The Strand Magazine/Volume 1/Issue 2/Portraits of Celebrities

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Portraits of Celebrities at different times of their Lives.

CARDINAL MANNING.

Born 1808.

ENRY EDWARD MANNING, at the age of four, had his portrait taken by a miniature-painter, who depicted him upon a cliff above the sea, absorbed in listening to the murmur of a shell. This most interesting picture of the future Cardinal, together with companion portraits of his little brothers and sisters, long hung upon the wall of the library of his father's house at Totteridge. But one night the house was broken into by a gang of burglars, and, among other valuables, the miniatures were carried off. The vexation of the family was extreme; but by a curious freak of fortune the portraits were at length discovered in an old curiosity shop in London, and, after years of absence, resumed their old position on the library wall. second of our portraits shows the future Cardinal as Archdeacon of Chichester, at a time when he was universally regarded as one of the strongest pillars of the English Church. Alas for human foresight! Seven years later, on Passion Sunday, 1851, he felt himself compelled to make the great renunciation, and laid before the footstool of the Pope the costly offering of such a character as in its blend of saintly life, of strength of intellect, of eloquence alike of tongue and pen, and of unrivalled knowledge of the world, has rarely been bestowed on any of the sons of men.

For these portraits we are indebted to the courtesy of Cardinal Manning, of Mr. Wilfred Meynell, and of Messrs. Henry Graves & Co., Pall Mall.

JOHN RUSKIN.

Born 1819.

the age of twenty, Mr. Ruskin, then at Christ Church, Oxford, had just won the Newdigate prize poem. Two years later the first volume of "Modern Painters" showed that a new poet had indeed arisen, though a poet who was destined not to cast his thoughts in verse, but in "the other harmony of prose." At eight-and-thirty "Stones of Venice" had appeared. At eight-and-forty (as in our second portrait) he had recently been elected Rede Lecturer at Cambridge, and was in the height of his great combat with the world he lives in a world which, in his eyes, is given up almost beyond redemption to canters, money-grubbers, inventors of improved machinery, and every kind of charlatan. In volume after volume, he was putting forth—in the midst of much which reason found fantastic—bursts of satire fierce as Juvenal's, and word-pictures more gorgeous than the tints of Turner, conveyed in that inimitable style which is as strong and sweet as Shelley's verse. In these latter days (as our last portrait shows him) Mr. Ruskin, like a prophet in a hermitage, has become more and more of a recluse, though now and then his voice is still audible in a wrathful letter to the papers, like a voice heard crying in the wilderness that all is lost.

THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

Born 1809.

HESE portraits represent Mr. Gladstone at three important epochs in his career. At twenty-eight he was the henchman of Sir Robert Peel, and it was at this time that Macaulay described him as "the rising hope of the stern, unbending Tories." He had just produced his work on "Church and State," which attracted a great deal of attention. Our second portrait shows what he was like at the time when, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he put forth the first of the long series of his famous Budgets. The third picture is the one which is now so familiar, representing the illustrious statesman as he is at the present time. It will be observed that the high collars which are inseparable from every picture of Mr. Gladstone, whether serious or comic, have been favourites with him all his life. Like Peel, Palmerston, and Beaconsfield, he is a striking instance of the fact that the toils and cares of responsible statesmanship seem with some constitutions to tend to vigorous old age.

MRS. LANGTRY.

HIS page enables one to trace the blooming of the Jersey Lily from the bud to the full flower; from the lovely Miss Le Breton, the daughter of the Dean, to the newly-married bride, and from the belle of London drawing-rooms to the charming actress who has won on both sides of the world applause which is not gained by loveliness alone, even when, like Mrs. Langtry's, it is of that rare kind, statuesque yet blooming, which is adapted equally to represent the chiselled grace of Galatea, or the burning beauty of the Queen of Egypt.

JOHN HARE.

Born 1844.

