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A MEMOIR OF SIR EDGAR BOEHM.

"I AM in the most delightful difficulties with a life-size equestrian group, and long to get at it in the mornings (and such mornings as we often have), and cannot get away again all day, and then I am so tired that I go night after night to sleep with reproaches at having left all else undone."

So wrote Sir Edgar Boehm four days before November of last year closed. On the 12th of the following month we heard of his death, and have too much reason to believe that it was, in part at least, caused by his devotion to the art for which he lived.

In him we lose the first and greatest of our sculptors, one to whom it has been thought well to confide the execution of most of the monuments by which the nation has honoured her great men during the last thirty years, and whom we almost look on as a countryman of our own, so entirely has he identified himself with us from the time he first landed on our shores during the Hungarian troubles in 1848.

Some of the great workmen of our day have the power of weaving around themselves a golden halo of glorious achievement; but when one comes to inquire for the man apart from his labour, one frequently finds he is practically nonexistent. A brilliant exception to these, in his widely felt power of awakening interest and sympathy, is the sculptor who, nearly two score years ago, took his stand by a mountain of marble, from which he has evolved one by one the forms of men, many of whom are veritable kings, each in his own world of war and letters, science and statesmanship.

The rarest of Sir Edgar's great gifts was his power of looking through the mask of the man before him, to where he could see his "sein" beyond, and of finding that again in the stone beneath his hand. Most artists mistakenly content themselves with reproducing features only. This one must know his subject, study his characteristics almost as would a caricaturist, lead him on to talk till his inner being shows itself, and then, if the search has ended in success, the chisel may be left to perform its task for itself. Had we had even one interpreter who could and did go to work thus in each generation throughout our history, half of its vague and antagonistic pages might have remained unwritten. But such must aim at blending a faithful copy of the original with what is to a certain extent a distinct creation, and the number of those whose powers extend thus far, has at all times been rare.

As with others who live with eyes fixed on the work in their hands, Sir Edgar seems to have been almost distressed when he wonderingly found himself within the gates of the Temple of Fame.

"It humbles me to hear them praise my work, when by looking round they can see what men can do and have done," said he one day when his attention was directed to certain well-merited praise on productions of his own; and then he told the tale of the old painter of Sienna, who, with his hands crossed meekly on his breast and head bent reverently low, turned away from his canvas, before which he had stood long in silent meditation, saying, "May God forgive me that I did not do it better."

"I told them that when I gave them my first lecture at the Academy," he went on. "I daresay there was a good deal that they did not listen to that day, but I hope they heard that;" then he in his turn bent his head, unconsciously assuming the attitude of the old father of art, and remained thus for a moment, thinking of those imperfect developments of his own for which he believed absolution was needed.

In connection with Sir Edgar's lectures, it may not be out of place to mention that it was he who first initiated the School of Sculpture in the Royal Academy, thus generously repaying the warm hospitality which our island had extended to him. He frequently urged the injustice of the then conditions of that branch of art on the young men of the day during the presidency of Sir Francis Grant; but the latter listened with apathy, pleading his advancing years as a reason for not making any new departure, especially one to which there was little prospect of sympathy being accorded by the English public whose æsthetic education has at all times advanced so lingeringly.

When Sir Frederick Leighton, earnest, enthusiastic, and generous as the original promoter of the scheme himself, was made President, a move in the desired direction was effected, and among other things the travelling scholarships -those noble rewards of the honourable ambition of young sculptors were instituted.

It will be news to some to learn how much in the way of encouragement to the neophytes of art has to be done by those who, mindful of their own struggle, unaided, and protracted in some cases almost to the point of despair, determine to evolve leisure out of their occupied

lives, in order that talent and determination may receive meet recognition. Art enjoys no Government grant or protection in England, and the large income of the Royal Academy is derived entirely from the shillings of visitors to the Summer Exhibition. The French Government, on the contrary, is lavish in the aid it gives to aspirants to fame, and is rewarded by the increasing number of young artists who yearly rise from the ranks. These will, with Gallic fervour, deprive themselves almost of daily bread that they may obtain clay or stone in which to embody their conceptions, and win the rich prize with its attendant fame held up to keep hope glowing in their breast.

'They have such natural talent too, the French," Sir Edgar said in discussing the point; "they can do more with their left hand than any of us are able to do with both ours together."

