[Born at Deritend, Birmingham, April 29, 1783; scene-painter in London, 1804; President of the “Associated Artists,” 1810; member of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, 1813; drawing-master at Hereford, 1814-1826; published “Treatise on Landscape Painting,” 1814, “Lessons in Landscape,” 1816, “Young Artists’ Companion,” 1825, etc.; took lessons in oil painting from W. J. Müller, 1839; removed to neighbourhood of Birmingham, 1841, visiting Bettws-y-Coed yearly, 1844-1856; died June 7, 1859. EXHIBITED: Royal Academy, 1805-’08; ’27-’29, ’43, ’44; Associated Artists, 1809-’12; Society of Painters in Water-Colours, 1813-’16, ’18-’59; British Institution, 1814, ’28, ’43; Society of British Artists, 1841, ’42. WORKS IN PUBLIC GALLERIES: National Gallery; V. and A. Museum (Water-Colours); British Museum; National Galleries of Scotland and Ireland; Birmingham Art Gallery; Manchester Whitworth Institute; Glasgow, Manchester, Bury, Nottingham Art Galleries, etc. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES: “Memoir of the Life of David Cox,” by N. Neal Solly, 1875; Wedmore’s “Studies in English Art,” 2nd series. REPRODUCTIONS: Solly’s “Memoir”; Masters of English Landscape Painting (THE STUDIO Summer Number, 1903); “Drawings of David Cox” (Newnes’s “Modern Master Draughtsmen” Series).] It was not till about 1840, when he was fifty-seven years of age, that Cox managed to break free from the drudgery of teaching. This drudgery during the greater part of his life undoubtedly exercised a mischievous effect upon his art. Besides wasting so much of his time, and thus preventing him from attempting works which required sustained efforts, it forced him to develop a mechanical and facile dexterity of style. He got into the habit of “slithering” over the individual forms of objects, making his rocks and trees as rounded and shapeless as his clouds, in a way that irritates any one who has learned to use his eyes. There is some truth in John Brett’s remark that “the daubs and blots of that famous sketcher (David Cox) were just definite enough to suggest ... the most superficial aspects of things,” though it may have been prompted by envy and exasperation. Cox’s reputation nowadays rests to a large extent on the drawings he made after 1840. _Hayfield with Figures_, _The Young Anglers_ (1847), the _Welsh Funeral_ (1850), _The Challenge_ (1853), and _Snowden from Capel Curig_ (1858) were among the fine things produced by the grand old artist during the last years of his life. Such moving and powerful works are stamped with the sincerity, simplicity, and rugged dignity of David Cox’s own character. SAMUEL PROUT