XXXIII.

In 1852, Mr Frederick Thrupp designed the statue which is now in the Baptistery at Westminster Abbey. The model in plaster, from which the marble in the Abbey was done, is at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. Of this statue Mr Thrupp writes:

' 232 MARYLEBONE ROAD, LONDON, N.W.

DEAR SIR,-In answer to your note, I beg to inform you that I am the sculptor of the statue of Wordsworth which is in the Baptistery of Westminster Abbey. Soon after his death it was proposed and subscribed for by public contributions, brought forward chiefly by Sir John Coleridge. The present Lord Chief-Justice, with Sir W. Boxall and Mr J. Spedding, were Secretaries and the Executive Committee. There was a general competition among sculptors for the statue. I made four models varied in position, and the present statue was preferred as giving his contemplative character. As regards the clothing of the figure adopted, it is really just what he wore, his ordinary dress, covered by a plaid, such as he was wont to wear, or a cape. A visitor to my study related to me how he, travelling in Switzerland, came to an hotel, in the grounds of which he saw a man sitting, and just as my statue has represented him. On joining the company of the stranger, and conversing with him, he soon discovered that he was talking with William Wordsworth. To obtain a likeness I depended on a cast of his face taken in plaster during his lifetime; also on Haydon's painting and drawing, which perhaps, like all the painters' heads, is rather too strongly featured about the mouth. He habitually thickened the lips, and curled them overmuch.

Chantrey's bust is too smoothly shaven and chiselled, is done in his most mannered style, without mental expression.

Pickersgill's portrait is a mild likeness, and without fervour or power of thought.-I remain, dear Sir, yours faithfully, FREDERICK THRUPP.'

XXXIV.

Mr Thrupp's bust was moulded from a mask of which some casts were taken. Of what he calls the 'unsophisticated mould,' Sir Henry Taylor remarks in his Autobiography, p. 60, 'It is admirable as a likeness, in my opinion, and to my knowledge in that of Mrs Wordsworth; and there is a rough grandeur in it, with which, if it were to be converted into marble, posterity might be content.'

XXXV.

In 1852, Mr Woolner also prepared a design for a seated statue, and part of a monument; but as the design was not selected, the work was never executed. The design is preserved, and is reproduced in Wordsworthiana,—a volume selected from the "Transactions of the Wordsworth Society."

XXXVI.

Mr Jacob Thompson, a Cumberland artist (born 1806, died 1879), and a friend of Wordsworth, took several drawings connected with the poet-one of Rydal Mount; another, a view from the Mount; a third representing the stone in the grounds of the Mount that had been spared 'at Wordsworth's suit' from some rude beauty of its own;' a fourth, a view of the poet's grave in Grasmere Churchyard. Later on,' according to the account given by Mr Llewellynn Jewitt, Jacob Thompson designed two illustrative pictures which he himself drew on the wood, and presented

ready for engraving to his friend Mr Hall, for his Social Notes. The first of these, commemorative of Wordsworth, bears in the circle an original portrait of the Laureate, and a composition of landscape which includes in the middle distance the home of the poet, Rydal Mount, Rydal Water, in the distance the mountains, and, in the foregroundevidently by the side of the stone, which at his suit was spared-one of the poet's own creations, the simple pastoral of Barbara Lewthwaite and her pet lamb.' The portrait represents the head and bust (clothed) in advanced middle life. It is a three-quarters face, turned to the left.*

XXXVII.

Mr Stephen Pearce, of 54 Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, who possesses one of the Haydon drawings of Wordsworth (see No. VII.), writes to me of a life-sized paper profile by Sir George Beaumont, also in his possession. On this is written in Haydon's autograph:

'Wordsworth, a profile sketched and cut out by Sir George Beaumont, when I was going to have a bust of him.'

Mr Pearce says, 'This profile was evidently first drawn in pencil by Sir George Beaumont, and then cut out with a knife or scissors by Sir George Beaumont also.

'Haydon writes in his Autobiography, April 13th, 1815:“I had a cast made yesterday of Wordsworth's face." It was on that occasion, I expect, that Sir George Beaumont drew Wordsworth's profile in pencil, and then cut it out; and Haydon evidently valued it, as he preserved it.

'I do not believe that Haydon had anything whatever to do with the drawing of it, or the cutting out of it. I expect that Sir George Beaumont was present when Haydon was

* See Life and Works of Jacob Thompson, by L. Jewitt, 1882, pp.

102-106.

going to have a cast made of Wordsworth's face; and, as they were all great friends, Sir George sketched Wordsworth's profile, and then cut it out. Haydon may have suggested improvements to Sir George as he was doing it.'

XXXVIII.

This cast of Wordsworth's face, taken by Haydon in 1815, may stand as likeness No. XXXVIII. Mr Thrupp tells me that he made use of it in his construction of the Wordsworth statue, now in the Baptistery of Westminster Abbey.

XXXIX AND XL.

Samuel Lawrence made two very interesting sketches of Wordsworth's head, which now belong to Mr Dykes Campbell, who writes of them thus:—

'I am unable to assign any probable date, but they were evidently made when Wordsworth was an elderly if not quite an old man. They are in charcoal. One day

when I was showing the whole of these sketches by Lawrence to Mrs Proctor, she identified many of the heads, and was particularly struck by the two of Wordsworth, as being so like him, as she remembered him. Lawrence was perhaps the most faithful reproducer of men's features of his day, and he had sketched, as he had known (with more or less intimacy), all the best literary men of the period. Mr Browning told me, looking at my sketches of Carlyle by Lawrence, that Carlyle had told him more than once that Lawrence was the only man who had ever made a thoroughly satisfactory portrait of him.'

XLI.

There have been several attempts, since Wordsworth's death, to produce a likeness of him, founded upon previous

portraits and descriptions of his appearance. Whatever their artistic merits, they are of no great value as likenesses. But two exceptions may be made. The first is Mr Armitage's fresco drawing at University College Hall, Gordon Square, London. This painting was designed to commemorate the late Mr Henry Crabb Robinson. On one side are grouped his German, and on the other his English friends. Wordsworth is seated, with Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, and others near him. Of this fresco Mr Armitage writes:

'3 HALL ROAD, ST JOHN'S WOOD, June 29, 1882.

DEAR SIR,-The likeness of Wordsworth in my mural painting at University Hall was certainly not taken from life, and I really cannot recollect exactly from what portrait of the poet I constructed my version of him.

I fancy my authorities were an engraved portrait of him in a book, and a medallion profile, but I cannot be sure; and Mr Edwin Field, who exerted himself to get me the most trustworthy data for my portraits, has been dead many years.-Yours very truly, E. ARMITAGE.'

XLII.

It

Another reconstruction of Wordsworth worthy of notice was by Thomas Faed, R.A., in his picture representing Sir Walter Scott and his literary friends at Abbotsford. was engraved by James Faed, and published by James Keith, Edinburgh, on the 2d of January 1854. This likeness of Wordsworth is evidently based on the Pickersgill portrait in St John's College, Cambridge. He is represented as seated in the centre of the group of Sir Walter's friends, between Jeffrey and Lockhart.