consistent with a noble liberality, as appears from sundry passages in the 'Autobiography of Abraham Raimbach,' the engraver.
William Etty was another notable instance of unflagging industry and indomitable perseverance in art. His father was a gingerbread and spice-maker at York, and his mother—a woman of considerable force and originality of character—was the daughter of a ropemaker. The boy early displayed a love of drawing, covering walls, floors, and tables with specimens of his skill; his first crayon being a farthing's worth of chalk, and this giving place to a piece of coal or a bit of charred stick. His mother knowing nothing of art, put the boy apprentice to a trade—that of a printer. But in his leisure hours he went on with the practice of drawing; and when his time was out he determined to follow his bent—he would be a painter and nothing else. Fortunately his uncle and elder brother were able and willing to help him in his new career, and they provided him with the means of entering as pupil at the Royal Academy. We observe, from Leslie's Autobiography, that Etty was looked upon by his. fellow-students as a worthy but dull, plodding person, who would never distinguish himself. But he had in him the divine faculty of work, and diligently plodded his way upward to eminence in the highest walks of art.
Many artists have had to encounter privations which have tried their courage and endurance to the uttermost before they succeeded. What number may have sunk under them we can never know. Martin encountered difficulties in the course of his career such as perhaps fall to the lot of few. More
