Part 9

“The polite and vain Frenchman was easily prevailed upon to roll out several long speeches, from Racine and Corneille, with much gesticulation and many a well-rounded _R_. This was only to introduce the main subject of entertainment. ‘Monsieur B---- is not only remarkable, as you hear, for his very extraordinary recitations from the poets of his native land, but for his perfect conquest over the difficulties of the English language, in the most difficult of all our poets--Shakspeare. He has studied Hamlet and Macbeth thoroughly--and if he would oblige us--do, ‘Monsieur B----, do give us, “To be, or not to be.”’ ‘Sur, the language is too difficult--I make great efforts to be sure, but still the foreigner is to be detected.’ This gentleman’s peculiarities were in extreme precision and double efforts with the _th_ and the other shibboleths of English. The unsuspecting and vain man is soon induced to give Hamlet’s soliloquy, the _th_ forced out as from a pop-gun, and some of the words irresistibly comic. ‘But, Monsieur B----, you are particularly great in Macbeth--_that_ “if it were done, when it is done,” and “peep through the blanket,”--come, let us have Macbeth.’ Then followed Macbeth’s soliloquies in the same style. All this was ludicrous enough, but upon this foundation Jarvis raised a superstructure, which he carried as high as the zest with which it was received by his companions, his own feelings, or other circumstances prompted or warranted. The unfortunate Monsieur B---- was imitated and caricatured with most laugh-provoking effect; but to add to the treat, he was made not only to recite, but to comment and criticise. ‘If it were done,’ ‘peep through the blanket,’ and, ‘catch with the sursease, success,’ gave a rich field for the imaginary critic’s commentaries--then he would expose, and overthrow Voltaire’s criticisms, and give as examples of the true sublime in tragedy, the scene of the witches in Macbeth.

“‘Huen shall we thtree meet aggen?’ but, ‘mounched, and mounched, and mounched,’ was a delicious feast for the critic--and ‘rrump fed rronion,’ gave an opportunity to show that the English witch was a true John Bull, and fed upon the ‘rrump of the beef,’ ‘thither in a sieve I’ll sail and like a rat without a tail, I’ll do--I’ll do--I’ll do,’ being recited in burlesque imitation, gives an opportunity for comment and criticism, something in this manner. ‘You see not only how true to nature, but to the science of navigation all this is. If the rat had a tail, he could steer the sieve as the sailor steer his ship by the rudder; but if he have no tail, he cannot command the navigation, that is, the course of the sieve; and it will run round--and round--and round--that is what the witch say--“I’ll do--I’ll do--I’ll do!”’ But how can the humor of the story-teller be represented by the writer--or how can I dispose my reader to receive a story dressed in cold black and white--in formal type--with the same hilarity which attends upon the table, and the warm and warming rosy wine? The reader has perceived the want of these magical auxiliaries in the above.”

Jarvis was equally ludicrous in his readings from Shakspeare, in imitation of the stutterer and lisper. The venerable Dr. C. S. Francis, who was intimately acquainted with the painter, says, “Dr. Syntax never with more avidity sought after the sublime and picturesque, than did Jarvis after the scenes of many-colored life; whether his subject was the author of Common Sense or the notorious Baron von Hoffman. His stories, particularly those connected with his southern tours, abounded in motley scenes and ludicrous occurrences; there was no lacking of hair-breadth escapes, whether the incidents involved the collisions of intellect, or sprung from alligators and rattlesnakes. His humor won the admiration of every hearer, and he is recognized as the master of anecdote. But he deserves to be remembered on other accounts--his corporeal intrepidity and his reckless indifference of consequences. I believe there have been not a few of the faculty who have exercised, with public advantage, their professional duties among us for a series of years, who never became as familiar with the terrific scenes of yellow fever and of malignant cholera as Jarvis did. He seemed to have a singular desire to become personally acquainted with the details connected with such occurrences; and a death-bed scene, with all its appalling circumstances, in a disorder of a formidable character, was sought after by him with the solicitude of the inquirer after fresh news. Nor was this wholly an idle curiosity. Jarvis often freely gave of his limited stores to the indigent, and he listened with a fellow feeling to the recital of the profuse liberality with which that opulent merchant of our city, the late Thomas H. Smith, supplied daily the wants of the afflicted and necessitous sufferer during the pestilence of 1832.

