Lights and shadows of artist life and character

Preface

The matter comprised in this volume^ it may be right to mention^ constitutes the skeleton of a work of a more ambitious character^ projected about two years since^ and abandoned for reasons with which it is unnecessary to trouble the reader. On looking over the materials collected for the stifled embryO; just alluded to, it occurred to the writer, that by their systematic arrangement, a work might be composed which would amuse as a string of anecdotes, and interest from the light it would incidentally throw upon the lives and characters of artists. To what extent this anticipation will be justified, the readers of this volume will determine for themselves.

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS

ARTIST LIFE AND CHARACTER.

Chapter I

Early intimations of genius illustrated by a reference to the childhood of Titian, Giotto, Hogarth, Velasquez, Huysman, Gainsborough, Bird, Morland, Opie, Cimabue, Filippo Lippi, Domenico GhMandajo, Andrea del Castagno, Fuseli, West, Blake, Barry, Runciman, Copley, Cosway, Jackson, Allan, Salvator !K?5sa, Stothard, Vandyck, Pronti, Jacob Euysdael, Michael Angelo, Eaffaelle, Andrea del Sarto, Beccafumi, Griffiere, Lawrence, Shee, Etty, Prout, James Ward, Sidney Cooper, Lander, Redgrave, Westall, Paul Potter, Van Hoist, Seira, Monti, Van Ach, Van Leyden, Ercole Sarti, Aerts, Gambara, De Solis, Albano, Cavedone, Spada, D'Arpino, Da Libri, Mantegna, Caravaggio, Lairesse, Del Vaga, Tintoretto, Buonvicino, Ribalta, Arias, Chambers, Ker Porter, Robson, Zurbaran, Vieria, Zucchero, DuUaert, E. Landseer, Verkolie, Da Udine,Parmegiano, Lanfranco, David Scott, Gaspar Poussin, Heemskerck, Van der Ldepe, VanCl^ef, Carlo Maratti, Goltzius, Flinck, Palma, jun., Weeninx, De Neyn, Cambiaso, Mignard, Bacici, El Mudo, Hoefnaeghel, Largilliere, De Arellano, Mirevelt, Giordano, Spranger, Parrocel, Bakhuysen, Anna Maria Schuurmans, Maria Sybilla Merian, Henrietta Wolters, Rosa Alba Carriera, Sofonisba Anguisciola, Schoor^el, De Laar, Van Schooten, Denner, Van der Werfe, Van der Velde, Wulfraat, Mieris, Le Brun, Kunfer, Gomez, Mengs.

The artist^ like the poet, " is born, not made/^ He opens his eyes upon a world which presents

ARTIST LIFE.

itself to him in the similitude of a vast picture gallery — a field of study inexhaustible and ever new. His earliest perceptions appear to be those of beauty of form and harmony of colour, and his first impulses are to reproduce that beauty and harmony, as manifested in the aspects of nature or the emotional play of the human countenance, by the aid of such rude and simple agencies as lie nearest to his hand. Thus, Titian, in his childhood, expressed from flowers the juices with which he coloured an image of tke Madonna, and thus —

" Cimabue found a shepherd-boy, Tracing his idle fancies on the ground,"

a pointed stone the only implement, and a slab of rock the only tablet available for a graphic record of the crude conceptions of the boy Giotto.

Wherever authentic details have been preserved of the incidents which marked the earliest years of artists^ lives, we find the love of art developing itself simultaneously with the development of reason. And if, in these early eflPorts, the representation bears but a rude analogy to the thing represented, — if it shadows forth, however dimly, a portion only of the superficial properties and qualities of the original, the first essay is regarded as a positive success. It gives form and pressure to the early impulse, which is strengthened and sustained by every subsequent success- inclination ripens into habit, and the child-

HOGARTH. 6

artist already feels tliat he is scaling the lowest steps of that lofty flight which terminates in some altitude^ at present invisible to his earnest and upward-gazing eyes, but where his " undoubting mind '^ believes that Fame is already awaiting his arrival. There may be as wide a disparity between the crude sketches of his childhood and the matured productions which subsequently gave their author his title to rank among the masters of his art_, as between the silver thread of water welling up on a green hill-side, and the abounding river into which it afterwards expands ; but there exists between them a connection no less indissoluble^ and we naturally feel the same interest in referring to the early intimations of genius manifested by artists^ as in tracing the noble river to its obscure source. In the peculiar realm which they are destined to inhabit and adorn, painters are emphatically ^'native and to the manner born.^^

