to contribute to ‘Fraser's Magazine.’ They commenced in June with the portrait of William Jerdan, and went on till 1838, when he had fairly exhausted his material. To the eighty drawings reproduced in ‘Fraser’ another (Henry Hallam) was added in the ‘Maclise Portrait Gallery,’ edited by William Bates in 1871. Although a few insignificant persons are included in the series, the omissions of importance are still fewer, and the ‘Gallery’ may be said to reflect the genius of that brilliant literary time. There will be found Sir Walter Scott and Lockhart, Sydney Smith and Theodore Hook, Coleridge and Thackeray, Wordsworth and Campbell, Charles Lamb and Carlyle, Leigh Hunt and Lytton, Maginn and Hogg, the Disraelis, father and son, Mrs. Norton and the Countess of Blessington, Miss Martineau and ‘L. E. L.’
All these and many more are characterised with great spirit and truth, with wonderful technical skill, and great variety of idea. Some verge on good-humoured caricature, like Sydney Smith and Sir Walter Scott; others are simply elegant and familiar likenesses, like those of the ladies and Leigh Hunt. Some, like Benjamin Disraeli and Count D'Orsay, idealise the dandyism of the day; others are almost cruel in their truth, like Samuel Rogers, which frightened Goethe, and one at least is a satire tragic in its intensity, that of Talleyrand asleep in his chair. The original sketches for many of these, with a number of others by the same dexterous hand, now form part of the Forster collection at South Kensington Museum.
In 1830 he exhibited seven works, including portraits of Miss Landon, Mrs. S. C. Hall, and Thomas Campbell, and after the exhibition went to Paris, where Louis-Philippe had just been placed on the throne after the terrible ‘three days.’ After seeing the Louvre and other galleries he set off with a friend for a walking tour in the south, meaning to cross the Pyrenees into Spain; but illness forced him to return to England. In 1831 he exhibited five portraits, including one of Lord Castlereagh. In 1832 (his address was now 63 Upper Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square) he exhibited his first oil-picture, ‘Puck disenchanting Bottom, &c.,’ and four portraits. In this year he revisited Cork with Croker, and was presented with a gold medal by the Society of Arts at Cork. A merry-making, given by the Rev. Matthew Horgan at Blarney, furnished him with the subject of an important picture exhibited in 1833, called ‘Snap-apple Night, or All-Hallow Eve in Ireland.’ This was a large work, full of spirit, but somewhat forced and extravagant in expression. He introduced into it his two handsome sisters, Sir Walter Scott, Croker, and his host. This was the only work he exhibited this year at the Royal Academy; but he sent to the British Institution a picture from ‘Lalla Rookh,’ which though smaller attracted more attention—‘Mokanna unveiling his features to Zelica,’ a picture of much power, but necessarily repulsive, as he dared to present the frightful face.
Maclise showed his natural gifts more fully in the finer picture of next year, ‘The Installation of Captain Rock,’ a scene from the ‘Tipperary Tales,’ and ‘The Chivalric Vow of the Ladies and the Peacock,’ which followed in 1835 (a splendid mediæval banquet scene, suggested by a note to Scott's ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel’), secured his election as an associate of the Royal Academy. Now he altered the spelling of his name to Maclise. It is spelt thus in the catalogue of 1836, when he exhibited ‘Macbeth and the Weird Sisters, Macready as Macbeth,’ and ‘An Interview between Charles I and Oliver Cromwell.’ In this year he presented to the Royal Literary Fund the portrait of Sir John Soane, which, by its fidelity, so annoyed the wrinkled old architect that he threatened to withdraw his subscription to the Fund if it was not delivered up to him. Hence arose a grave difficulty, which was solved by Jerdan (a friend of both artist and architect), who cut the offending likeness to pieces. In 1837 his address is given as 14 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square. The most important of his seven pictures of this year was ‘The Bohemian Gypsies’ (sold at the Gillott sale, 1872, for 934l. 10s.) In 1838, besides two studies of figures and game, he exhibited ‘Olivia and Sophia fitting out Moses for the Fair,’ well known by the engraving by Lumb Stocks, ‘Salvator Rosa painting his friend Masaniello,’ and ‘Merry Christmas in the Baron's Hall.’ The last was a very elaborate composition, and its name in the catalogue was accompanied by a reference to a spirited poem by the artist (called ‘Christmas Revels; an Epic Rhapsody in twelve Duans’), which appeared in ‘Fraser's Magazine’ for May, under the signature of Alfred Croquis. The picture is now in the Dublin National Gallery. It was about this time that he was introduced to Charles Dickens by John Forster, who had made his acquaintance in 1830. A warm friendship sprang up immediately between the two. Maclise, or ‘Mac’ as he was called in Dickens's circle, was thenceforth for many years a necessary element in the social gatherings of which Dickens was so fond. The charms of Maclise's society
