July 6.--The birth-day of JOHN FLAXMAN, the late eminent sculptor, whose works have done so much to form the English school of design. Flaxman was born in 1755, in York, from whence he was removed in his infancy to London, where his father, who was a moulder of figures, subsequently kept a shop in the Strand for the sale of plaster casts. The father’s occupation, no doubt, contributed to call forth the genius of the son; but the boy very early began to give evidence of fondness for those arts to which his future life was devoted, and of singular taste and skill in the efforts of his uninstructed pencil. Like many more of the most distinguished cultivators of literature and art, he was prevented by the weakness and delicate health of his early years from mixing in the ruder sports of boys of his own age; and this, of course, gave him more time for solitary study. His father was not able to afford him the advantages of a regular education; but he rapidly acquired a great deal of knowledge by his own unaided efforts. When he was fifteen he was admitted a student in the Royal Academy. Here he was successful in a competition for the inferior honour of the silver medal; but on the contest for the gold one, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the President, awarded the prize to another. This was, perhaps, upon the whole, not an unfortunate incident for Flaxman, though he severely felt what he thought an injustice. His rival, notwithstanding his good fortune on this occasion, never rose to any distinction; but Flaxman, with the heroism of true genius, resolved to obliterate this defeat of his youth by future triumphs, of the glory of which no such decision should be able to rob him. And this resolution he nobly fulfilled. His first employment was given him by the Messrs. Wedgewood, the productions of whose porcelain potteries he embellished with designs that gave at once a new character to this branch of British manufactures. In 1782 he married; and five years afterwards proceeded to visit Italy, where he remained till 1794, studying the celebrated monuments of the fine arts with which that country abounds, and at the same time exerting his own pencil in the production of works which soon spread his fame over Europe. Having then returned to England, he was in 1797 elected an Associate, and in 1800 a Member, of the Royal Academy. After this he executed many great works in marble; and, as a lecturer, afforded some valuable contributions to the literature of his profession. For many years before his death his name ranked with the highest of the living artists of England. But we must refer the reader for an account of his performances to Mr. Allan Cunningham’s interesting life of him, lately published, or to the abstract of that memoir in the second number of the Gallery of Portraits. He died at his house in Buckingham-street, on the 7th of December, 1826, in the seventy-second year of his age. ---------------------