"As I had naturally a good eye and a fondness for drawing," says Hogarth, writing of his own childhood, "shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure ; and mimickry, common to all children, was remarkable in me. An early access to a neighbouring painter drew my attention from play ; and I was, at every possible opportunity, employed in making drawings. I picked up an acquaintance of the same turn, and soon learned to draw the alphabet with great correctness. My exercises, when at school, were more remarkable for the ornaments which

b2 adorned them than for the exercise itself." And Hogarth's childish predilections are but the type and counterpart of those of hundreds of other artists in all countries for the last five centuries. Velasquez, liberally educated by the self-denying affection of his parents, covered the backs of the sheets of paper on which his school-boy tasks were written, with sketches and drawings not altogether destitute of the genius which distinguished the productions of his maturer years ; and, in the studio of Francisco de Herrera, exercised his pencil in pourtraying the peasantry in the streets, or the frequenters of the posadas of Seville. Cornelius HuYSMAN, while yet a child, fascinated by the sight of some pictures executed by James Van Artois, then in the meridian of his fame, journeyed from Antwerp to Brussels, detailed to the astonished artist the cause and object of his visit, and, having been received into the household of the latter, commenced the ascent of the path which leads to fame. Our own Gainsborough, before he had arrived at the age of ten years, had filled his copy-books with sketches of the woodland scenery of Suffolk, spending his holiday hours in '' catching soft hints from Nature's tongue," and storing his mind with images of sylvan beauty. " No fine clump of trees,'' says his biographer, ^^no picturesque stream, nor romantic glade, no cattle grazing, nor fiocks reposing, nor peasants pursuing their rural or pastoral occu-

BIRD, MORLAND, OPIE, CIMABUE, ETC. 0

pations, escaped liis diligent pencil." (a). Who does not remember tlie circumstance of Bird chalking outlines on the furniture of his mother's house, and exclaiming, with all the glee of a child of four years old, "Well done, little Neddy Bird !"— of Morland's drawings, so full of promise, at the same age ? and of Opie exciting the anger of his father, the rugged mechanic, by making fantastic designs with red chalk upon the deals which had been carefully planed for his use ?

CiMABUE manifested the bent of his genius while yet a boy, and forsook his studies for the more congenial occupation of drawing men, horses, buildings, &c., on the books and papers entrusted to him for the purposes of education. In the earliest childhood of Masaccto, he executed drawings which were preserved for a century afterwards in his native village ; and of one of which, we are told, the expression was so remarkable that, once seen, it could never be forgotten. The boyish fancy of Filippo Lippi, running riot in caricature, and disfiguring his own books and those of his school-fellows, in the convent of the Carmelites at Florence, attracted the attention of the prior, and led to his obtaining those facilities for the study of art, which he most ardently desired ; and we find Domenico Ghirlandajo asserting his fondness for artistic pursuits, by sketching, with the ease and rapidity of a practised hand, the faces of those who passed the shop of the goldsmith b ARTIST LIFE.

to whom he was apprenticed. The casual sight of an oratory, painted by a rustic pretender to art, called forth the latent tendency of the mind of the cow-boy, Andrea del Castagno, who forthwith commenced scratching figures of animals on the walls, and on stones with the point of a knife, or delineating them so vigorously with pieces of charcoal as to excite the notice of a Florentine gentleman, by whose assistance he was subsequently enabled to gratify the bent of his inclinations, and acquire the mastery of the art he loved.

FusELi inherited from his father a fondness for the art of which, in his maturer years, he became so enthusiastic a devotee. To this, his studies as a school-boy were subordinated, and the poetry of Greece and Rome, while it kindled his imagination, supplied an endless diversity of subjects on which to exercise his facile pencil. In old age he would fondly recur to the play-hours spent in poring over the works ' of Michael Angelo, of whose prints his father had a fine collection ; — to the intense enjoyment he derived from copying those prints and others from the works of Rafi'aelle, late at night, by the aid of pencils v/hich his pocket-money had been thriftily hoarded to procure, and by the light of candles purloined from the kitchen of the school at Zurich. Allan Cunningham informs us that a wild German work, called the " Hour-Glass/' captivated the fancy of Fiiseli while at school, and

