A RECORD AND A STUDY

BY

WILLIAM SHARP

"This soul's labour shall be scann'd

And found good. '-Wellington's Funeral.

D. G. ROSSETTI.

London

MACMILLAN AND CO.

1882

LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

DAVIS

For the right to engrave the design that forms the Frontispiece, the Author is indebted to the kindness of Mrs. Gabriele Rossetti and Miss Christina Rossetti.

CHAPTER I.

LIFE.

AT rare intervals in the records of memorable lives we come across the names of men who seem to have been gifted with an almost too disproportionate amount of talent in whatsoever they laid their hands to, men who, like Lionardo da Vinci, take a foremost place amongst their contemporaries, and to whom painting, poetry, literature, or science seem equally familiar. It is very often supposed that diversity of gifts means mediocrity in all, but a glance at the histories of many well-known lives tends to disprove any such supposition, while on the other hand it may be admitted that multiplicity of talents has too often militated against the due fulfilment of some special bent. Lionardo, one of the most powerful and subtle intellects as well as one of the greatest painters of his time, is an example of one so gifted and at the same time so restrained by temperament and varied interests as never to reach the supreme position in art he might have attained. We know that Michel Angelo was a painter, a sculptor, an architect, and a poet; that Raffaelle's spirit found other than merely pictorial expression; that Dante was an artist as well as the author of an immortal epic; but we never hesitate in deciding the first to

B