Of William Daniels, a distinguished painter, of the Rembrandt school, and one of the greatest geniuses that ever reflected honour on this city, little is really known, that is, truly known to the general public. He was not known if we use the word in the sense of being understood, even in Liverpool, so retiring was he, and so averse to mingling in what is generally known as society: he disliked and shunned miscellaneous and strange company; and his diffidence did not arise from any inability to hold his own amongst men, even the most intellectual, for he was well-informed beyond most of those with whom he came in contact; his reading was extensive and very various, and his knowledge of men was profound.

Among older and sympathetic friends he was ever the most genial of companions, and his society was highly esteemed by numerous persons of every grade of society, from some of the most humble to many individuals of lofty social status, who had been his friends for lengthened periods. He is spoken of (chiefly by drunkards) as an intemperate man, and was long said erroneously, to be of extremely uncertain and violent temper, insolent, disdainful, and tyrannical. The writer of these lines knew him intimately over a period of thirty-five years and was never treated by him in other than the most respectful manner; always with the greatest politeness, deference, and consideration.

This distinguished man, whose works excite enthusiastic admiration wherever seen, shrank even from the provincial fame; He disliked praise, and flattery he despised and detested in his heart.

He died at his residence, 85, Cresswell Street, Everton, on Wednesday the 13th day of October, 1880, at 11-30 am, gazing at the glorious sunshine, with intellect unimpaired, and in the very zenith of his art-power, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, he having been born on the 9th day of May 1813.

All that was mortal of the man was, on the 18th day of that month, laid in the family grave, in St. James’s Cemetery, “The Mount” and where rest four of his children ; namely, Cyrus, a second Cyrus, Emma, and Sam, near to the mausoleum of Huskisson, whom the painter knew well. His remains were followed by - in the first coach, Mrs Daniels, the widow, Mr William Daniels, son of the deceased, Mrs Priest, and Mrs Fitzsimmons, daughters of the artist, and Mr Fitzsimmons. Mr Priest, Daniels’ other son-in-law was away at sea. The second carriage contained - Dr Biggs B.A., Martin Brown Esq., solicitor to the deceased, Mr Robert Compton and and Mr Mrs & Miss Robson, the latter lady Daniels’ most promising pupil. In the third carriage rode Mr Seeley, J. Seeley jun., P. J. Robson, T. Whitehead (a former pupil of Daniels’), and J. Hargreaves. In the fourth, Messrs T. S. Eastham, Martin Condliff, W. T. Smith, J. Kent, and J. Robson. In other carriages were T. Craddick, T. Haigh, Wm Wood, Willy Priest, Miss Priest, W. H. Jude, Miss Fitzsimmons, and others. The carriages of the Rev. Hugh Stowell Brown, the Rev. Canon Taylor, Dr. A. R. Hopper, of Rodney Street the artist medical attendant, Mrs Haigh, and Wm Dawbarn Esq. followed with their respective owners. In the chapel, and at the grave side were the late Joseph Clegg, proprietor of the LANTERN who had risen from a sick bed to attend his friends funeral, and who by doing so, got his death, J. A. P. McBride, H. William Parry, and W. Ensor, artists; K. C. Spier (then editor of the LANTERN), Dr John Proudfoot M.A., John Hall, J. Martin, J. Jacobs, S. Fraser, and some hundreds of others, literati, clergymen, actors, musicians, merchants, and barristers, with a large sprinkling of artisans and many weeping women. Seldom are so many white heads brought together on a private occasion.

The funeral service was conducted by the Rev. S. Bannister. Indisposition prevented the attendance of Sir John Gilbert RA, Mr Richard Andsell RA, and Mr T. Wallace, curator of the South Kensington Museum, where there are seven pictures by the deceased artist, the property of the nation, only awaiting room to be placed in the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square.

Besides the members of his family aforementioned, Daniels leaves a daughter, Mary Ann, now in Boston, U.S.A., and a son, Alexander, settled in Canada.

The subject of this biography was of a humble origin; born in a cottage by the canal, in Gascoigne Street, Vauxhall Road, and was brought up in the brick fields, along the north shore of the River Mersey, where his parents and all their children wrought.

Unlettered in his youth, or having a merely rudimentary education, and later taught drawing only, unaided he became a ripe scholar, and trained himself in art until he had few equals. As a painter of shells and glass, his work was pearly, opalistic, iridescent, and transparent; whilst his candle light and firelight pictures have been declared equal to those of the greatest Dutch masters, and by many thought to surpass them. His works display freedom of touch equal to that of George Morland, another erratic genius, who he in many respects resembles in a remarkable degree, only with superior drawing and colour; whilst, in roundness of form and expression his work is unexcelled by any artist of modern times. Many surgeons have offered admiring testimony to the perfection of his anatomical drawing; of his flesh painting it was said, “Cut it and it would bleed”, it was so natural: and his completed works are characterised by high finish without apparent elaboration.

With this rapid outline must close the present weeks chapter the papers will be continued weekly, and will contain many authentic anecdotes of an interesting and entertaining character; the writer"s intention being to “Nothing extenuating, nor set down ought in malice”, but to depict the artist as he knew him.

As stated in the opening chapter, the writer knew the subject of this memoir intimately over a period of 35 years, and is desirous of putting before the world many interesting and diverting particulars of 'a character', and a very distinguished, and, wherever known, highly appreciated painter; and, entertaining respect for the man, and almost revering the artist, is the more wishful to setting forth as he knew him, because an ill-timed, unreliable, and scrappy notice of the man was published about twelve months prior to his decease, from the pen of a young and inexperienced writer, whom, in a readable enough pamphlet, confesses that never in his life met Daniels; and who had all his so-called information from hearsay; and whose pages bear indisputable evidence of having been written with a view to enhance the value of a certain private collection of the dead artist"s works, not one of his pictures, save such as are in that collection being therein mentioned. Overtures were made to the writer of this present biography years ago, to produce a pamphlet of the kind, which overtures were rejected with the feeling that to issue such a book under the nose of the living painter, and that painter his friend, would be not only a piece of grossly bad taste, but that it would also annoy and cause pain to the artist who was to be made the subject of it. The pamphlet in question did annoy and hurt Daniel"s greatly, and on his deathbed he spoke of it to the writer, to his solicitor, and others, in terms of indignation, denouncing it as “impertinent, and in very many important particulars untrue”.

Of an artist so widely talked about as William Daniels, other writers no better informed may possibly rush into print with vulgar sensational accounts of the man, displaying not the best side of his character but rather echoing the exclamation of Hamlet"s mother - “The drink! The drink!” The frequent local talk of him, by men over their cups, the more vehement when most tipsy, that Daniels was a drunkard.

He unfortunately did indulge in liquor, sometimes to excess; but this world is full of pharisaical sinners who are only too ready to cast stones - they who live in glass houses being the most prone to the practice - and so, having said thus much, my biography shall be no mere history of drunken freaks, echoes from the bar parlour, but shall deal with the artist, rather than with the erring mortal; imperfect, because merely human; shall view him from his better side, and he had a better side.

There are often, as Bulwer says, “many sides to a character”, and Daniels was, in that particular, like a diamond, and diamond in the rough truly, and yet only partly in the rough, having many bright and shining sides that showed brilliancy, polish, and sterling work, the like of which numbers of those who condemn him would be the better .

He was a truthful, honest, tender-hearted, compassionate man, and “nobody's enemy but his own”. Of his charitable and compassionate nature many instances will have to be given in these columns, as also of his conscientiousness and love of truth. One common vice he had not - the writer emphatically believes, and is agreed with on the point by all the artist oldest friends-that he was a truly faithful husband, and an affectionate father, if, sometimes, a thoughtless one; and never once in the course of their long and intimate acquaintance did he who pens these lines, hear Daniels utter a coarse or disparaging word of women. With all his wondrous talent, he was not always much removed about absolute want, yet his wife always said that if provisions were not abundant with them he went off without breaking his fast, leaving what food there was for herself and the children. At other times, when in good health and working steadily, he has given to a neighbour stricken down by sickness, or out of work, as much as 10 shillings weekly for months together, and he did good by stealth, being, in charitable deeds, as in all other matters, impulsive, generous, and singularly unostentatious.

That he was thoughtless, wanting continuous application, and careless of money (of which he never appreciated the value and importance), all his friends were very well aware, but none of them now living, or who went before him, can, or could, say that William Daniels ever did a deliberate or intentional wrong. As he was generous with his money, with his time, with his labour, so also was he generous in his judgment of other painters art work. The writer never heard him utter a harsh criticism of a picture, or use one sentence in disparagement of other artists" methods, however indifferent they may be. On the contrary, if there was anything at all in the picture really to admire, it had his high admiration and most generous praise; and in regard to his own glorious work he was singularly modest, nor would he for a moment listen to other persons commendation of it.

Daniels accuracy of touch was remarkable, and his sense of form so acute and true that he never made a sketch on his canvas, but painted the picture at once, with a full brush. He was so extremely fastidious-never been fully satisfied with his own work and so conscientious in his treatment of art, that he would not allow a picture to leave his hands whilst he thought added labour could improve it. Hence he has left many pictures comparatively unfinished, or what he considered so.