WEST, BLAKE, BARRY, RUNCIMAN. 7

that he illustrated it with outlines, representing fantastic imps and elves, engaged in strange dances, ludicrous gambols, and mischievous tricks. The future illustrator of Shakspere and Milton was, even then, '^ of imagination all compact/^

Few readers will need to be reminded of the beautiful incident in the childhood of West, watching the sleeping infant of his eldest sister, and striving to perpetuate, by a pen-and-ink sketch, the smile which flickered across the infantas face ; or of that other, to him, memorable circumstance — the exhibition of his sketches — the sketches of a child of eight to the wandering Indians, on the occasion of their summer visit to Springfield, who rewarded his dawning skill, by teaching him how to prepare the red and yellow colours with which they stained their weapons.

The first glimpse we obtain of Blare, in reading whose life we seem listening to a strain of sweet, but mournful music, is, as a boy in the hosierjs shop, in Broad Street, Carnaby Market, tracing his designs on the backs of the shop-bills, and executing his artistic fancies on his father^ s counter. The wayward Barry, while a sailor-boy, neglected the duties of his marine apprenticeship, and made sketches of the coast along which he sailed, or of the groups and figures, upon the vesseFs deck, to the amusement of the sailors, and the vexation of his father. Runciman, of whom it was said, that while

" other artists talked meat and drink, he talked landscape/^ commenced making drawings at six years old : and Copley, at almost as early an age, was accustomed to withdraw from the family circle for hours at a time, and, shutting himself up in a lonely room, cover the bare walls with charcoal drawings of martial figures, engaged in such adventures as might occur to his childish fancy. Cosway, at the age of seven, provoked the anger of the master of the Tiverton School, by the neglect of his lessons, from which the " idle pursuit of drawing '' allured the future Royal Academician. And Jackson, the son of a village tailor, in the rude portraits for which his school companions were indebted to his pencil, gave prophetic intimations of the genius which afterwards perpetuated the features of so many of his brethren in the Koyal Academy.

The first efforts of David Allan were uncouthly traced with chalk upon the floor of his father^s house, in which an accident confined him as a prisoner; and his biographer has left us a pleasant narrative of the incident by which a sagacious friend was enabled to divine the latent genius of the boy. Little David^s schoolmaster was " something old, near-sighted and vain. It was his practice to pace along the floor, among his scholars, dressed in a long tartan gown, with a tartan night-cap on his head, and a rod of correction in his hand, which he applied, in times of irritation, with much severity.

SALVATOR ROSA. 9

David, now eleven years old, was so struck with the ludicrous figure which the teacher made, while punishing with difiiculty some stout refractory boys, that he sketched the group on his slate and exhibited it to his companions : the startling laugh which this occasioned drew the attention of the Dominie, who, though sand-blind, detected the resemblance ; and, incensed at being caricatured among his scholars, bestowed a smart chastisement on the culprit, and then complained to his father. Old Allan, when he heard of the talents and the petulance of his boy, knew not whether to rejoice or mourn. It was necessary, however, to withdraw him from the school, which he did, admonishing him at the same time, for insulting one whom he should rather have honoured. ' I could nae help it,' said little David ; ' he looked sae queer : I made it like him, and a^ for fun.' "

Salvator Eos a, the son of an indigent architect, predestined by his parents to the church, " was born,-" says Pascoli, '^ no less a poet than a painter ; " and amidst the magnificent scenery of Pausilippo and Vesuvius, his genius received its earliest inspirations. While yet a child, he was frequently shut up, by way of punishment for his truant propensities, in some disused rooms of the old cassaccia, inhabited by his father, where, by the aid of some burned sticks, he sketched upon the walls the most striking features of the scenery with which his erring footsteps had rendered him familiar. Once, too, in going to worship,

b3 these charred sticks were substituted for the missal, and the heedless scapegrace proceeded to ornament some portion of the walls of the great church of the Certosa with designs like those he had traced upon the loggia of his own home. A severe flagellation was inflicted upon him in consequence, and the parents of the impetuous and irreverent boy, in order to place him beyond the reach of similar temptations for the time to come, procured his admission into the college of the Congregazione Somascttj a brotherhood conspicuous for their rigid discipline.

Stothard, before he was eight years of age, felt the love of art stirred within him by seeing some of the heads of Houbraken, and an engraving of the blind Belisarius, by Strange ; and the first employment of his pencil, was in copying these prints, (b) Placed, for the benefit of his health, under the care of an ancient widow, it was the delight of the artistes childhood to obtain admission to a store-room of the farm-house in which his guardian dwelt, and to sit for hours upon a low stool, feasting his eyes upon a painting which hung otherwise neglected there.

Vandvck's predilection for art was shown at a very early age. His imitative faculties were called into play by his observation of the designs which his mother was accustomed to execute in embroidery, and his early efi'orts with the pencil were encouraged and assisted by the same judicious parent.

PRONTIj RUYSDAEL, MICHAEL ANGELO. 11

Cesare Pronti, of Riminij owed his first passion for painting to contemplating, when a boy, a collection of fine pictures in a shop at the fair of Sinigaglia, He remained riveted to the spot for hours, unmindful of his meals, or of his parents who were searching through the city for the young runagate, who, when found, could scarcely be torn from the object of his regards. The impression was indelible, and he soon after put in force his fixed determination to become a painter.

Jacob Huysdael, at the early age of twelve years, produced specimens of painting in oil that would have been no discredit to artists of double that age. It was at about the same age that Claude, designing grotesques and arabesques for his brother, who was a carver in wood, manifested the first indications of that taste for art, which was shortly afterwards stimulated and developed by a residence in Rome.

Michael Angelo, while yet a school-boy, gave up all his leisure hours to drawing, to the neglect of his studies. Borrowing the necessary materials from Francesco Granacci, a pupil of Domenico Ghirlandajo, he copied in oils, upon a panel, a print representing the story of St. Anthony beaten by devils, and in depicting some of the subordinate monsters of the composition, he went to the fish market to observe the form and colour of fins and of the eyes of fish, that the whole might be true to nature. Before he was fourteen, a head had been given him to copy^ and so well did he succeed^ that having smoked his own piece^ so as to give it the requisite appearance of antiquity^ he substituted it for the original^ and the imposition was only discovered by the ill-suppressed laughter of one of the artistes associates, who was a party to the fraud.

K/AFFAELLE, obscrvcs a recent biographer, imbibed a taste for painting with the maternal milk. His first playthings were the implements of his father^s art ; and the latter delighted on all occasions to encourage tendencies which seemed the presage of an extraordinary vocation to the noble art which he himself so loved.

Andrea del Sarto, placed by his father with a goldsmith, when only seven years old, evinced a remarkable aptitude, and had attained so much skill in execution by the age of ten, as to justify a prognostication of his future greatness. Domenico Beccafumi, like Giotto, employed in childhood to tend his father^s sheep, was observed to draw on stones, or other substances, and, failing these, he would gratify his favourite propensities by sketching with a pointed stick upon the sand of a little stream, which wandered through the pasturage to which he was accustomed to direct his flock.

Walpole relates of Griffiere, who was called "the gentleman of Utrecht," that while at school he became acquainted with a lad who was learning to paint earthenware;^ and feeling such a bias towards

LAWRENCE^ SHEE, ETTY. 13

art, he passed his time in assisting his friend instead of going to school, setting out from home and returning at the stated hours, as though the day had been properly devoted to the studies of the schoolroom.

At five years old, our own Lavtrence had established a sort of local reputation as a draughtsman and reciter ; and his father, the landlord of the Black Bear Inn, at Devizes, would make the infant prodigy stand upon the table, and call upon his guests to decide whether the future President of the Eoyal Academy, and friend of kings, should give them a recitation from Milton or take their portraits, (c) At eight or nine years old he was taken to Corsham House, the seat of the Methuens, and turned loose among the paintings which adorn the walls of the various apartments. He was found gazing upon a picture by Bubens. " Ah ! " he sighed, as he was taken away, "I shall never be able to paint like that.^^ He went home and endeavoured to imitate what he had seen, and also produced an original composition of his own, which Daines Barrington speaks of as having been an extraordinary production, considering the artist was a mere child.

Shee, at the age of twelve, had obtained the three chief medals for drawings of the figure, landscape, and flowers, in the Dublin Society of Arts j and when not more than sixteen was in full occupation as a portrait painter in the Irish metropolis. Etty, like Eembrandt and Constable, the son of a miUer, betrayed a fondness for drawing before he was ten years old. " My first panels/^ he says, ^' were the boards of my father^s shop floor; my first crayon a farthing's worth of white chalk.^^ Prout's childhood was marked by an attachment to the pencil which nothing could shake, and we are under some obligations to the first schoolmaster of the future artist for fostering that attachment, and " stimulating him by the loan of his own pen to a more patient and elaborate study of the child's usual subject, his favourite cat.'' Prout's first beginnings in landscape study, it is interesting to add, " were made in happy truant excursions, now fondly remembered, with the painter Haydon, then also a youth." James Ward, sent forth into the world as an errand boy, at seven years of age, traced his first designs upon the backs of unfinished mezzo-tinto proofs, and gave some intimation of his latent genius in the bold sketch of a hand and arm — from recollection of a design by Fuseli — ^in white chalk upon the front of an old box. " The earliest recollection that I have of myself," writes Sidney Cooper, " is on one Sunday morning, when I was sketching with my brother, the great church, for so we called the cathedral (at Canterbury) ; and I continued to sketch that and aU those neighbouring objects that attracted my boyhood's fancy, when the weekly half-holiday would give me time, till I was thirteen years of age."

LANDER, REDGRAVE, WESTALL, REYNOLDS, ETC, 15

Lander^s instinctive desire to represent external objects by tbe pencil, was awakened by a perusal of the " Arabian Nights " when he was in his ninth or tenth year. Speaking of his own early youth, Mr. Redgrave says : — '' I used to Hnger with an intense pleasure — a pleasure that I now find only in these memories — on the heaths and commons which surround London, making such rude attempts at sketching as a little landscape painting, learned at school would suffice for, and searching out the plants and wild flowers that grew so plentifully on these open wastes, thus perhaps laying the foundation for a love of the wild growths of plants and for landscape paintings which are among my greatest sources of present pleasure." Westall used to play truant from school in order to make sketches from nature. Reynolds at seven years old, endeavoured to apply the rules laid down in a treatise on perspective to a drawing which he made of his father^s school; and there are drawings in existence which were executed by Mijller at four years of age ; we have also seen characteristic sketches of dogs and other animals from the pencil of a living artist who now stands pre-eminent in that department of art, drawn at ten, seven, and even five years of age.

Paul Potter^s reputation as an artist was established at the age of fifteen ; Van Holst in his tenth year displayed so much skill that Sir Thomas Lawrence gave him three guineas for one of his pencil sketches ; Miguel Seira, when not more than seventeen^ painted an altar-piece at Marseilles which established his reputation : it is due to his memory to add that the wealthy which also accompanied the reputation, was expended in relieving the necessities of the poorer citizens of Marseilles during the plague of 1721, and that his means were utterly exhausted by his benevolence.

Giovanni Battista Monti, the son of a mendicant at Genoa, while a mere boy, displayed so much power in the sketches he used to make upon the houses as to attract the attention of a Genoese nobleman, who placed him in the way of obtaining instruction in the art. Matthew Elias, employed, hke Giotto, in watching a herd, was observed by an artist, tracing objects on the ground, and was indebted to that circumstance for the opportunity of gratifying the evident bent of his inclinations. John Van Ach^s artistic predilections were shown while at school by sketches of his companions' countenances; and a drawing which he made of an illustrious lady who passed through Cologne, while the young draughtsman was only ten years of age, astonished the artists of that city, and determined his own career. Van Leyden produced some clever engravings before he was nine years old, and executed a picture of considerable merit at twelve. Ercole Sarti, a deaf and dumb artist, taking advantage of the occurrence of a festival, exhibited, while only fifteen years of age, on

AERTS^ GAMBARA, DE SOLIS^ ETC. 17

the front of his father^s house,, a painting of the Adoration of the Magi^ which was looked upon as little short of a miracle. Richard Aerts, the son of a poor Dutch fisherman, meeting with an accident in his boyhood, which necessitated the amputation of one of his legs, beguiled his tedious confinement by sketching the objects around him with a piece of chalk ; and these sketches displayed so much character and vigour, that he was placed under the tuition of an artist, and became a painter of considerable repute. Gambara, the son of a tailor, compelled at an early age to assist his father in the business, provoked the chastisement of his matter-of-fact parent by giving up every leisure moment to sketching. Fortunately for the boy, the cause of these family jars came under the notice of an artist who discerned some traits of genius in Gambara^s drawings, and took him into his own school, for study. At the age of eighteen Francisco DE SoLis painted a picture of such great merit, as to attract the particular attention of Philip IV. of Spain, by whom he was thenceforward warmly patronised.

Albani gave intimations of his genius before he was twelve years of age; Cavedone w^as not much older when the freedom and beauty of his pen-andink sketches excited the admiration of Annibale Caracci. It was also in the service of this artist and his brothers, that the boy Spada was employed as a colour-grinder, and manifested so much ability in design as to lead to his reception in the school of the great Bolognese artists. Cesare d^Arpino at the age of thirteen obtained a similarly menial employment in the Vatican ; and, in the absence of the painters, one day sketched some figures on the wall in so meritorious a style, that the pope took him under his protection, and placed him in one of the schools. GiROLAMO DA LiBRi, the Veroncsc artist, painted an altar-piece at sixteen years of age, which excited no less wonder than eulogium. Andrea Mantegna, the son of a herdsman, of whom the same story is told as of Giotto and Elias, produced an altar-piece at seventeen. Michael Angelo da Caravaggio was inspired with the ambition of becoming an artist when employed, as a boy^ in the preparation of plaster for the fresco-painters at Milan. Gerard Lairesse was in repute as a portrait painter at sixteen. Pierino del Vaga, whose antecedents were so remarkable, manifested a predilection for art in very early childhood ; so also did Tintoretto, who, at an equally early period of his existence, covered the walls of his father^ s house with designs indicative of the genius which was germinating in his mind. Buonovicino painted an altar-piece at sixteen; Juan Ribalta, when not more than eighteen, gave proof of extraordinary ability in a painting of the Crucifixion; and the Spanish artist, Fernandez Arias, executed the great altar-

CHAMBERS, KER PORTER, ROBSON. 19

piece of the Carmelites, at Toledo, wlien only fourteen.

George Chambers, the marine painter, gave evidence of the talent for which he was subsequently distinguished, while serving his apprenticeship to the master of a brig, trading in the Mediterranean and Baltic seas. Kobert Ker Porter, whose boyhood was passed in Scotland, and who enjoyed the acquaintance of Flora Macdonald, was inspired at the age of nine or ten, with the determination of becoming a painter of battles, by Florals spirited explanations of a battle piece in her possession, representing one of the scenes in ^45.

" EoBsoN^s taste for drawing,^^ says Mr. Stanley, " displayed itself at a very early age, and Bewick^s Book of Quadrupeds, then lately published, became, after nature, the favourite object of his notice. It seems that he never received any regular instruction in the rules of his art, but that all his knowledge of it was derived from observing the proceedings of artists who came down to Durham for the purpose of sketching the beautiful scenery in its vicinity. When one of these made his appearance, he was sure to find himself attended by a ruddy-faced boy, who hung upon his path, and, before he had made much progress, the little fellow was creeping up to his side with a look of intense interest to observe the magical effect of his pencil. By degrees he mustered courage to show his own attempts to these mighty magicians, and being kindly received by several, tbe effect of their advice was soon visible."

Francisco Zurbaran, the son of a husbandman, was released from the plough, and permitted to receive the training for art, towards which he had shown a decided inclination before he had escaped from boyhood. Francisco Vieria, the elder, must have put forth his powers in early life, for, before he was sixteen, he had carried off the first prize in the Academy of St. Luke, at Rome, and had been commissioned by the King of Portugal to paint a large picture of the Mysteries of the Eucharist, which the artist executed in six days. Taddeo ZuccHERo was a painter before he was fourteen, and at that age accepted the menial office of a colour-grinder that he might enjoy the necessary opportunities of study, spending his nights — so great was the poor boy^s poverty — in the loggie of the Palazzo Chigi, at Rome. Heyman Dullaert betrayed his propensity towards art at a very early age, covering the walls of his father's house with sketches of all kinds ; and we are reminded, while writing these words, of having seen some spirited drawings of dogs and other animals, executed by Sir Edwin LandsEer, when not more than seven years of age. John Verkolie^s inclination towards art was shown during a three years^ confinement to his bed, resulting from an accident which occurred to him when about twelve years of age ; and the