THE PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER OF BANKS.

In person, Banks was tall, with looks silent and dignified, and an earnestness of carriage that well became him; he spoke seldom; he had a winning sweetness in his way of address, and a persuasive manner which was not unfelt by his academic companions. He was simple and frugal in his general style of living, yet liberal to excess in all that related to the encouragement of art; his purse was open to virtuous sufferers, and what is far more, he shrank not from going personally into the houses of the poor and sick, to console and aid them in adversity. In his younger days it was his custom to work at his marbles in the solitude of the Sabbath morning, when his assistants were not at hand to interrupt him; but as he advanced in life he discontinued the practice, and became an example to his brother artists in the observance of the Sabbath day. He grew strict in religious duty, and, like Flaxman, added another to the number of those devout sculptors, whose purity of life, and reach of intellect, are an honor to their country.