He was very intelligent, of quick, natural parts, and well read in philosophy, natural history, geography, astronomy, (speaking on which subject his deeply reverential nature always was revealed) travels, biography, ancient and modern history, poetry, and fiction. He was a good mathematician, and acquainted with the classics, being especially partial to Homer and Virgil. Of British writers, he was particularly fond of the works of Dickens, Goldsmith, Byron, Butler, Pope, Milton, Scott, and Shakespeare. He was so familiar with the text of Shakespeare that no quotation could be given but he could tell at once, without a moment"s hesitation, where the passage was to be found - the play, the act, the scene, and the character in whose mouth the poet had placed the language. He was passionately fond of Moore"s “Irish Melodies”, he revelled in Cervantes story of “Don Quixote”, he greatly admired to the wit and wisdom of Aesop; “Gray"s Elegy” he loved, and “Collins Ode to the Passions”, and Dryden"s “Alexander's Feast”, and he was passionately fond of music, during his later years painting late into the night, and sometimes all night, to sweet airs played upon a large music box that was presented to him by Mr Roskell.

Sam Daniels, a tall, powerful, handsome man, had been a soldier. Obtaining his discharge, he came to Liverpool, and commenced business as a brick maker, when he saw in a public house, where she was a waitress, a buxom young woman whom he soon after married. They had five children - Eliza, William (the subject of this biography), Samuel (who took to his father"s brick-making trade), John (who afterwards became a boiler maker), and Martha. All the children, with their father and brother, worked in the brick fields.

William, as soon as he could run and carrying a brick, had to carry off the moulds of clay cast by his father at the trough, and arrange them along the ground to dry; to turn them, and to stack them for hardening, preparatory to their being burnt in the kiln. On wet days, when outdoor work was impossible, the lad occupied himself by carving in wood and modelling in clay - which he soon did with such skill that the homely folks of the small world in which he moved said - “Little Bill Daniels is a genus”. With a pocket knife, he made a house and mill in which to keep mice, and he constructed tiny windmills, and built a Noah"s Ark, and carved all its inmates, men and women, and birds and beasts, and which decorated the Mantel shelf in the parental home, achievements of which the lad’s parents were not a little proud.

At that period, a local painter of distinguished merit, Alexander Mosses by name, past and repassed the brick fields to walk by the shore almost daily in company with a friend of his who was peak-nosed, and lank, and

whilst Mosses was short and podgy, with a remarkably large head and a tiny nose, and little Bill had modelled this oddly matched pair of friends in clay; hearing of which, Mosses saw the lad, and his performance; witnessed his facility of execution; and, perceiving his intuitive knowledge of form, prevailed upon Daniels père to let the lad attend the evening drawing class at the Royal Institution, Colquitt St, where Mosses was drawing master.

The father wrought laboriously, making large sums of money, and lived in a comfortable, though humble way, in a cottage that had, hard by, a vegetable garden, in a corner of which a pig occupied a sty. The sitting room at home had the floor strewn with pounded sandstone, and was furnished with a narrow, upright looking glass with gilt fluted pillars and capitals of Corinthian style, by way of frame; a large, long case eight-day clock; a cradle, painted brown outside and blue within and seldom without a tenant; sundry chairs, a little one included, a round table, and a square one, with leaves, generally used as a sideboard, and an oak chest of drawers, with sloping top and brass knocker handles; and on the horizontal ledge atop was reared a tea-tray, the pride of the brick makers family and the envy of the neighbourhood, bearing a pictorial peacock that was fearfully and wonderfully drawn, and gorgeous, if not truthful in colour, and this was the first example of pictorial art that met the future painter’s gaze.

William was provided with a pair of wooden-soled clogs, in which unwanted finery - for, he had hitherto run barefooted, he went to the drawing school. But not before “the tale of the bricks” was told; for, Sam had been a soldier, and was a disciplinarian. Business was not to be neglected for pleasure, nor for the pursuit of luxurious tastes; and so the little fellow had to carry, or turn, or stack, until his long day"s work was done, after which he was at liberty to follow his artistic bent.

He followed it to such good purpose that he outstripped older students, and very soon excelled them all. One evening, at the close of a session, the Royal Institution was crowded by pupils, their friends, and relatives, and on the back seat shrank little Daniels until his name was read out as the winner of the first prize in drawing. Then he began to cry. “What is the matter, Bill?” asked a fellow student, a young gentleman named Byland, who admired the lad, and was his friend - “If I go up to the middle of the room between those ladies and gentlemen”, blubbered this sensitive boy, “they will laugh at me”. “Take your clogs off, and put my shoes on”, was the quick answer. Off went the clogs, the shoes were slipped off the feet of the owner, and on to those of Daniels, and he went up, lighter of heart and heels, to receive his prize:-A work on Composition, not a gold medal as has being erroneously stated. Daniels on several occasions, shortly before his death, alluded to his young friend’s act of generosity with gratitude and emotion.

The first prize won by young Daniels, as mentioned in my last chapter, was gained for a large drawing in black and white of the Dying Gladiator, drawn from the round. Of this very remarkable performance I have often heard much, and have long endeavoured to trace it, but hitherto in vain; I know only that Mosses begged it off the lad and had it framed.

From this time “little Bill” saw a vista opening before him, and he became more passionately than ever attached to his studies, far excelling all his fellows, with whom, however, he was a general favourite, and looked upon as a phenomenon.

It was not long before Moss"s perceived that it would be to his advantage to secure this clever lad as an apprentice. He was a wood-engraver as well as drawing-master and painter, and again he journeyed to the brickmakers home, and prevailed upon the lad"s father to apprentice his son to him, an arrangement that was after some reluctance-for Sam wanted his son to stick to brick-making, generally carried out; William Daniels being bound to Alexander Mosses for a period of seven years. He always represented Mosses as a rather “stingy,” grunging, jealous man, who, at his residence in Benson Street, Mount Pleasant, worked apart, not allowing young Daniels access to his painting room, but finding him plenty to do in grinding colours, and in odd sketching jobs, and keeping him employed in wood engraving, at which he became exceedingly skilful and expert, but never afforded him a lesson in painting.

The lad's genius was not to be restrained, however, and he was resolved to find a way, or make one, to the goal of his ambition, and he verified the proverb that “where there's a Will there"s a way”. Amongst the duties imposed upon him was that of having to clean the brushes used by his master and an elder apprentice, a big, dull fellow, who never made a mark, though he had opportunities that were denied to Daniels, he being the son of a wealthy widow lady, who had paid with her son a premium of seventy guineas, and favoured accordingly.

These brushes the poor lad took home to clean, and, for a short period, until he could purchase others - for Sam, since he would not be a brick-maker, had turned him entirely upon his own resources-he used in his nights studies there, and put in their places, ready cleaned for his master and the favoured apprentice in the morning. At this period he produced, and sold for four or five shillings each, a number of candle light pictures, a class of work which, began in necessity, because he could not work in daylight became in his hands a speciality, and remained to the end his favoured style of painting, and one in which he had few equals living.

This burning of the midnight oil made the lad drowsy over his monotonous work in the day time, and Mosses found him slumbering at the bench. He discovered the cause, for one of the little candle-lights had fallen into his hands, and he saw the lad"s father, and being a passionate man (short, thick-set, and bullet-headed) he boldly asserted that those surreptitiously produced pictures by right belonged to him, and that, for slumbering graver in hand, the boy should be sent to prison, a threat that, it is needless to say, was not carried out. Nor were the pictures confiscated. Will had become the proud possessor of a colour box and colours of his own. These little pictures are invariably painted on panels, much more accessible than canvas and stretchers to a lad of Williams means in those days.

I said that the big apprentice never made a mark. He did though, once. It was Daniels duty to clean this young fellows palette as well as his brushes, and to “lay” the same ready for his day"s work, such as filling in portrait and other canvases of his master"s painting. Feeling his own growing ability, and knowing this preferred youngster’s lack of talent, Daniels rebelled, refusing to be any longer his lackey, when he was rushed upon by the young fellow, gripping his palette knife, and William received a cut along his hand, the mark of which he carried to his grave.

Daniels thrashed him soundly, and absented himself from his work, which absence brought Mosses once more with a complaint to the parental home, where it was eventually arranged that “Bill” should no longer be “slavey” to an inferior, and he returned to his bench and the drudgery.

William was of an amiable, generous, and obliging disposition, and this quality got him into trouble more than once. Mosses had two maiden sisters, who lived in his house, and worked at their business of dressmaking in the room where Daniels wrought, and often did they enlist his services to cover with the material of the dresses they were making, the wooden “moulds” that were, as buttons, to adorn the articles of attire when finished. A tender billet doux, too, they frequently prevailed upon him to carry to its destination, for as yet branch post offices and the penny post were not, and sent him to borrow and to return books, and other messages, and when his master complained of the non-performance of his proper work, they never exonerated the lad, but left him to bear the blame, and he was too gallant, or magnanimous to compromise the ladies by revealing the facts of the case.

Daniels early candle-light pictures were produced in this wise:- he rigged up an improvised screen - an old blanket - in which he cut a hole, (and was well thrashed for it by his mother. He used to say “I can fancy that I feel that rolling pin about my shoulders now!”) through which aperture to view the object he wished to paint, and before this screen, which kept the glare of candles from his eyes, but illumined the object, the young self-taught artist earned many a pound.

When Daniels was apprentice to Mosses he believed he was to be instructed in the art of painting, about which there had no doubt been some mistake; anyway, lessons in painting he received none so he always said, and his seven years turn past irksomely enough, the ardent youth in pining for the expiration of his time, and liberty. He still continued to paint by candlelight, often far beyond

and he became after a fashion, famous in his little world, outside the bounds of which he was not known, his diffidence effectually barring the way to a wider acquaintance, he continued to associate with brickmakers and other such humble folks.