R. HARE, as most people have the pleasure of knowing from experience, is the finest actor of old men at present on the stage—if not, indeed, the finest ever seen. It seems strange, as we regard the strong young face of our first portrait, that Mr. Hare was then, or very little later, acting Sir Peter Teazle to the very life. Mr. Hare as an old man is old all over. Yet no two of his old men are like each other; no characters bear less resemblance than Lord Kilclare in "A Quiet Rubber," and Benjamin Goldfinch in "A Pair of Spectacles," but which is the most life-like it is difficult to say. Mr. Hare, indeed, prefers his present part to any of his rôles, as may be learnt, with other facts of interest, by a reference to page 166 of this number; and certainly a more delightful piece of character-acting it is impossible to conceive than that which represents the dear old gentleman whose faith in waiters, bootmakers, butlers, brothers, friends, and wives, is so rudely shaken and so happily restored. At his present age, of which our last portrait is a speaking likeness, Mr. Hare is a familiar figure, not only on the stage, but on horseback in the Row, or, more delightful still to his acquaintances, talking from an easy- chair as no one but himself can talk, or rising after dinner to make one of his inimitable speeches.

For permission to reproduce these portraits we have to thank the courtesy of Mr. Hare.

MR. AND MRS. BANCROFT.

Y the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft we are able to present our readers with their portraits at an age when they had not yet met each other—when Marie Wilton was the life and soul of the burlesques at the "Strand" Theatre, and when Mr. Bancroft was still studying in the provinces the art with which he was to charm the audiences of the "Prince of Wales's." In our second portraits Marie Wilton was still Marie Wilton, but was on the eve of becoming Mrs. Bancroft; and finally, in the centre, we have them both as at the present day.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY.

Born 1825.

T is, unfortunately, impossible to obtain a portrait of Professor Huxley in the days when he was not yet a professor—when he was catching sticklebacks and chasing butterflies at his father's school at Ealing—for at thirty-one, the age at which his earliest photograph was taken, he was already a professor of two sciences—of Natural History at the Royal School of Mines, and of Physiology at the Royal Institute. As assistant-surgeon to H.M.S. Rattlesnake he had spent three years in studying natural history off the Australian coasts, and had written out the record of his observations in the earliest of his books. The Admiralty refused to pay a penny of the publishing expenses; the young assistant-surgeon's salary was seven-and-sixpence a day; and the volume only saw the light some five years later, when it was issued by the Ray Society. But, from the days of his first fight with fortune, Professor Huxley's fame rose steadily, and by the time at which our second portrait shows him he had been President of the British Association, and had developed that limpidity of style and strength of logic which makes him both the most redoubtable antagonist in the literary arena, and the most popular exponent of the discoveries of science. Professor Huxley's health, never of the very best, has latterly compelled him to withdraw entirely from the active duties of the many posts which he has held; but the magazine articles which he occasionally puts forth show all his early faculties as strong as ever.

For the above interesting early photograph we are indebted to the kindness of Professor and Mrs. Huxley.

ADELINA PATTI.

F ever an artist was "cradled in song," that artist was Adelina Patti. Before she could utter a word she could hum every air she had heard her mother rehearsing for the opera. Her musical precocity was so extraordinary that she could detect the least falsity of intonation in any vocal performance, and on one occasion when she had been admitted behind the scenes to the dress rehearsal of a new opera in New York, she managed to startle the leading lady—a singer of some reputation—very considerably, by running up to her and exclaiming, in her little shrill Yankee accent, "I guess you don't know the proper way to trill, you rest too long on the first note. Listen to me, and try to do it as I do!" And from her baby lips issued a trill so long-sustained and so pure of intonation, that the whole company of artists applauded with surprise and rapture. The appearance of Adelina was much what would be imagined—always tiny for her age, but lithe and straight, with her thick, black locks braided on either side of her face, her eyes keen as a hawk's, whilst her clear brow, mobile mouth, and determined chin each in turn emphasised the expression with which she was animated at the moment. The street arabs of New York nicknamed her "the little Chinee girl," because of her big, black eyes and somewhat yellow skin, when she used to run up and down Broadway bowling her hoop. Of her phenomenal success, when she appeared as a primadonna of seven summers at Niblo's Garden in New York, it would be idle to repeat an oft-told tale. But we are fortunately able to reproduce a photograph of the little primadonna; for which, as well as for the notes above, we are indebted to the kindness of a friend of the great singer. The signature across the photograph is Adelina Patti's own.