“We are indebted to Jarvis for probably the best, if not the only good drawing of the morbid effects of cholera on the human body while it existed here in 1832. During that season of dismay and danger our professional artists declined visiting the cholera hospitals, and were reluctant to delineate when the subject was brought to them. But it afforded a new topic for the consideration of Jarvis, and perhaps also for the better display of his anatomical attainments, he with promptitude discharged the task. When making a drawing from the lifeless and morbid organs of digestion, to one who inquired if he were not apprehensive of danger while thus employed, he put the interrogatory, ‘Pray what part of the system is affected by the cholera?’ ‘The digestive organs,’ was the reply. ‘Oh no, then,’ said Jarvis, ‘for now you see I am doubly armed--- I am furnished with two sets.’”

THE BIGGEST LIE.

Jarvis resided a long time at Charleston, S. C., where his convivial qualities made him a great favorite. On one occasion, at a large dinner party, after the wine had freely circulated, banishing not only form, but discretion, some one of the company proposed that they should make up a prize to the man who would tell the greatest and most palpable _lie_. It was purposely arranged that Jarvis should speak last. The President began. They

“Spoke of most disastrous chances, Of moving accidents by flood and field.”

Lie followed lie; and as it is easy to heap absurdity upon absurdity, and extravagance on enormous exaggeration; and as easy to excite laughter and command applause, when champaigne has been enthroned in the seat of judgment, each lie was hailed with shouts of approbation and bursts of merriment. One of the company, who sat next to Jarvis, had exceeded all his competitors, and unanimous admiration seemed to ensure him the prize. The _lie_ was so monstrous and palpable, that it was thought wit or ingenuity could not equal it. Still, something was expected from the famous story-teller, and every eye was turned on the painter. He rose, and placing his hand on his breast and making a low bow, gravely said, “Gentlemen, I assure you that I fully and unequivocally believe every word the last speaker has uttered.” A burst of applause followed, and the prize was adjudged to the witty artist.

JARVIS AND BISHOP MOORE.

Jarvis painted the portrait of Bishop Benjamin Moore, who used to relate one of his quick strokes of humor with great glee. The good Bishop, during one of the sittings, introduced the subject of religion, and asked Jarvis some questions as to his belief or practice. The painter, with an arch look, but as if intent upon catching the likeness of the sitter, waved his hand and said, “Turn your face more that way, Bishop, and _shut your mouth_.”

JARVIS AND COMMODORE PERRY.

When Jarvis painted the portrait of Commodore Perry, he wished to infuse into the likeness of the hero the fire which he supposed animated him during the terrible contest on Lake Erie. During two or three sittings he tried in vain to rouse him by his lively conversation; he would soon sink into a reverie; it was evident that his thoughts were far away. The painter now had recourse to artifice. He deliberately laid down his palette and pencils, got up, and seizing a chair, swung it over his head in a menacing manner. This strange conduct instantly brought Perry to his feet, his eyes flashing fire, and every feature lit up with the desired expression. “There, that will do,” said the painter; “please sit just as you are.” The result was the admirable picture which now adorns our City Hall, representing the hero standing in his boat, with his flag in one arm, triumphantly waving his sword, as he left the dismantled St. Lawrence for the Niagara, to renew the contest, resolved to conquer or die.

JARVIS AND THE PHILOSOPHER.

Jarvis was a great wag as well as an inimitable story-teller. Whenever he met with an eccentric genius, he delighted to make him indulge in strong potations, and then engage him on his favorite hobby. On one such occasion, a gentleman who had a smattering of Zoology, declared it as his opinion, that it was possible to change the nature of animals; for instance, that by cutting off the end of dogs’ or monkeys’ tails for a few generations, they would become tailless. “That is capital logic,” said Jarvis, “I wonder that the Jews have now any _tails_!” The philosopher shot out of the room amidst shouts of laughter.