It would seem that Mosses’ jealousy continued - the master had admired the talent of his pupil until he envied it perhaps, or maybe feared it, and he is said never to have permitted the young fellow to enter his studio except in some menial capacity, or as a model.

About this time, Mosses painted a very admirable picture, an engraving of which hangs in the room in which I write. It is on steel, by H. Robinson (an admirable photograph of it may be had of Mr Daniel Jones of Bold Street, Liverpool) and it represents a butcher's lad seated on a roadside bank on a gentle eminence to the east of the town, his wooden tray containing a leg of lamb, laid aside under a tree and guarded by the butcher's dog, while the lad tootles the Pandean pipes to a group of children, the dog howling an accompaniment. In the background are seen the Dome of the Town Hall, the tower of St. Peter"s Church, and other public buildings of Liverpool. That dark-eyed, merry looking butcher's boy, with his apron and woollen cap, is William Daniels.

His term of apprenticeship expired, Will quitted the bench and wood-cutting for ever, greatly to the disappointment of his master, who had found him clever and profitable. The young man had laboured early and late, studying painting with patient diligence, and, exhibiting a picture at the Liverpool Academy’s Exhibition, his own portrait - he was then seventeen - received flattering public notice thereof, to the great chagrin of Mosses, whose powers were beginning to decline; a labourious picture of “Adam and Eve” by him being severely handled by the critics, who also commented on the pupil’s work excelling his master’s.

In the Liverpool Academy’s Catalogue for this season of 1837 (13th year), I find a “posthumous portrait of Mr Sheppard's of the Botanic Gardens,’ by “the late Alexander Mosses,” and I am familiar with a kit-kat upright picture by him, a three-quarter-length life-size female figure, a fair young girl with a red shawl over her head, hawking the flat pointed, brimstone-tipped matches, well-remembered of people who lived there for the time when phosphorus matches were named in complement to his Satanic Majesty. That picture proves that Daniels admired and to some extent followed his master"s manner, though he excelled it in subtle colour, force and finish.

Portrait painting and candle-lights having brought Daniels some fame and profit, the young artist blossomed out as a bit of a buck. He was of fine, manly form, very handsome though, of remarkable appearance, with a wide and lofty forehead, and a profusion of jet black curly hair, and he stood 6 ft in his stockings, with

He often said there was a gypsy blood in his veins, and his remarkably swarthy complexion would seem to lend countenance to his belief, and what gave him a still further resemblance to the wandering tribe, he wore earrings. At other times he would say he believed himself descended of the “chosen people”, of which, however, he was by no means proud. It is more likely that he was of Spanish descent.

I said that he had become a bit of a buck - the clay-coloured Chrysalis had turned to a painted butterfly, and to be known as a portrait painter appears to have been, at that time, the farthest bound of his ambition, as an anecdote related to me by a very old friend of his which seemed to prove. This gentleman was an engraver, and I will tell the story in his own words:-

“I was in my shop one day - it is nearly 50 years ago - when there entered at tall and extremely handsome, though very swarthy gentlemen, who had ruddy cheeks, piercing, jet-black eyes, and long, raven glossy curls hanging about the velvet collar of his coat. The coat was a bright blue, with brass buttons; his trousers were lavender-coloured; his vest was of black velvet; and he wore a crimson scarf and a white hat. (He was always fond of colour). He had a pipe in his mouth, and fire enough in his eyes to light it. He said, Mr S- I want you to engrave for me a card plate, lettered “William Daniels, Portrait Painter”. I suggested that “artist” would be a more distingue term, when my customer exclaimed aloud, hastily, almost violently, and with flashing eyes that almost frightened me- “Portrait Painter, I said, and if you don't wish to do what I require, say so, and I will try to find somebody who will”. I closed my mouth and opened the order book, entered the job, the plate was cut, the cards were printed, and the painter and I contracted a friendship that has continued to this day.”

The ebullition of temper mentioned in the last chapter when Mr S., the engraver, ventured to advise him about his card, was not unusual with Daniels. He was of equable temper enough, and readily yielded to advice from persons whose opinion he learned to respect, but was always hasty when crossed in any matter he knew or understood better than the objector or adviser did it.

About this time he met at the house of a mutual friend, the lady who was destined to become his wife. Her name was Mary Owen, and Will fell in love with her at their first meeting, and his ardent and fiery temperament seems to have made a wooer of him after the fashion of Benedict who says:-

He thrashed several rivals, clearing the coast rapidly, proposed on New Year's Day and was accepted, and following First of January was appointed for their marriage.

He loved his mistress, Art, most devotedly, too well to care for her in a mercenary way, and such wealth as she brought him he heeded lightly. To his latest hour he never knew the value of money; never worked for money's sake, and never treasured what he had made, so that, as he was not more prudent in his younger time than later in life, the appointed marriage day approached without provision laid by, and, though he was now beginning to be famous, it eventually found him unprovided with the need for coin, so, about a week before the day, he asked Mary to sit to him, at the house of the mutual friend already mentioned as a pedlar, with handkerchief over her head, and basket on her arm, selling laces and ribbons,

as Autolycus singers, and when the picture was finished, he took it, whilst the paint was still wet, to the House of Mr Joshua Walmsley, afterwards Sir Joshua, in Mount Pleasant, and sold to him the picture, which enabled the painter to pay for that licence and to purchase the wedding ring.

That picture- “The Wedding Ring Picture” Walmsley always called it - was subsequently presented to the nation by Sir Joshua, and is now in the gallery at South Kensington, with other paintings by the same artist. They are:- Portrait of Sir Joshua Walmsley, MP for Leicester; portrait of Sir Humphrey Davy, inventor of the miners' safety lamp; Portrait of Sir Joshua’s son, as a modeller; Portrait of Kean, as Hamlet; and a portrait of George Stephenson, for which last-named picture Daniels received the munificent sum of 15 guineas! As a marvellous resemblance to the “Father of the Railway”, a life-like picture, an admirable painting it is now worth hundreds of pounds.

Having purchased the ring, Daniels was returning along Lime Street, when some rough and idle rascals, who were leaving proof impressions of their dirty jackets on the painted wall of a public house, insulted him, and one threw an oyster shell, which cut him under the eye. He could have thrashed a regiment of such fellows, and was thumping them at a great rate, when a constable appeared on the scene, and with the discrimination of such geniuses since the days of Dogberry and elbow, he, with numerous assistants and infinite difficulty, conveyed the painter to Bridewell. On the way thither he was recognised by Tyndall Atkinson, Esquire, who had seen the artist at the house of his friend Walmsley, and Atkinson followed and procured his release, he being a man of some position, and well known, on becoming bound for his appearance before a magistrate in the morning.

Returning to the home of his “heart's delight”, Daniels found there a rival, a Mr Parry, who was a pilot, endeavouring to persuade the young lady to accompany him to the theatre. The rival was a powerful fellow, but he had enough to do to parry the painter's blows, and was glad to have his retreat covered, and to get out the house, which he did by dropping from a back window into a water butt, as it happened, and to crowd all sail and steer for home. He had been well “basted” and was now all dripping, and after he retired from the scene the coast remained clear and Daniels a few days thereafter, proudly took command of the craft for life, with pretty Mary Owens for his mate.

I may be excused for here calling attention to art and its professors as they existed in Liverpool in Daniels young days, when art had not a permanent abiding place in “the good old town”. The community, though a prosperous one, was not then of such vast importance as it has since attained, and many popular institutions were yet undreamt of. The railway system was comparatively in its infancy, and the iron road that had first linked together two Lancashire towns was in many countries unknown, whilst our docks, though splendidly managed and always busy, had not stretched so many miles as now, when Dicky Sams proudly and truly calls his native place, “The First Port”, the metropolis of commerce.

Apropos of “Dicky Sam,” let me, in parenthesis, inform such as are ignorant of the origin of that name, how it arose. When Liverpool was but a very insignificant place, and in the good old times when the press gang captured whomsoever they chose, and impressed them, tearing them away from their homes, their families, and their property, to man old England's “wooden walls,” her navy, a batch of men were seized here and sent aboard a tender-ship in the river, to be duly drafted off aboard our “men of war,” and, their names being demanded, for the purpose of being entered in the ship's books, the first to answer, not choosing to give his real name, replied “Richard Samuel,” which was promptly written-down. Impressed man number two, asked his baptismal name and patronymic, also gave them as “Richard Samuel,” and No. 3, 4, 5 and the rest of the party did likewise, when the boatswain ejaculated, in a speech strengthened and enriched by a choice, various, and extensive assortment of powerful and elegant expletives, applied generally to his own and others eyes and limbs, that the town was apparently inhabited solely by tarnation Dicky Sams. This bos’n of the tender-ship, - that so untenderly received those men forced from their homes:-

was himself an artist in vigorous word painting.

I said that art had not in Daniels and early days a permanent home in Liverpool, but we must not forget the Royal Institution in Colquitt Street, where there was a small, but highly interesting permanent gallery of paintings.

It was reserved for long after time to get together our present collection, that (though there is much trash in it), in the main adorns the walls of the Walker Art Gallery, and to possess the gift casket to contain the gems, as many of our pictures, the more recently acquired ones especially, undoubtedly are. Many excellent and highly interesting paintings were dispersed about the town in public buildings, and yet remain so scattered, and it is to be hoped that they may ere long be collected under one roof, and placed in some sort of classified order.