Of Sir Frederick Leighton's own powers as a sculptor Sir Edgar spoke in affectionate admiration, mingled with generous regret that his friend had not so exclusively dedicated himself to this branch of art that he might have disputed with him on his own ground.

"But then he is so great all round," he added, with that enthusiastic loyalty which he always bestowed on those to whom he inclined. "He was born to be our President, and if he had not cared to go in for art, we should have heard of him as the most eloquent debater in the House of Commons."

Sir Edgar himself was a most interesting companion, his subjects of conversation extending over a far longer period of years than his personal appearance suggested. What to most of us, however, constitute the topics of the

day were to him points of almost amusing indifference. "I never read the newspapers," he would explain with apologetic frankness, if called on to give his views on the Eastern or kindred questions. "If anything special takes place, I trust to hearing some one mention it by chance; " and with a feeling of envy of the man who ventured to make the admission, one turned to hear of some conversation with Wagner or anecdote of Whistler: how the "Rienzi" came to be molten into the "Rhein Gold," and "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" came to be conceived.

Sir Edgar could tell his stories in many tongues. His English was particularly good, the chief distinction between it and that of an entire native, being that his words were more aptly chosen,— his proficiency in this probably being due to the fact that the use of Latin and English was compulsory in the school he attended as a boy, any departure from this rule being punished by a liberal flourish of the cane, he added, smiling. He strongly advocated the use of Latin, "that dead tongue which is destined to survive the living," on the base of his statues, and would not even admit that Tennyson's splendid lines on "the third great Canning," in Westminster Abbey, might not have been more fittingly replaced by a roll of classic hexa

meters.

Among the most interesting of his recollections are those concerning the Elchi Bey of the Crimea, whose statue will be considered by many among Sir Edgar's finest works. He described the fascinating effect of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's personal appearance, his stern ironbound jaw, sparkling blue eye, clear-cut features, overhanging

brows, and the haughty carriage of his head.

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"Any one who ever saw him under any circumstances," he said, "must have guessed at once how great a man he was. Then he went on to tell stories of the Elchi's passionate temper and good heart, and how he was lord of the Turk and the Russian, and of the Government at home, by right equally of his commanding intellect and his fiery unbridled moods.

"I thought I should have had him down on me once," said Sir Edgar, humorously. "He did not like the bust I had made of him, and, knitting his great brows on me, he shouted out, 'Why, you have made me look like a badtempered man!'”

Another story, as being specially characteristic of the sculptor himself, must be given. He was dining with a score of friends, each with a score of years of success upon his shoulders, when the old question was raised as to who would care to go through the pains and pleasures of life a second time. “I would, that I might build up my bird once more, "cried that staunch old naturalist Owen.

"And I," said Sir Edgar; "then I would take all my statues off their pedestals and do them over again.'

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The rest thought with Thackeray-whose bust has likewise come to life under Sir Edgar's hands-"that they would not wish to travel over the ground again, even though the pleasant days and dear companions attended to lighten the labour."

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Sir Edgar occasionally indulged in the pet grumble of the successful man, that the "prohibitive prices" by which he tried to fence himself in from urgent sitters proved no defence. "People crowd

to me now because my prices are prohibitive," he declared; and he found it more difficult than ever as time went on, he said some few months ago, to gain time for modelling faces whose only claim was that they interested him.

"And I am not so young now but that I must get what enjoyment out of life I can," he said on the same occasion, and then went on to try to give some little idea of what his profession was to him. "Art is certainly the most selfish of pursuits," he writes still later, "particularly if one has no great chance to give pleasure to future generations with the products; but it is the most engrossing pleasure for one's self." With him the acme of self-indulgence was to call up some great scientist or thinker-a Huxley or a Spencer-and work at a representation of him from love of the sitter's powerful brain alone.

"I never like to part with my toys when I have made them," he used to say. "If I had my own choice, I would never exhibit any of the works of which I am the perpetrator, but keep them all at home."

Carlyle, for whom he owned a special weakness, and whom he placed gloriously on the Thames Embankment, sending him also to Lord Rosebery at Dalmeny, showed his usually strong originality in Sir Edgar's atelier.

"I'll give you twenty-two minutes to make what you can of me," said the man of Heroes one day, storming in at the door in the guise of one of his own northern gales; and he stood there, watch in hand, while that rugged rock, his own massive brow, was carved out.