JARVIS AND DR. MITCHELL.

Jarvis could not forbear to crack a joke on the learned Dr. Mitchell, whose profundity sometimes led him to analyze cause and effect in a hyper-philosophical manner. “Can you tell,” said he one day to the learned Doctor, who was sitting for his portrait, “why white sheep eat more than black ones?” “But is it a fact?” enquired the Doctor. “Most assuredly,” said the painter, “as every farmer will tell you.” The Doctor then went on to give sundry philosophical reasons why white sheep might require more food than black ones. “Your reasons are excellent--but I think I can give you a better one. In my opinion the reason why white sheep eat more than black ones is, because there are more of them!”

JARVIS’ HABITS.

Jarvis, in his more prosperous days, was always improvident and recklessly extravagant. Dunlap says, “when he went to New Orleans for the first time, (in 1833) he took Henry Inman with him. To use his own words,--‘my purse and my pockets were empty; (when he went to N. O.) I spent $3000 there in six months, and brought $3000 to New York. The next winter I did the same.’ He used to receive six sitters a day. A sitting occupied an hour. The picture was then handed to Inman, who painted upon the background and drapery under the master’s directions. Thus six portraits were finished each week.” His prices at this time were $100 for a head, and $150 for head and hands.

“Mr. Sully once told me,” says Dunlap, “that calling on Jarvis, he was shown into a room, and left to wait some minutes before he entered. He saw a book on the table amidst palette, brushes, tumblers, candlesticks, and other heterogeneous affairs, and on opening it, he found a life of Moreland. When Jarvis came into the room, Sully sat with the book in his hand. ‘Do you know why I like that book?’ said Jarvis. ‘I suppose because it is the life of a painter,’ was the reply. ‘Not merely that,’ rejoined the other, ‘but because I think he was like myself.’” What a commentary! Moreland was a man of genius, and might have shone as a bright star in the history of art, had he not degraded himself by dissipation, almost to a level with the pigs he delighted to paint. The glory of both Stuart and Jarvis is obscured by the same fatal passion. “O that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts.”

“Jarvis,” says Dunlap, “was fond of notoriety from almost any source, and probably thought it aided him in his profession. His dress was generally unique. His long coat, trimmed with furs like a Russian prince, or a potentate from the north pole, and his two enormous dogs which accompanied him through the streets, and often carried home his market basket, must be remembered by many.”

ROBERT FULTON.

It is not generally known that this celebrated engineer was in his early life a practical painter.--From the age of 17 to 21, he painted portraits and landscapes in Philadelphia. In his 22d year, he went to England to prosecute his studies under West, who received him with great kindness, and was so much pleased with his genius and amiable qualities, that he took him into his own house, as a member of his family. After leaving West, he seems to have made painting his chief employment for a livelihood for several years, though at this time, his mind was occupied with various great projects connected with engineering. In 1797, he went to Paris in prosecution of these projects, and to fill his empty coffers, he projected the first panorama ever exhibited in that city. He was a true lover of art, too, and endeavored to induce the citizens of Philadelphia to get up a subscription to purchase some of West’s choicest pictures, which then could have been bought very cheap, as the commencement of a gallery in that city.

AN EXALTED MIND AND A TRUE PATRIOT.

Robert Fulton, after years of toil, anxiety, and ridicule, thus writes to his friend, Joel Barlow, immediately after his first steam-boat voyage from New York to Albany and back:

“New York, August 2, 1807.

“MY DEAR FRIEND--My steam-boat voyage to Albany and back, has turned out rather more favorably than I had calculated. The distance from New York to Albany is 150 miles; I ran it up in thirty-two hours, and down in thirty hours; the latter is five miles an hour. I had a light breeze against me the whole way, goings and coming, so that no use was made of my sails, and the voyage has been performed wholly by the power of the steam engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners, beating to windward, and passed them as if they had been at anchor.