Exhibitions were held in the old gallery in Post-Office Place - exceedingly important exhibitions they were - and the professors of art at that time were men who made, then or subsequently, most our noble names. We have in plenty

And we are prone to plume ourselves upon our improvised cerebral developments and intellectual progress; but in the days I am writing of, there dwelt in Liverpool, and produced here world famous works, not a few artists for so comparatively insignificant a place. Daniels lived in Brownlow Hill and his early patron, Mr Walmsley, in Mount Pleasant, as already stated, and in and about these two streets, painting and sculpture flourished.

In the latter was the studio of John Foster, architect, who was President of the Academy, and he travelled with Mr. Cockerel, and aided him in the introduction of Greek art into England. Early professors of painting in Liverpool who are still with us, were Richard Andsell, R.A. who was brought up in the Blue coat Hospital here, W J Bishop, and W G Herdsman.

At the place of Samuel and Thomas Francey's , sculptors, in Mount Pleasant, John Gibson, a poor Welsh lad, afterwards RA, some of whose work adorns the exterior of the Wellington Rooms , was a pupil, placed there by William Roscoe, a historian of the Medici; one or two other sculptors of promise who died young; and a little later, Edwin Lyon and William Spence, two of the first members of the Liverpool Academy, and the son of the latter, B. E. Spence, and to John Alexander McBride, whose works have long been famous. McBride is living, a highly esteemed sculptor, and he should be able to afford me much valuable information and many interesting particulars concerning his old friend. Close by wrought Samuel Williamson, a splendid painter, and in an Ironmongers shop in Ranelagh Street, only a few doors away, was William Jackson, the future baronet and Member of Parliament, and in great part the originator of Birkenhead, the associate of artists, and a generous patron of art.

Such were the surroundings of William Daniels, and his art work was worthy to be remembered as amongst the best of much that was exceedingly fine and valuable. He was an entirely original artist, never copying a touch of anyone else's work, either in method or manner; during very many years he prepared his own colours, and never, even when he eventually adopted paints ready-prepared, did he use certain effective but evanescent pigments, and above all, though his Rembrandtish tone and luminous shadows might lead some to suppose so, never did he use that facile and beautifully transparent but exceedingly dangers preparation, Bitumen, or asphaltum. He never glazed work, nor scumbled, getting all his effects by honest, ernest, solid, conscientious painting, so that his pictures mellow in tone with the lapse of time, and will endure when enough meretricious, but brilliant-looking work has perished.

On 1st January, 1839, William Daniels artist of Brownlow Hill, married Mary Owen daughter of Peter Owen of Grosvenor Street at the Church of St Bride's within gunshot of the place where he now sleeps hard by the splendid monuments of Huskisson and, who in his early manhood he knew well. The marriage was by licence, (the certificate is before me as I write, No. 129, page 65 of the vestry book), the ceremony being performed by the Reverend J. H. Stewart. The witnesses were Thomas Pantmire and Ellen Owen.

William Daniels now fairly launched himself upon the world as an artist, and about this time he produced some work as fine as any he ever turned out in the course of his long and brilliant career, especially in portraiture, but such subjects as “Shylock”, “Bonnivard”, (the prisoner of Chillon), and “Lear”, he had not yet attained to. The joyousness of the early life was upon, within, and about him, his soul was not yet saddened - it never soured - he had not hugged misery to his heart, as he subsequently did, contemplating want and suffering and sorrow, and perpetuating their misery on canvas; and tragedy was a walk yet untrodden by him. With all his love of magnificence and stately poetry, and the lofty ideal in subject, he rarely reached their height. Scripture subjects and classical ones he never touched, but there is not a Lot’s wife, nor a Dido, nor a Niobe, all tears, in the world equal to what it was in the power of Daniels to produce. His lot was cast in lowly ways, and he moved amongst misery, and his sympathetic soul was magnetically attracted by it, and could not free itself, and so to him Niobe and her children were the persons sunk in squalid poverty, beggars, ballad singers, and the like; and as his chosen subjects were sad, the tone of his canvas was gloomy.

But I am anticipating a phase of his career that he had not yet reached, and the young artist was full of joy, and fun and frolic, if not of hope. He never, until near his end, projected his thoughts into the future, and when the joyousness of youth had passed away, sufficient for the day to him was the evil thereof, and he never took thought for the Morrow.

His work was not continuous, nor very diligently pursued, and his exceptional genius made him but indifferent to monetary compensation therefore. Indeed, his lavish genius was bestowed upon anyone and anything save on his own affairs, or the need immediately about him appertaining to himself, and a well-known figure picture that was produced at about this period, when his reputed painter and Daniels were fellow lodgers (that is, before his marriage), evinces more than the mere influence of Daniels in drawing and colour, the more especially as the putative father of that work never subsequently turned out anything in any way resembling yet, in subject or at all equal to it in colour, tone, or treatment, which seems to stand it as less the work of the artist to whom it is ascribed than to the one from the hand of the genius who is the subject of this memoir. Daniels was not boastful, however, possessing not a drachm of brag to the ton of genius, and, therefore, though the writer has a very strong opinion upon the subject, he will not dilate upon the theme.

He (Daniels), had some queer and rather romantic adventures with the gentle sex, but that was prior to his marriage. In one instance, he was sent for to paint a small Welsh lord - small physically, intellectually, and territorially, but of immense consequence and importance in his district. “Every bantam,” says the Spanish proverb, “is an eagle on his own dunghill” - and the villagers about knew no higher allegiance than that which they owed to him, and Daniels, after giving a sitting to this local dignitary, retired to his lodging in the village, where all the people feared this Sir Something, and there Will was, willy-nilly, fallen in love with and claimed by a bonny, plump, rosy Welsh lassie, much to both the disgust of Sir Something’s gamekeeper, a strapping fellow, who ordered Will Daniels off his preserve. If Will were a poacher, he could say that the game ran after him, and matters one evening reached a crisis when the rivals met. It was a case with the girl of:-

for her formally preferred swain was now discarded in favour of the handsome young artist. and nothing but war to the death would or could appease the jealous fury of Will’s gamekeeping rival who had lost the game.

The consternation of the villagers when they discovered that this affair was to be decided by ordeal of battle may be imagined, but, as the novelists have it, cannot be described.

Entreaties, presentations, and protestations were in vain; fight the rivals must and would, especially the Welshman, although Daniels never cared much for the girl, but a challenge was not to be set aside. The coney-catching Fluellen might be fiery, but he was not more so than the man of paint and pencils; no craven Pistol he to eat the leek, and, challenged thereto, he resolutely refused to give up his pretentions to the girl, about whom he cared nought, he being then engaged to be married, but, being defied, he could not resist the challenge to fight.

It had been for some years in everybody’s mouth, truly or untruly, that Will Daniels drank like a fish, fought like a lion, and painted like an angel, but for his powers of imbibition, nor for his art, did the peppery gamekeeper care one jot, only he resolved to try whether he could fight. This little community consisted of one village street, and may be said to have lived under a microscope, nothing happened amongst the people but what went direct to his lordship’s ears, and the intelligence not infrequently received additions and exaggerations, so that the warlike Welshman panted not only to extinguish his artist rival but also for the opportunity to do it secretly.

“Name off tear!” exclaimed the village wheelwright and carpenter, timber dealer and sawyer, “What, for ouy wass go on like these when she wass at liperty to fight in hur saw pit, look you, and settle hur tifferance at once, paceaply.”

It was night, and the seclusion of the saw-pit reached, the combatants “set to” in the pit, the carpenter holding a lantern above whilst they thumped each other, and when the Welshman had had enough, and voluntarily promised to renounce the rustic goddess of his idolatry, admitting in reply to the carpenter, that “Daniels wass top sawyer,” they returned to the sign of The Goat, where the painter generously treated his overthrown rival, and on the following morning, the gamekeeper having a pair of black eyes blacker (only in another way) than were Black-eyed Susan’s, and having to go before his lordly master on business; Daniels painted his eyes in so artistic a fashion, that no tinge of the results of the saw pit encounter now remained.

Daniels finished the great man’s picture and came home, followed, within a week, by his buxom admirer, the maid of the Inn, who arrived on Will’s wedding day, and was taken in tow by young Ryland aforenamed - he who lent his shoes to the young student - shewn the lions of the town, and, after some difficulty, and an awkward explanation, safely despatched home, to the great joy of the gamekeeper, who soon after married her.

This Ryland was a frolicsome fellow, and, lodging with Daniels, conceived a dislike of his landlord, who was a pompous, loud-voiced, holier-than-thou sort of man, who took grave exception to these young men painting on Sunday mornings. He sang at some conventicle, wore very large black gloves, and superfine, though ill-fitting black broadcloth, a very shiny hat with a remarkable curly rim, and creaking boots, and talked through his nose. He was another Malvolio,-

in his own estimation, and he took the liberty to strut into the young men’s painting room every Sunday morning, with soles noisier than a couple of corn crakes; to plant himself upon a cane-bottomed chair by the door, and nasally deliver himself of a lecture on the enormity of Sunday labour, etcetera, with strong references to brimstone and “the everlasting bonfire.”