Hardly had the tiny arrows shot their last second to the rear than Sir Edgar, who had also

spared a glance for his time-keeper while he drew on his sitter to talk and to forget, pushed his clay aside, and the amused Scotchman give him his two- and - twenty minutes over again, and returned later to be studied to the core, and prove himself the delightful companion he knew how to be when the spirit moved him.

Lord Napier of Magdala was another who needed to be seen and known before he could be placed, field-glass in hand, as a colossal equestrian figure in Waterloo Place. Sir Edgar purloined his first sitting from a portrait, and represented him as a fierce slashing hero, such as seemed meet to storm the grim rock-fortress of Abyssinia and to frown fiery Sikhs into submission; but when the small spare man, with quiet eyes and gentle voice, who continued to do such good service to his Queen until his death two years ago, came into the room, the clay already manipulated was hurled into a corner, and the real Lord Napier called into being instead.

Lord Lawrence is another Eastern hero whom Sir Edgar placed above Pall Mall. This effigy was thought by the public to be out

of character with its surroundings; so a ship was chartered, and the statue launched on that sea which so many noble sculptured blocks from Sir Edgar's hands have crossed in turn. liked the first one best; but I daresay I am no judge," said the artist, simply, as he described the new one he set up in its place.

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In 1877, Sir Edgar sent a fine equestrian statue of the Prince. of Wales to Bombay; and it was followed last year by a colossal representation of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, the late Viceroy of India, who was a personal

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friend of his own. The model of this won universal approval when exhibited in London, and the sculptor has also been successful in a marble bust he executed of the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, which, in commemoration of her work in the East, is to be placed in the Zenana Hospital in Calcutta. Lord Dufferin's statue has found an excellent site on the Maidan, near Government House. Sir Edgar's contributions to our great ecclesiastical sculpture - gallery of St Paul's are a statue of Lord Mayo and a beautiful monument in bronze which was raised in honour of the Hero of Khartoum at the request of his brother. Memory, when unfettered by her pen, could say much of the touching representation of the gallant soldier who sank out of sight amidst the sands of the African deserts, but fails in the attempt to convey to another the impression produced by that noble face and recumbent form taking at last its rest. A fine position has been secured for it close to the great bronze doors, with their sweet-featured guardians of marble, which lead to Lord Melbourne's vault.

Another popular and brilliantly successful work from Sir Edgar's hand is a lifelike statue of Lord Beaconsfield, the peer's robes failing to conceal the Disraeli of old, who, with full eyelids drooped and head thrown back in his favourite attitude, seems about to step down from his pedestal in the silent Abbey and walk over to the Halls of Speech, to take part in a fiery debate on the other side of the yard.

The great groined roof, retreating into the twilight of its thousand years, was to have given kindly shelter to another sculptured form also chiselled by Sir Edgar Boehm, that of the young

Prince Imperial of France; but it was thought well to reserve this, the National mausoleum, for men more closely connected with us, and the statue accordingly went to Windsor.

In 1846 a long line of twentynine dray-horses drew Wyatt's equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington from the foundry to Hyde Park Corner, under the windows of Apsley House. There it remained for forty years, while criticism and defence fought hotly round its base. Ultimately the Noes had it. The Iron Duke galloped away to Aldershot, and Sir Edgar was requested to put up a more worthy representation of the nation's hero in its place.

Sir Edgar has for many years occupied the position of SculptorRoyal to the English Court. A colossal statue and a bust of our Queen; a magnificent effigy of the Prince Consort, placed in the Park at Windsor, and unveiled by her Majesty's own hand some few months ago; a bust of the late Emperor Frederick; a recumbent statue of the Princess Alice and her little daughter; one of the Duke of Albany in Highland costume; and one of the eldest son of the heir to the throne; with many busts of her faithful friends and servants, – are among the works which our sovereign has graciously commissioned him to execute for her.

To this long list must be added, among others, statues or busts of Sir Francis Drake, William Tyndale, Dean Stanley, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Northbrook, Sir John Burgoyne, Lord Wolseley, Lord Lansdowne, Sir Herbert Stewart, Lord John Russell, General PittRivers, Mr Froude, Mr Ruskin, Sir John Millais, Mr Gladstone, and Mr John Bright. Sir Edgar mentioned more than once the

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