an absolutely self-educated and self-made man. There is that indefinable something about his work—a blend of culture, genius, assimilation of ideas—which suggests that he must have been born into an art atmosphere, must have inherited artistic faculties, and have received constant encouragement from his friends in his attempts to body forth the forms of things. Precisely the opposite is the truth. George Tinworth first saw the light on the 5th of November, 1843, having been born near Camberwell Gate, Walworth. His father was a wheelwright, doing indifferent business in that busy, overcrowded, uninviting, and then, even more than now, dreary part of the great metropolis. George Tinworth was intended by his parents for the calling in which his father did little good for himself, and in the uncongenial surroundings of the wheelwright's shop he spent his early days. It would be interesting, if it were possible to trace it, to know what created the feverish desire which as a small boy he exhibited to become a sculptor. The first things he ever succeeded in cutting out—without, be it remembered, any sort of hint as to the technique of the subject—were some wooden butter stamps. He also carved small wooden figures. Mr. Tinworth's reminiscences of his boyhood are naturally deeply interesting. One incident in it is illustrated in a picture which Mr. Tinworth has himself modelled, and which is reproduced at the head of this article. It shows the wheelwright's shop, and the lad standing at a vice, carving a figure out of a block of wood with hammer and chisel. At the window a small boy keeps watch for the return of Mr. Tinworth, senior, who may be back at any minute. Directly the signal is given, the figure is hidden out of sight and the work of the shop is resumed. On occasions the small boy turned traitor, and failed to report the father's approach, in which case the aspirant sculptor would get into serious trouble. "In the eyes of the elder Mr. Tinworth," says Mr. Edmund Gosse, with unusual accuracy, "such trifling as this was mere wicked waste of time that ought to be better spent in tinkering up a costermonger's broken cart." Once young Tinworth commenced carving a head with a nail and stone, for the amusement of himself and some other boys, on a poor woman's doorstep. He set to work on the hard stone, and had made considerable progress with the head when the woman appeared. The boys all bolted, and though the good soul, who perhaps recognised the lad's ability, called out to him to come back and finish it, he refused to be persuaded that his doorstep decoration was sufficiently appreciated to save him from a wigging.
In 1861, when Mr. Tinworth was eighteen, he heard of a school of fine art in Lambeth, and immediately turned his thoughts to becoming a pupil. The school was then under the direction of Mr. J. Sparkes, one of the ablest art instructors, probably, who ever lived. Attracted to the school as by a magnet, young Tinworth used to go with a friend to have a look at the place. He found it difficult to muster up courage to enter, but one night luck favoured him. He carried with him a small head of Handel, and met Mr. Sparkes at the door. One can imagine the trembling hand which held out the little figure, carved with a hammer and chisel from a piece of sandstone, for the great man to examine. Mr. Sparkes recognised the subject. "Oh, Handel," he said. The boy was delighted, and only later remembered that he had scratched Handel's name on it, which Mr. Sparkes had noticed. The lad was invited in, and Mr. Sparkes was quick to detect the stuff of which he was made. For some years Tinworth was a pupil at the Lambeth Schools, his progress being very rapid. Mr. Gosse has credited him with working all night sometimes, but this, he assures us, he never did. In 1864 he was admitted to the schools of the Royal Academy, a model of "Hercules," executed under the direction of Mr. Sparkes, having paved the way. The next year he won a silver medal, and was congratulated by Sir William Boxall for a life study. In 1867 he secured the first silver medal in the Life School. Meanwhile he had become an exhibitor at the Royal Academy. In 1866 he sent in a group of figures called "Peace and Wrath in Low Life." It depicted a scene common enough in slum life. Two street arabs were engaged in a stiff fight; two little girls were interfering, and a dog barked in huge delight at the battle.
The bare record of Mr. Tinworth's work might leave the impression that life at this period had begun to grow brighter for him. So far, however, his studies had been a luxury pure and simple. No sort of opening occurred in which he could utilise his peculiar talents. He had mastered his art, and he had broken down the opposi-
