The rise of Chantrey, the sculptor, from peasant-life was nobly earned. He was born in the village of Norton, Derbyshire, in 1781, of parents in humble circumstances. When a boy carrying milk to the next town, he would stop to form grotesque figures of the yellow clay; and he moulded his mother’s butter on churning-days into various forms. From his fondness for drawing and modelling he was apprenticed to a carver and gilder at Sheffield. Thence he came to London, and began to work at carving in stone, not having received a single lesson from any sculptor; and he laboured for eight years without earning 5_l._ in his profession. At length, a single bust brought him 12,000_l._-worth of commissions, and he rose to be the first sculptor of his day. He died in 1841, and was buried in a tomb which he had built for himself in the churchyard of his native village, where a granite obelisk has been raised to his memory. He was ever mindful of his lowly origin; for when he had become famous, and had received knighthood, at a party given by his patron, Mr. Thomas Hope, Sir Francis Chantrey was observed to notice a piece of carved furniture; on being asked the reason, he replied, “This was my first work.” It is scarcely possible to name Chantrey without being reminded of his friend, “honest Allan Cunningham,” who, born in the county of Dumfries, in 1784, received but scanty education, and at the age of eleven was apprenticed to a mason. In the intervals of his laborious occupation, “he sought knowledge wherever he could obtain it,” and drew his earliest poetic inspiration from the dear country of Burns—the wilds of Nithsdale, and the lone banks of the Solway. Here he earned his daily bread as a common stonemason until his twenty-sixth year, when he came to London, wavering between labour and literature. He chose the latter, in reporting for the newspapers; but, soon tired of its perplexities, he resumed his first calling, and by a fortunate opportunity, to which his own excellent character recommended him, he became foreman of the works of Chantrey, in which honourable employment he remained until the sculptor’s death, in 1841. In his intervals of business, by untiring industry, Allan Cunningham produced a succession of works noteworthy in the poetry and general literature of his day. His first poetry was printed in 1807: he also wrote stirring romances; and in collecting Tradition Tales of the Scottish Peasantry, by the light of an evening fire, he sweetened many an hour of remission from daily labour. Later in life he became a critic of the Fine Arts, and wrote with amiable feeling, honesty, and candour, and mature and liberal taste: it was well observed of him in his lifetime: “He needs no testimony either to his intellectual accomplishments or his moral worth; nor, thanks to his own virtuous diligence, does he need any patronage.” His genius and artistic judgment have been inherited by his third son, Peter Cunningham, the