ABRAHAM COOPER (1787--1868), the son of an inn-keeper, was born in London, and early showed singular skill with his pencil. The inn stables furnished his first and favoured subjects, and the portrait of a favourite horse belonging to Sir Henry Meux gained him his first patron. In 1814 Cooper exhibited at the British Institution _Tam o'Shanter_, which was purchased by the Duke of Marlborough. In 1817 _The Battle of Marston Moor_ secured his election as an Associate of the Academy: he became a R.A. in 1820. There is little variety in the subjects of this painter's works. The best known are _The Pride of the Desert_, _Hawking in the Olden Time_, _The Dead Trooper_, _Richard I._ and _Saladin at the Battle of Ascalon_, and _Bothwell's Seizure of Mary, Queen of Scots_. WILLIAM MULREADY (1786--1863), the ablest _genre_ painter in England except Wilkie, was born at Ennis, in the County Clare. Although his works are familiar to most of us as household words, few details of his life are known. We know that his father was a maker of leather-breeches, and that he came to London with his son when the latter was about five years old. The child is said to have shown very early the artistic power which was in him. He sat as a model for Solomon to John Graham, who was illustrating Macklin's Bible and probably the surroundings of the studio stimulated young Mulready's artistic instincts. By the recommendation of Banks, the sculptor, he gained entrance to the Academy Schools; at the age of fifteen he required no further pecuniary aid from his parents. Mulready worked in the Academy Schools, as he worked through life, with all his heart and soul. He declared he always painted as though for a prize, and that when he had begun his career in the world he tried his hand at everything, "from a caricature to a panorama." He was a teacher all his life, and this accounts, perhaps, for the careful completeness of his pictures. Mulready married when very young, and did not secure happiness. He began by painting landscapes, but in 1807 produced _Old Kasper_, from Southey's poem of "The Battle of Blenheim," his first subject picture. _The Rattle_ appeared a year later, and marked advance. Both pictures bear evidence that their author had studied the Dutch masters. In 1815 Mulready was chosen A.R.A., but before his name could appear in the catalogue he had attained to the rank of a full member. This was in 1816, when he exhibited _The Fight interrupted_ (Sheepshanks Collection). From this time he was a popular favourite, and his pictures, of which he exhibited on an average scarcely two a year, were eagerly looked for. We may specify _The Wolf and the Lamb_, _The Last in_, _Fair Time_, _Crossing the Ford_, _The Young Brother_, _The Butt_, _Giving a Bite_, _Choosing the Wedding Gown_, and _The Toyseller_ (all in the National Gallery or in the South Kensington Museum). "With the exception perhaps of some slight deterioration in his colouring, which