“The power of propelling boats by steam, is now fully proved. The morning I left New York, there were not, perhaps, thirty persons, who believed that the boat would move one mile an hour, or be of the least utility; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic remarks. This is the way, you know, in which ignorant men compliment what they call philosophers and projectors.

“Having employed much time, money, and zeal, in accomplishing this work, it gives me, as it will you, great pleasure, to see it so fully answer my expectations. It will give a quick and cheap conveyance to merchandize on the Mississippi, Missouri, and other great rivers, which are now laying open their treasures to the enterprise of our countrymen. Although the prospect of personal emolument has been some inducement to me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the immense advantages my country will derive from the invention.”

GILBERT CHARLES STUART.

This preëminent portrait painter was born at Narragansett, Rhode Island, in 1756. He received his first instruction from a Scotch painter at Newport, named Alexander, who was so much pleased with his talents and lively disposition, that he took him with him on his return to Scotland. His friend dying soon after, the youth found himself pennyless in a strange country, but undismayed, he resolved to return home, and found himself obliged to work his passage before the mast. He had already made considerable progress in art, and on his return commenced portrait painting, although without meeting much encouragement. He was in Boston at the time of the Battle of Lexington, but immediately left that city and went to New York, where he painted the portrait of his grandmother from memory, though she had been dead about ten years, which is said to have been a capital likeness, and gained him some business. About this time he painted his own portrait, the only one he ever took of himself, to the excellence of which his friend Dr. Waterhouse bears ample testimony. He says, “it was painted in his freest manner, and with a Rubens’ hat,” and in another place, that “Stuart in his best days, said he need not be ashamed of it.”

STUART GOES TO LONDON.

Not meeting with any adequate encouragement, and the country being in a deplorable state, in the midst of the Revolution, Stuart set sail for London in 1778, at the age of twenty-two, to try his fortunes in that city. He was a wayward and eccentric genius, proud as Lucifer withal; and on his arrival in that metropolis, he found himself full of poverty, enthusiasm, and hope,--often a painter’s only capital. He expected to have found Waterhouse, who would have helped him with his advice, and purse if necessary, but he had gone to Edinburg. Instead of going directly to West, as he should have done, he wandered about the “dreary solitude” of London, as Johnson used to characterize the busy hum of that crowded city to the poverty-stricken sons of genius, till he had expended his last dollar.

STUART AN ORGANIST.

Stuart had a great taste for music, which he had cultivated, and was an accomplished musician. One day, as he was passing a church in Foster-Lane, hearing the sound of an organ, he stepped in, and ascertaining that the vestry were testing the candidates for the post of organist, he asked if he might try. Being told that he could, he did so, and succeeded in getting the place, with a salary of thirty guineas a year!

STUART’S INTRODUCTION TO WEST.

During all this time, for some unknown reason, Stuart never sought the acquaintance of West, but the moment that excellent man heard of the young painter and his circumstances, he immediately sent a messenger to him with money to relieve his necessities, and invited him to call at his studio. “Such was Stuart’s first introduction,” says Dunlap, “to the man from whose instruction he derived the most important advantages from that time forward; whose character he always justly appreciated, but whose example he could not, or would not follow.” Stuart himself says, “On application to West to receive me as a pupil, I was welcomed with true benevolence, encouraged and taken into the family, and nothing could exceed the attentions of the great artist to me--they were paternal.” He was twenty-four years old when he entered the studio of West. Before he left the roof of his benefactor and teacher, he painted a full-length portrait of him, which elicited general admiration. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and the young painter paid frequent visits to the exhibition rooms. It happened that one day, as he stood near the picture, surrounded by artists and students (for he had fine wit, and was an inimitable story-teller), West came in and joined the group. He praised the picture, and addressing himself to his pupil, said, “you have done well, Stuart, very well; now all you have to do is to go home and do better.” Stuart always expressed the obligations he was under to that distinguished artist. When West saw that he was fitted for the field, prepared for and capable of contending with the best portrait painters, he advised him to commence his professional career, and pointed out to him the way to fame and fortune. But Stuart did not follow this wise counsel, preferring to indulge his own wayward fancy. He had a noble, generous, and disinterested heart, but he was eccentric, improvident, and extravagant, and consequently he was always in necessitous circumstances.

