Note 5 — A SCULPTOR'S LIFE IN THE LAST CENTURY.

'Chantrey esteemed highly the works of Roubiliac; he admired his busts; and thought the statue of Newton at Cambridge of the best character of portrait sculpture. The simplicity of the figure, united with the apparent intelligence and thought in the countenance, he considered as quite satisfactory; and although he generally disliked the imitation of any particular material in drapery, he was reconciled to the college dress of the philosopher. From its perfect arrangement, the imitation is so complete that the person who shows the statue at Cambridge always informs the visitor that it only requires to be black to render it a deception. He was inclined to tolerate anything that displayed ingenuity without violating possibility, yet he could never endure such extraneous and uninteresting matter as the shot, the barrel of powder, and the bent chamber of a piece of artillery in the monument to Lord Shannon, in Walton Church, which, with much to commend in the two figures, has a profusion of objects, and a grey marble background, representing a tent, altogether unnecessary and derogatory to the purity of sculpture. Still Roubiliac was rich in thought and reason, for, in his monument in Westminster Abbey, where he has represented Death as a skeleton, he felt that the thin and meagre bones would be as offensive as impracticable; therefore judiciously involved the greater part of the emblem in a shroud or drapery, adding thereby to his allegory and aiding his art. However hostile this style may be to the simplicity of sculpture, the ability of the artist in the conception and execution deserves high praise. The beadle of Worcester Cathedral informed a friend of Chantrey's, that when the sculptor was in that city he always went to see the monument to Bishop Hurd by Roubiliac, and remained a long time in intent observation of the work, for he thought the artist's power over the material surprising, though he disliked polishing the marble.'-Recollections of Chantrey, by George Jones, R.A.

The cast taken by Roubiliac from the face of Newton is in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.