It is not the writer’s province to defend this Sunday work, but the busybody was bidden again and again to go and earn his weekly half-crown by shouting Hallelujah and intoning Amens, but without avail, and he continued to plant himself on that cane-bottomed chair and to assume the task of preacher ere he departed for his duties as chorister, and Ryland resolved to play him a trick.

Hearing the fussy, loud-voiced little man pompously going to and fro about the house on Sunday morning, his boots as musical as the crakes in the cornfield on a sunny day in June, and noisily clearing his throat, and sol-fa-ing, the painters quickly prepared a lot of colour similar to that of the chair seating, and rapidly covered the cane-work therewith, just in time for Mr. Malvolio to enter, and flop down upon it, bidding then think about their latter end.

The artists had never before applied themselves so diligently to the canvases on their easels as they did now, during the infliction of a homily never so patiently endured before, and never looked with more pleasure on the work of their brushes than they did when the sanctimonious fellow strutted off to his vocal work with the brand of cane upon him, though not upon his forehead.

Daniels was regrettably addicted to Sunday work, and, gaining the acquaintance of Paganini, the great one-string violinist at the house of a lady in a southern suburb of Liverpool, he was about to obtain a picture of that extraordinary genius and very remarkable man one Sunday, when the lady of the house, getting knowledge of the intention, forbade such a breach of the Sabbath Day under her roof. Even Paganini’s playing severely strained the lady’s religious ideas, but the weird man asked:- “Vy, eef ze Sabat mos be so holie dat nosing mos be done as all, vy does Proveedence permit ze leetel birds to sing on dat day, and ze leves of ze forest to clap zere hands joy, viz, making ze rustling music, and ze vaters of ze great deep to sound zeir mysterious harmonies?” Paganini’s visit was brief, and Daniels missed getting a portrait of the extraordinary man, but he had his early opportunity of rebuking the pious lady, which happened in this wise:- He was painting the lady’s portrait, a full-length, she being resplendent in green satin, for, despite her piety and professed humility,

And when an interval occurred, he requested a lady not to look at the picture, for, that anyone should see his or her portrait in an unfinished condition was a strong aversion to him; but, like another Fatima, the lady must needs be peeping, and when the artist came to resume work, the sitter was being posed as before, Daniels, coming to take his palette from the peg on the easel, where it had hung, inquired whether the lady had been looking at the picture. “No, I assure you,” she replied, “as you requested that I would not, I refrained from doing so, believe me, I could not think of doing such a thing”. “And has no one else been in the room? “Not a soul, I assure you”. “Well”, said the artist, “somebody has wiped all the colours off my palate”, and, lo, the lady’s green satin skirt resembled, in one of its breadths, Joseph's coat of many colours.

Daniels, would work on a Sunday, but would not utter a lie, never finished that picture.

Never was man misunderstood, or (except in Byron) more unjustly maligned than was William Daniels, as those who knew him best, with reason to esteem him most can testify. He would have done anything to serve a “brother brush”, and his estimate of other artists' work was generous in the extreme. There was not a particle of jealousy in his nature, and his admiration for fine painting was unbounded, it was veneration, almost amounting to idolatry.

He was of wonderfully complex nature, being remarkably quiet, yet hasty; reserved, yet genial; meek, yet proud; well-informed, yet unwise; weak, yet resolute; bold, yet retiring; and gentle, yet imperious. His diffidence shrank from public display, he disliked praise, he hated flattery, he despised meanness, and he detested falsehood. He was possessed of noble, manly independence, and was generous to a fault.

He could not always afford to be generous; his good nature was often indiscreet, and so many people like “little Moses”, in Sheridan's “School for Scandal”, said of Daniels, as Moses says of Charles Surface- “Ah! It's a pity he's so damned charitable.”

One instance of his good nature is in his treatment of a poor lad who became his pupil in his early days of house-keeping. The lad was the son of a soldier, and, having a turn for drawing and colouring, was hearing of Daniels, his skill and his good nature, John McFadden sought him out, and told him of his aspirations and his poverty. Daniels made enquiries, he too, he, too, had been a poor unfriended lad; he, too, had been the son of a soldier; and he at once clothed and shod the lad, and, to make a studio for two - he had wrought in a little upstairs room himself - he dismantled his parlour, and set up an easel for John McFadden. who remained with him five years, sometimes making more money than his master, because he worked more continuously, and was aided in every way by Daniels, who, amongst other commissions, obtained orders for him to paint three daughters of the late Mr. Crellin, and a picture entitled, “The Recruits”, in subject not much unlike a recent one by Mrs. Elizabeth Butler, nee Thomson. Daniels provided him with canvasses, brushes, and colours, and McFadden, who’s provident ways savoured of something more than prudence, never reimbursed his master.

Well nursed and trained, and able to go alone, at the end of five years, McFadden set up a studio of his own in Great George Street, set up a “trap”, also (about that time a “gentleman” was defined as “one who keeps a gig”) eventually went to New York, made money, kept a fast trotting horse, and a “tiger”, lived fast, and died at the age of thirty.

There are many of McFadden’s pictures about Liverpool, and not long ago an early one of his might have been seen in a window near the Adelphi; a child, throttling rather than embracing a pot-bellied white rabbit; and that work of art was lettered “William Daniels”.

A fine early picture by my old friend was “Washing the Baby”. It is the property of a timber merchant here, and depicts Mrs. Daniels and their first child, Mary Ann, and is worthily prized as a splendid work of art, People said of it:- “You can hear the baby cry”, and indeed, it would require but little stretch of imagination to think so.

Another early work by this master was a cabinet picture on panel, representing Sam Daniels in his shirtsleeves, leaning on the palings, and calmly smoking his “churchwarden” by his embowered cottage palings, whilst children (Will’s younger brothers and sisters) played in the foreground. Through an open wicket we can get a glimpse of a pretty sunny garden, and beyond is a Church upon a distant eminence, backed by a calm, glowing evening sky. That gem of art belongs to a timber merchant also, a gentlemen who was Daniels’ friend to the last, and who followed his corse in his own carriage to the grave.

An unfinished picture of the artist's father, a somewhat similar composition to the foregoing, it promised be; was, after the artist's death purchased at the sale of the poor widows few effects, by Mr H. S. Eastman, also a true friend to the last. I say it promised to be similar to the cabinet picture aforesaid, as only the male figure was painted in, and it was not the artist custom to sketch his picture, but, keeping his subject in his mind's eye, to paint it in at once. Beyond the figure, there is little indication of the subject, and part of the canvas is untouched. It cost the poor fellow much mental anguish to leave this and several other pictures unfinished.

He was a tender-hearted, compassionate, man, and nobody's enemy but his own. Of his compassionate nature, I will here give one instance, (I shall give many in due time), I have seen him on a summer's evening, meeting children coming home, tired and clay-stained, from their brick-making (he was himself brought up in the brick fields, you will remember), almost choked with emotion, and taking the urchins into a confectioners shop, inconsiderately stuff them with cakes, inconsiderably, because bread and cheese would have done them more good, and left himself without the price of a smoke.

Nearly thirty years ago the writer was walking with Barry Sullivan in the Liverpool Botanic Gardens, when, seing a figure stooped over a scarlet geranium, we approach unperceived by the painter, for it was William Daniels, who was so absorbed in contemplation of the vivid colour glowing in the sunshine, that he was not for the moment awakened from his reverie. Rising with a sigh, he confronted us, and was for the first time made acquainted with the popular tragedian, whose picture in the character of Hamlet, (in the closet scene) he soon thereafter began to paint. The actor had come to a sitting attended by a friend, a sort of Mr. Dangle, who strutted about the studio (“Painting Room”, Daniels called it) and took occasion to overlook the artist, a liberty, the taking of which, Daniels always objected to, save in the case of pupils. There is a proverb that a certain sort of persons and children should never be permitted to seek an unfinished work, and Mr. Dangle was one of them. He strolled across to where Sullivan stood as the Prince of Denmark, frantically pointing after the ghost as it passes out at the portal, the conscience-stricken and horrified Queen Mother shrinking before him, and said:- “He is not making you very handsome, Barry,” when the artist rose, with flashing eyes, exclaiming with withering scorn:- “Flattery may be in your line, Sir, but it is not in mine.” He turned the painting to the wall, but did not “shoot his fist through it, and depart,” as has been written, the actor and his friend it was who departed; Daniels was in his own studio, and never touched it more, except to cut it down the middle. I saw the melancholy prince, years after, still with his face to the wall, and with dust and ashes on his head, like a Hebrew at the praying wall of Jerusalem.

That picture was lost, long after, and Daniels said it had been stolen from him. It turned up after his death, and was sold at the sale aforementioned, but it was not one of “Daniels’ effects,” it had been pawned years before, by a person since deceased, and was, on the announcement of the artist's death, advertised for sale by private treaty, but eventually coming under the hammer, and being knocked down to Daniels friend, Mr J. H. Eastham. The face and figure of Sullivan are marvellously well caught in the picture, and are about finished, but the rest of the scene is only vaguely rubbed in.

Daniels widow is, I regret to say, very poor, and to correct a misapprehension of the statement in the papers as to the sum realised at the sale, I may as well state the sad truth, which is, that though above twelve hundred guineas were realised by the total sale, such portion of the effects as belonged to the widow, brought her only thirty-eight pounds, four shillings and two pence.

