the boy must close his books: he is wilful, and must have his way--become an artist: there is no hope whatever of his succeeding in any other line of life. He is to be humoured to the top of his bent. His passion is to be cured by indulging it. If he succeeds--well and good,--there is nothing more to be said. If he fails, his failure will sober him, his friends argue: