He who holds
the oceans in the hollow of His hand had given, associated with
them, wonderful gifts into his keeping; he had used them well
through threescore and fourteen years; and, on the afternoon of that
spring day, relinquished them for ever.
It is superfluous to record that the painter of "The Battle of
Trafalgar", of the "Victory being towed into Gibraltar with the body
of Nelson on Board", of "The Morning after the Wreck", of "The
Abandoned", of fifty more such works, died in his seventy-fourth
year, "Mr." Stanfield.--He was an Englishman.
Those grand pictures will proclaim his powers while paint and canvas
last. But the writer of these words had been his friend for thirty
years; and when, a short week or two before his death, he laid that
once so skilful hand upon the writer's breast and told him they
would meet again, "but not here", the thoughts of the latter turned,
for the time, so little to his noble genius, and so much to his
noble nature!
He was the soul of frankness, generosity, and simplicity. The most
genial, the most affectionate, the most loving, and the most lovable
of men. Success had never for an instant spoiled him. His interest
in the Theatre as an Institution--the best picturesqueness of which
may be said to be wholly due to him--was faithful to the last.
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