The first time I saw Daniels - now nearly 40 years ago - he had a pipe in his mouth, and, afterwards knowing him intimately over a period of 35 years, I scarcely ever saw him, even to the hour of his death, without a pipe between his lips. The occasion I speak of was

when bells when knolling to Church, and he was breasting the stream of good pious folk who,

were flocking to hear prayers. In his left hand he grasped a bunch of pencils; upon his thumb he bore a palette, and in his right hand he carried a kit-kat canvas, going to paint some trade-tied sitter, maybe, who had no other time to sit, indiscreetly indifferent to what saint or sinner thought or said of him, and he was smoking like a volcano.

Notwithstanding this gratuitous piece of folly, I ever subsequently found him, when in the company of gentlemen, quiet, respectful, and, though diffident, perfectly at home.

He was more reserved in the society of ladies. Amongst the male sex he greatly disliked light complexions, and especially red hair, a lisp was particularly objectionable to him; he pitied dullards, and despised coxcombs, whilst for “shoddy” gentlemen, and a mere money-ocracy, he had unmitigated scorn, and tried not to conceal it.

He was fond of the society of children, and loved to paint them, and was, perhaps, one of the finest portrait painters that ever lived. His colour was richer than Morland's , and fuller than Gainsborough's ; (the drawing of the former was slovenly, and the colour of the latter thin),he shunned peculiarity of Opie, and the affectation of Lawrence, and lavished upon such works the most painstaking care. He invariably obtained an easy pose, and never sacrificed a sitters dignity, if dignity he had. He depicted the complexion with an accuracy extremely rare, and caught the character so surely as to seem to paint the very soul; the canvas appeared to live. You might think that if you scratch the figure it would bleed.

In colouring and expression he never was surpassed, and had few living equals; in design he was good, but, though he possessed a powerful imagination, I am not inclined to place him on a lofty pinnacle in the matter or art of composition - that is, the higher formal composition, as he never painted large groups, classical, or sacred, poetical, or historical. Colossal figure subjects he did painter, but not embracing many figures. The grand in art was not in his line, but he made grand every subject, the most humble, that he touched. The one touch of nature that it makes the whole world kin was never absent from his works.

He painted a large group of “The Roskell family”, which he did not live to finish, and of that, and others, I shall have more to say hereafter.

His career was strangely chequered, comparative luxury and almost want alternating. The latter condition was generally brought about by his unbusiness-like habits, allowing persons to put him off with promises instead of money when his work was done.

His weakness for conviviality was another impediment to his worldly welfare, and if drink were pressed upon him with apparent kindness, the strong man was disarmed, if not betrayed.

He was of restless, reckless disposition, impatient of control, and defiant of restraint, bald as a lion, physically hard as nails, or as adamant yet with much veneration in his nature, and a tender, compassionate hearts. The Italians have a proverb that says

And inversely it may be said of Daniels that, though drinking, and sometimes acting violently, there was an angel lurked behind the worser spirit that he occasionally displayed.

In early life, Richard Andsell (now an R.A.) and he were companions. “Dicky” Andsell was brought up in the Liverpool Blue Coat Hospital, and their friendliness continued to the last. As I have said, Sir Joshua Walmsley was an early patron, or, rather, customer of his - I like not the word patron any better than he did - and he knew, and painted Sir Humphrey Davy, and George Stephenson, “father of the railway,” and was by him invited to the ceremonial opening of the first passenger railway in the world - that between Manchester and Liverpool - when Huskisson, M. P. for the latter town, was killed, he having stepped, during a stoppage at Newton, from the carriage in which he had ridden, to that in which the Duke of Wellington was seated, and fallen in the attempt to regain his carriage as the train moved on again.

With that very many of the leading artists of his time Daniels was intimate, but not on very friendly terms with many of them. It was only after long acquaintance with anyone that Daniels became very genial. His manner was not effusive; indeed, it was diffident, reserved, and sometimes mistaken for coldness or indifference, or pride. He has no self-assertion, and never enjoyed the company of those who had; and it tried his patience to sit in the company of the bumptious or the boastful. The presence of a “swell” was as repugnant to his feelings as was the fop to Hotspur, he could not abide being “pestered with the popinjay,” and the irksome reprobate, or rather, incubus, got rid of, he sought company more congenial.

During some years Daniels lived in what was then a picturesque village, open to all points of the compass, looking to the North, over, Waterloo, Crosby, Altcar, and towards Southport, the latter place then of no account, its only banks being sandbanks; and they did not break, and break the hearts of shareholders. Liverpool lay about two miles off, the wooded heights of Everton rose in the distant East, and on the West, green meadows sloped down from the grass-grown road, traversed only by country carts, with vegetable produced for the town, a few carriages belonging to the gentry of Waterloo, and one omnibus driven by “Philip” and guarded by “Pat,” and this road, bounded on the East side by elegant villas, each verandaed, and standing on a high green mound within its own garden, and overarched here and there by lofty trees, afforded a view of the Cheshire ridge beyond the then much wider estuary of the Mersey, the Welsh mountains, and across the channel, where sunsets could be seen in all their magnificence.

I have a story to tell of Daniels and of sunsets, hereafter.

During the period of Will's residence here, he went one day to Waterloo, on business, and the occasion demanded more than usual attention to costume, as some display of linen seems to have been considered necessary. He was not particular in the manner of dress, always scrupulously cleanly, he was yet somewhat slovenly, and the reverse of dapper or neat. He had to see a person about the picture, and there was a sale advertised to take place in Waterloo, and the list of the effects included an eight day clock, the artist had a double reason for going. His demand at home for a clean white shirt was met by the information that the washerwoman had an avuncular relation with whom she had deposited the lot, and, in the emergency, Mrs Daniels borrowed for her husband, off a neighbour, a false shirt-front, called a “Dicky,” a sort of sham that the artist hated and despised, as he did all shams.

However, he eventually submitted to having the false front tacked on to his ordinary woollen shirt, and his large black scarf gave way to a neat little tie, so that the clean linen should not waste its sweetness on the desert air of Waterloo.

Forth he sallied, and arrived at Waterloo, his attention was attracted by a Herculean fellow who was cruelly beating his donkey. The little animal was staggering in the shafts of an heavily-laden cart, and the brutal driver was raining blows upon the patient creature, with a heavy stick. Daniels, always a most humane man, expostulated with the fellow about his cruelty, which interference was insolently repudiated by the driver. “Your ass is the nobler brute of the two”, said Daniels, “and you deserve at cajoling worse than it does.” “Oh,” sneered the Fellow, “that's all Dicky.” The artist glanced hastily at his shirt front, but no straggling corner betrayed the dimensions of the linen he wore. “Go on, Mister Dicky,” continued the blackguard, the terror of his neighbourhood, “go on, or or I’ll give yer wot I guv the moke.” “By Gog and Magog!” exclaimed Daniels, “it is a Dicky,” clutching it, dragging it from its moorings, and tossing it into the cart; “and now,” cried he, “come on, and beat me if you can.” A public house not far off quickly furnished a number of spectators, who formed a of ring, ready to see fair play, but hoping against hope to witness the overthrow of the bully donkey driver. Nothing loth, the blackguard advanced with audacious confidence to the fray, but soon found that he had caught a Tartar (for Daniels had often sparred with Jim Ward, and was scarcely second to the champion of England, in the noble and manly art of self-defence), and sorely punished, the fellow cried peccavi. “Go on,” cried a bystander, “you haven't had half enough yet, Dick”. “Well,” replied the cunning donkey driver, “you may face him, if you like, and get the other half.”

“Now,” said the artist, “use your donkey better; wipe your face, and can you - drink a pint of ale?” “Can a duck swim?” was the rejoinder; “Then come along,” and they trudged towards the tavern, the artist deeply pondering something by the way. Presently he asked, “How did you know it was a Dicky?” “Why, guvnor,” quoth the Fellow, “whenever I sees a shirt front as has buttons stitched on where there is no buttonholes, I know as that there shirt’s a Dicky.” “By Gog and Magog,” exclaimed the painter, “you shall have a quart.” He paid for the quart and for “drinks round,” and quietly sauntered on his way, went to his appointment, attended the sale, bought the clock, and gave “cockle Dick” the job to convey it home in his donkey cart on the following day.

Daniels’ residence in Bootle was close to Mersey View, and Lower Mersey View, the latter some twenty villas that stood along the Strand, with long, well-kept gardens in front, and stone walls to keep out the water at unusually high tides. There were about six steps up from the sandy beach, and as many down again on the other side into the garden, and Miller's Castle and the tall landmarks were conspicuous and picturesque objects on the shore, near to where Castle-street now stands. The castle grounds extended as far east as Derby Road, and nearby stood handsome houses within their enclosed grounds, with orchards that in the spring were a mass of bloom, as in autumn they were loaded with fruit. Jesse Hartley lived here, and many other worthies who have all long joined the majority. On Derby Road, gigantic ash and willow trees completely overcanopied the way, and high tides washed half-way up Strand Promenade and Richmond Vale.

By the old Bank Hall - the remaining portion of which is now a whisky distillery - the road dipped into what had once been the moat of the strong castellated mansion, the residence of Sir Thomas Moore at the time that Liverpool was besieged by Cromwell.

Bootle Hall has recently been demolished, and the trees of the park are now lying prone, whilst jerry builders are fast covering the land with monotonous and miserable streets of a squalid houses. Some remains of Bootle as it was yet exist in the fine houses of Falkner Crescent, and the noble mansions of Richmond Vale. All the rest are swept away, timber yards and sawmills occupying their sites.

