Things to be Remembered in Daily Life: With Personal Experiences and RecollectionsTimbs, John
Philosophy
Things to be Remembered in Daily Life: With Personal Experiences and Recollections
Timbs, John
Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Some aged persons have literally fallen asleep in death. Sir
Christopher Wren passed his latter years at Hampton Court, and his
townhouse in St. James’s-street. He caught cold, and this hastened
his death. He was in town; he was accustomed to sleep a short time
after dinner; and on February 25, 1723, his servant, thinking his
master had slept longer than usual, went into his room, and found
Wren dead in his chair; he was in his 91st year. James Elmes, who
wrote Wren’s life, died 1862, aged 80.
Copley, the Painter, died 1815, aged 78; his son, Lord Lyndhurst, in
1863, attained his 91st year: his mother lived to see her son a
second time Lord High Chancellor. Stothard, for several months
before his decease, though his bodily infirmities prevented his
attending to his labours as an artist, would not relinquish his
attendance at the meetings and lectures of the Royal Academy and in
the library, notwithstanding extreme deafness prevented his hearing
what was passing. Mr. Constable, in a letter to a friend, written in
1838, says: “I passed an hour or two with Mr. Stothard on Sunday
evening. Poor man! the only elysium he has in this world he finds in
his own enchanting works. His daughter does all in her power to make
him happy and comfortable.” Leslie remarks that Stothard must have
possessed great constitutional serenity of mind; he was also, no
doubt, much supported by his art. His easel, indeed, bore evidence
of the many years he had passed before it; the lower bar, on which
his foot rested, being nearly worn through. He died April 27, 1834,
in his 80th year, at his house in Newman-street, where he had
resided more than forty years.
Sir M. A. Shee, Painter, P.R.A., died 1850, at the age of 80. J. M.
W. Turner, the greatest landscape painter, R.A., 1851, at 77; and
1854, Geo. Clint, painter of humour, 82; Wachter, the famous
historical painter, who died 1852, reached 90. Two aged Frenchmen
died 1853: Fontaine, the architect, 90; and Renouard, bibliographer,
98. James Ward, the animal painter, who died 1859, reached 91;
Alfred Chalon, 1860, at 80; and in 1859, David Cox, founder of our
Water-Colour School, 76.
In 1850 died Schadow, the Hungarian Sculptor, 86. In 1856, Sir R.
Westmacott, the sculptor, R.A.; and next year, Christian Rauch, the
German sculptor, at 80.
Matthew Cotes Wyatt, the Sculptor of the colossal Wellington statue,
died 1862, at 86. The oldest engraver of the above period was John
Landseer, who died 1852, aged 90.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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