STUART AND WEST.

“I used often to provoke my good old master,” said Stuart to Dunlap, “though, heaven knows, without intending it. You remember the color closet at the bottom of his painting-room. One day, Trumbull and I came into his room, and little suspecting that he was within hearing, I began to lecture on his pictures, and particularly upon one then on his easel. I was a giddy, foolish fellow then. He had begun a portrait of a child, and he had a way of making curly hair by a flourish of his brush, thus, like a figure of three. “Here, Trumbull,” said I, “do you want to learn how to paint hair? There it is, my boy! Our master figures out a head of hair like a sum in arithmetic. Let us see--we may tell how many guineas he is to have for this head by simple addition,--three and three make six, and three are nine, and three are twelve--” How much the sum would have amounted to, I can’t tell, for just then in stalked the master, with palette-knife and palette, and put to flight my calculations. “Very well, Mr. Stuart”--he always _mistered_ me when he was angry, as a man’s wife calls him _my dear_, when she wishes him to the d----l,--“Very well, Mr. Stuart! very well indeed!” You may believe that I looked foolish enough, and he gave me a pretty sharp lecture, without my making any reply. But when the head was finished, there were no _figures of three in the hair_.”

“Mr. West,” says Stuart, “treated me very cavalierly on one occasion: but I had my revenge. My old master, who was always called upon to paint a portrait of his majesty for every governor-general sent out to India, received an order for one for Lord ----. He was busily employed upon one of his _ten-acre_ pictures, in company with prophets and apostles, and thought he could turn over the king to me. He could never paint a portrait.

“‘Stuart,’ said he, ‘it is a pity to make his majesty sit again for his picture; there is the portrait of him that you painted; let me have it for Lord ----. I will retouch it, and it will do well enough.’ ‘_Well enough!_ very pretty,’ thought I; ‘you might be civil, when you ask a favor.’ So I _thought_; but I _said_, ‘Very well, sir.’ So the picture was carried down to his room, and at it he went. I saw he was puzzled. He worked at it all that day. The next morning, ‘Stuart,’ says he, ‘have you got your palette set?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Well, you can soon set another; let me have it; I can’t satisfy myself with that head.’

“I gave him my palette, and he worked the greater part of that day. In the afternoon I went into his room, and he was hard at it. I saw that he had got up to the knees in mud. ‘Stuart,’ says he, ‘I don’t know how it is, but you have a way of managing your tints unlike everybody else. Here, take the palette, and finish the head.’ ‘I can’t, sir,’ ‘You can’t?’ ‘I can’t indeed, sir, as it is; but let it stand till to-morrow morning and get dry, and I will go over it with all my heart.’ The picture was to go away the day after the morrow; so he made me promise to do it early next morning.

He never came down into the painting room until about ten o’clock, I went into his room bright and early, and by half past nine I had finished the head. That done, _Rafe_ (Raphael West, the master’s son) and I began to fence; I with my maul-stick, and he with his father’s. I had just driven Rafe up to the wall, with his back to one of his father’s best pictures, when the old gentleman, as neat as a lad of wax, with his hair powdered, his white silk stockings and yellow morocco slippers, popped into the room, looking as if he had stepped out of a band-box. We had made so much noise that we did not hear him come down the gallery, or open the door. ‘There, you dog,’ says I to Rafe, ‘there I have you, and nothing but your back-ground _relieves_ you.’

“The old gentleman could not help smiling at my technical joke, but soon, looking very stern, ‘Mr. Stuart,’ says he, ‘is this the way you use me?’ ‘Why! what’s the matter, sir? I have neither hurt the boy nor the background.’ ‘Sir, when you knew I had promised that the picture of his majesty should be finished to-day, ready to be sent away to-morrow, thus to be neglecting me and your promise! How can you answer it to me or to yourself?’