On this road, then open to the Channel, the solitary figure of Daniels was well-known as he strode along, pipe in mouth, or slackened his pace to glance into a book, pacing slowly and thoughtfully thereafter, revolving then new-read matter in his mind. In the evening he might return by Philips’ ‘bus, that smoked like a perambulating line-kiln, for all the bucks smoked cigars, and Daniels pipe was worth a dozen of them. With these jovial spirits he was a great favourite, not that he courted their society, nor laid himself out to amuse them, but they prized the man for his known genius, and he was cheerful with them. His deeper nature they knew not, but, could they have dived into its recesses, they might have found there many a pearl.

His friends were many: his chosen companions very few, and sometimes they seem strangely chosen. He was intimate with the choicest intellects and geniuses of his time, and yet he occasionally foregathered with Shrimpers, bargemen, waggoners, and even prize-fighters. Like Dickens, whom as an author he so much loved, he went amongst, and knew all sorts of men: gypsies, tramps, colliers, and costermongers.

And Daniels studied men in every station of life. He once painted during a fortnight in a coal pit, a picture of the workings, and that picture he subsequently cut up, and it lies now in one of the houses in which he occasionally painted.

He was so fond of fire light effects that he would sometimes say he would like to go to Pandemonium on a painting tour. “Splendid firelight effects to be had there,” he exclaimed.

It is somewhat remarkable that, familiar as he was with the Greek Mythology, and much as he admired Mythological personages as represented in ancient sculpture, he never painted (as far as I have been able to learn) a subject or individual from the grand old mythology, nor from Holy Writ.

Religieuses he depicted many; his “Nuns,” “Novices,” and “Lady Superiors” are pretty numerous, and he once painted James Lunt, a well-known and never properly appreciated local actor, and a better elocutionist than ninety-nine in a hundred so-called “artists” of today, as Cardinal Richelieu, and a splendid pair, “The Believer,” and “The Sceptic.”

He was not generally credited with the religious thought or feeling, though he really had in his mind and nature much of both, and in his “painting room,” after his death were found a copy of the Holy Bible, bearing copious notes in his own hand-writing, and a well-thumbed hymn-book.

It was always a pleasure to him to be read to when at work, and on his death-bed the present writer read for him many hours, “Gray's Elegy” and “Blair’s Grave,” more than once, at his particular request.

Speaking of Religieuses, I may here mentioned that Mr Eastham has the last picture that Daniels completed; a nun with a splendid expression, the grave, sad face and humid eyes telling of absorbed and fervent religious feeling, whilst the light streaming down, and the reflected light on the face are so depicted as to be beyond all praise.

I am not writing of events nor even of his pictures in their chronological order. To do the latter would now be almost impossible, though if needful I could do so approximately. It is not necessary, since, from first to last, his work was distinguished by about equal merit.

Compelled to end abruptly today through pressure of other matter, I shall give interesting and amusing particulars next week.

DURING a number of years, Daniels had a very large and lofty studio in Richmond-row, Everton, in premises that are now a Dispensary. The spacious hall was reached by a flight of steps in the street, which steps were flanked by plinths, on which were two lions couchant. In frolic, a friend sent him, from another county, a letter that bore a drawing of this doorway, with only the following address:-

and that it reached him was always a matter of wonder to the painter. That he kept the silly envelope over a period of seventeen years, and on his death-bed returned it to the sender, is only one instance amongst very many of the high appreciation of "trifles light as air" that he thought clever in other men, this surpassing genius, who was so wonderfully modest concerning his own really great attainments.

It was in this building that he painted some of his finest works :- "Othello and Iago," " Shylock," and " Bonnivard," the prisoner of Chillon.

The last named picture (painted for, and now the property of William Somerville, Esq., of Leicester) is the artist's chef d'oeuvre. It depicts the old man with long, white, matted hair, long nails, and through all his misery watching with interest the gambols of a mouse that plays around a jug that is supposed to contain water. I have seen many spectators shed tears before that picture.

The "Shylock," a huge upright painting of splendid quality, was originally intended for the sign of a tavern - now the"Opera House" in Williamson-square - but the grand character, dignity, and excellence of the work changed its destiny, and it now graces (or recently did grace) a private gallery.

The Jew that Shakspeare drew " is there depicted to the life. He is before the Venetian Court ; rage and dismay in every line of his grand cruel face; his nerveless hands letting fall the knife and scales wherewith he sought to cut off and weigh the coveted "pound of flesh." A green cloth is on the floor, and on a raised dais on the right; and the hand of Portia (the "learned doctor" being supposed to stand upon the dais), pointing with command. Prismatic light from stained glass windows streams across the picture and falls upon the floor. Perhaps there is not a more noble single-figure picture than this inthe world. The. Jew is Daniels himself, only with greater curvature of nose. The Israelitish character is perfect.

"Vere did you get de nose, Mishter Daniels?" enquired a spectator, a Hebrew gentleman, of the artist. "Out of my imagination." he replied " There is not a Jew in Liverpool with a nose that is fit to paint."

"Othello and lago" is also an immense upright canvas, and represents the battlements of Cyprus, with the wily lago (James Lout was the model) furtively eyeing the noble Moor (Daniels), who, resting on the left foot, leans backward, with his clenched right hand raised in execration. The rage of the Moor is absolutely terrible to behold, and the anatomy of the figure is perfect. Many surgeons have testified to Daniels' knowledge and faultless depiction of the anatomy of the human frame. He had studied physiology as a science, besides labouring long and lovingly, painting from the antique masterpieces of sculpture. The right foot of the Venetian general rests upon the toes, and this bent foot is so painted that a spectator might think he could pass a stick under the raised heel. The visitor above-named had brought with him a friend in the person of a consequential and perky little briefless barrister, who used to wear a huge and slovenly wisp of white cravat, and walk to and fro daily, between the Library and his residence, carrying a pile of books, the perusal of which might have served an ordinary person with six months' reading matter, and this Mr. Briefless - who confessed that he could not draw, "except a cork, sir " - gave his opinion with amusing freedom, and glibly declared that the raised foot of Othello could be improved by some little alteration that he suggested, and forthwith the little fellow seized from a shelf a lump of chalk about as big as his head, wherewith to correct the drawing. This was too much for the artist, who called to him, excitedly, that if he touched the painting with that lump of chalk, he would snap him across his knee, like a carrot, when Briefless and his friend retired with much more haste than dignity.

Only a long intimacy with Daniels could warrant a writer in penning his life, for he was always remarkably reticent about himself and his career, and this arose from real modesty and a diffident shrinking from publicity. On his death-bed he told me more than I had ever heard from him before, and at his family's request I have ventured to pen this long-contemplated but hastily-written memoir.

Like George Morland, whom he in many ways resembled, he was too diffident ever to offer his works for sale, except to old friends, preferring to let a dealer effect one, and have half the money sometimes, rather than try himself to do so.

This sensitiveness begot in him a contempt for and foolish scorn of "trade or business haggling", which resulted in his so frequently working for "friends" and "patrons" in their own homes, his friends and patrons being, too frequently, publicans and brewers, or their connections, who aspired to have souls above malt and hops, or who were, more frequently, of a speculative turn, and who saw that in employing such a man, they were making very snug investments indeed.

Amongst "the trade" his pictures are largely held, and they were often paid for in wretchedly small sums, mere driblets, that were useless to him as a family man, or when the picture was finished a balance was struck by the production of the tapster's bill for "refreshments supplied," the charges for such refreshments totting up to a total that staggered the artist, who had no idea that he had been so "powerfully refreshed." After that, it is only fair to say that some of the best friends he ever knew were spirit dealers, hotel keepers, and such like, but that was chiefly in his latter years.

One glorious picture painted by him was his wife as Mistress Ford (Merry Wives of Windsor). She was depicted looking out of an open casement around which climbing roses clustered, and the arch expression of the features made it a splendid bit of character; whilst it was throughout a work of rare beauty. Not very long ago it was offered at auction, but the picture had been ignorantly tampered with, the clear, sparkling blue eyes being painted a staring black.

His joyous pictures were not many; sorrow and poverty seeming to possess a fascination for him. In Richmond Row he produced a noble picture called "The Widow." It represented a handsome young woman sorrowfully gazing on a miniature portrait of an officer in the army, with her beautiful orphan babe upon her breast. It was not easy when looking on that painting to repress tears, so broken-hearted did the woman look, and the sorrowfulness of the situation was aggravated by the unconsciousness of the joyous little child. Upon this picture a friend of the artist's wrote the following:-

The incident related in my last chapter, when little Mr. Briefless and his friend Shelpme were frightened out of the studio which they had invaded without invitation, was the occasion of some hilarity, and, a caller producing a "pocket pistol," and another, presently afterwards, a bottle, the excited artist joined his friends in a carouse. He had been making efforts to be very temperate, and took his little drops of rum out of an apothecary's ruled glass, being exceedingly careful that the liquor should not exceed his prescribed quantity, as, glancing across the glass against the light, if the dram exceeded the quantity by so much as the thickness of a sixpence above the line, he returned the excessive quantity into the bottle, On this occasion he was not over particular about the measure, and got "powerfully refreshed," as he called it. It was a winter's evening, and when his friends deemed.it time to return homewards, they walked across the vast room, along the corridor, and. down the stairs, Daniels, who remarked that the night was as "dark as a stack of black cats," remaining behind to extinguish the lights. Presently a heavy fall was heard, and it loud muffled cry, and back rushed the gentleman into tbe dark room, where the voice of Daniels' was heard as if in the vault beneath. There was a trap-door in the room, and it was feared that he had fallen through it to the great depth beneath. All was consternation, and the noise continued until a light was obtained, when, lo, the painter lay prostrate on the floor, flattened by the huge, heavy picture of " Shylock" that he had overturned in the dark. Had it been Antonio that the Jew. was "down upon," that Merchant of Venice could not have roared more lustily than did Daniels, who, with a flattened hat, was released, and the Jew was set up again as before.

