William Etty was another notable instance of unflagging industry and indomitable perseverance in art. His father was a ginger-bread and spicemaker at York, and his mother—a woman of considerable force and originality of character—was the daughter of a ropemaker. The boy early displayed a love of drawing, covering walls, floors, and tables with specimens of his skill; his first crayon being a farthing’s worth of chalk, and this giving place to a piece of coal or a bit of charred stick. His mother, knowing nothing of art, put the boy apprentice to a trade—that of a printer. But in his leisure hours he went on with the practice of drawing; and when his time was out he determined to follow his bent—he would be a painter and nothing else. Fortunately his uncle and elder brother were able and willing to help him on in his new career, and they provided him with the means of entering as pupil at the Royal Academy. We observe, from Leslie’s Autobiography, that Etty was looked upon by his fellow students as a worthy but dull, plodding person, who would never distinguish himself. But he had in him the divine faculty of work, and diligently plodded his way upward to eminence in the highest walks of art. Many artists have had to encounter privations which have tried their courage and endurance to the utmost before they succeeded. What number may have sunk under them we can never know. Martin encountered difficulties in the course of his career such as perhaps fall to the lot of few. More than once he found himself on the verge of starvation while engaged on his first great picture. It is related of him that on one occasion he found himself reduced to his last shilling—a _bright_ shilling—which he had kept because of its very brightness, but at length he found it necessary to exchange it for bread. He went to a baker’s shop, bought a loaf, and was taking it away, when the baker snatched it from him, and tossed back the shilling to the starving painter. The bright shilling had failed him in his hour of need—it was a bad one! Returning to his lodgings, he rummaged his trunk for some remaining crust to satisfy his hunger. Upheld throughout by the victorious power of enthusiasm, he pursued his design with unsubdued energy. He had the courage to work on and to wait; and when, a few days after, he found an opportunity to exhibit his picture, he was from that time famous. Like many other great artists, his life proves that, in despite of outward circumstances, genius, aided by industry, will be its own protector, and that fame, though she comes late, will never ultimately refuse her favours to real merit.