If some local painters, through mistaking the man, and self-appointed art-leaders, tried to ignore Daniels, literary men
did not, as the following sonnet will prove:-

I have mentioned that the artist associated with all manner of men, and whilst he tolerated professional fighting-men, and such like, perhaps because they were sometimes his models, he better loved the society of quiet and intellectual persons. The author of the above sonnet; which is near, the true Petrarchan model, is Frederic Sherlock, Esq.; a well-known litterateur author of "Illustrious Abstainers" and a score of books besides, a teetotaller from birth, an editor, and a gentleman connected with Church and Sunday School matters, and social reform in every direction. Daniels' respect for opinions that did not always accord with his own was observable in his regard for Mr. Sherlock, whose sonnet is cut from a newspaper, (the Prescot Reporter) of December 17th, 1876.

I have received a communication from a lady at whose house Daniels painted, painting the lady, her husband, and two daughters, as models, The lady sat to him as a nun several times, and the gentleman as fishermen, smokers, etc. The letter is so circumstantial, and admirably written that I cannot do better than give the writer's own words.

Seacombe, Cheshire.

Dear Mr. Editor.
Mr. R-, wishes me to state to you that Mr. Daniels was our guest, and Mrs. Daniels also, for upwards of six months; during which time we learned something of each other.

My first impression of the gentleman - biassed perhaps by what I had. heard of him - was that he was morose, irascible, inclined to infidel principles, drunken, and altogether impracticable, but l shortly found that this was but the outer shell. That once broken, the innate good qualities of the man became discernible.

Devoted heart and soul to his art, he had the most profound veneration for the great, the good, the beautiful, and the sublime.
He endeavoured to find, an outlet for his feelings in the works of nature only, and

"To look through nature up to nature's God,"

but in the early part of his career he had become acquainted with some hypocrites who used the cloak of religion to cover, their greed and dishonesty and these unfortonately gave him a distaste for religion, and when we first knew him, like Bunyan's "Old Honest," he was declaring that there was no future.

The Bible he was acquainted with, but only used his knowledge, for purposes of controversy. The New Testament he ignored altogether, but gradually his ideas of religion underwent a change. The universal Sovereignty of Christ was a sore point with him, though his scruples on that subject also were done away with before he died, giving place to a sure and steadfast hope.

He was a man who, had he been placed in different circumstances, and amongst other surroundings, would have made his mark in Biblical illustration. So much for his impiety. Regarding the "drunkeness" of which many have had so much to say; for four months he never touched intoxicants, with the exception of one glass of spirits and water before going to bed

During the time he was with us, he painted "An Oyster Woman," and "The Sailor's Sweetheart," these belong to Mr. Somerville, of Leicester, a "Candlelight," the property of Mr. Keith, of Liverpool; "A Nun," and another of similar subject, lamplight pictures, and through some pique he painted these out. Mr. T. Haigh obtained a "Lady Abbess" that he painted at this time, and Mr. Kerr the "The Shells, Vase, and Mouse," that was hung at the Autumn Exhibition of 1875. A "Cottage Interior," unfinished, a beautiful bit of colour, and: wonderfully fine as: to light and shade, Mr. J. S. Eastham has. "The Recluse" was stolen from him by Mr. ---, "The Cottage Girl" became the property of Mr T. Haigh. and Mr. William Dawbarn has the "Irishman," A picture that Mr. Daniels painted, at this time representing a "Fisherman" holding up an entire ray fish, apparently offering it in payment for his entertainment. Mr. R. was the sitter. This picture cannot be traced. He took it to town, left it somewhere; and never could remember where. "The Young Philosopher" was never finished. In a frenzy, at a later period, he cut it, and it remains with several others at Mr. Jude's . His picture of a "Waitress," principally painted for its light and shade, is also unfinished, and was also similarly lost.

Although so busy, Mr. Daniels respected our feelings and would never paint on a Sunday, which day he spent in reading the "Pilgrim's Progress," "Young Night Thoughts." "The Course of Time," " Josephus " etc.

He was kind and courteous and entirely truthful himself, and could not tolerate a lie. Though sometimes severely tried, he bore his trials with patience, but remember ! not when he was tipsy. Then the coarser nature supervened when he was contradicted, and he would be dominant.

He was extremely tender towards defenceless animals, and would run into any clanger rather than see them maltreated, a state of things highly appreciated by a little King Charles spaniel belonging to our young people. It used to go into his studio every day to beg for sweets, and it never begged in vain, as he kept a pocketful of them for the purpose.

I think you will be pretty well tired now, so, dear Sir, I conclude by subscribing myself,
Yours very Respectfully,
M. A. R.

I HAVE before mentioned Daniels' love of tobacco, all his pictures appear to me to smell of it, and his painting room (he would never call it, nor have it called "studio") was redolent of the " herb of grace " as a tobacconist's shop, and his Rembrandt-like pictures, so richly brown, seemed to have been tinged with, the colour of his darling sunbeam-concentrating weed, Nicotia's leaf. Not that his pictures were all brown. He had a wonderful eye for colour, and unlike other artists, Daniels laid a pallette that varied according to the subject he proposed to paint. All other artists whom I ever knew, or know, laid or lay down a palette, their speciality. George Morland did so; his colours being invariably the same, and laid in the same order. A published tinted picture of Morland's palette, which has a history, was greatly prized by Daniels, and was given by him to imyself a few days before his death. It had hung in the mahogany frame of the drawing-board of his student days, and is therefore a double prize.

He used to say, " When I am glad I smoke with increased joy; when I am down (sad, down-hearted) a smoke can cheer me up a bit, for a cloud of tobacco smoke seems to dispel the clouds of care. Whenever I work I smoke; the more particular or trying my work, the more I smoke. To face trouble, or a tough job, give me tobacco. It is better than grog; it picks me up, and never knocks me down.

Whilst on the subject of his love of Nicotian joys, I may mention a picture of a smoker by him, that was exhibited in the temporary gallery in. the Museum Rooms, Wilham Brown-street, Liverpool, Corporation Autumn Exhibition of 1875, of which glorious work of art, now the property of Willam Dawbarn, Esq., timber merchant, I find the following notice, cut from the Prescot Reporter, a remarkably able and very influential newspaper of wide circulation. Its art notices have been fuller, and more minute and exhaustive than those of any other provincial paper, and have attracted notice very widely, and proved to be of great interest and weight.

"No. 295 is a wonderful painting called "Candle-light," an effect in which the artist, our townsman, William Daniels, shines, we might say excels. The illumination of the picture is marvellously true and effective, and the single figure represented is absolutely life-like, cut him, and you might think that he would bleed. He is a smoker, a man in humble life, seated by a table, upon which is a candle-stick, with lighted taper, and at the flame of this the man is lighting his pipe. You might throw a coin into the saucer of that candle-stick, it is apparently so hollow, and it is so like metal that you might think the coin would ring in it. The flame looks as if it would burn the hand that touched it, and the illumination of the face and figure, is perfect. Look at the admirable expression of the smoker's face, and the mirthful twinkle of his eyes, as if listening to some jovial fellow, like King Artaxominus, "moistening his clay, and puffing off his cares, and, telling some mirth-inspiring story."

Mr. Robson was the artist's model for this picture.

I have by me, a large number of newspaper critiques, each containing the highest commendation of the artist's work, every picture he exhibited - they were not, many - having been received with acclamation.

My every remembrance of Daniels is in connnection with pipes and tobacco. A stick of good cavendish was always welcome to him and he sliced and shredded it with deliberate care, and rubbed it gently between his palms and, patted it, and gathered it up tenderly in his fingers as if it were some animal he loved, and smelt at it daintily as if it were a flower.

A generous-hearted fellow, he loved to share his Nicotian joys and no non-smoker was so welcome to him as was a man who would join him in a cheery pipe, and help to blow a cloud. He smoked indoors and out, morning, noon and night, and he even smoked in bed. He smoked whilst he held his palette and got his brushes ready, - whilst he placed his easel and his sitter, and then, laying down pencils and palette, he slowly and carefully shook out the ashes, adjusted the sod, filled his pipe to the brim and lighted it, and, resuming palette and brushes, as the fragrant cloud curled about his nose, he cast a keen, searching, eagle-like glance - a gaze that seemed to penetrate the sitter - and fired away at pipe and picture.

He saw everything through "tobacco" smoke," it was to him a second atmosphere. His clothes smelt of tobacco, especially that easy black velvet coat seen in our wood cut, which garment he always wore latterly, when at work, and which as a special mark of favour, he insisted on me wearing when sitting for a picture, discarding the more regulation garment.

He never worked, save on one occasion, without a pipe in his mouth. He had no pride in pipes, it was the "weed " he 1oved, and a clay "cutty" contented him.

The exception I speak of was on the occasion of painting Lady Walmsley's portrait, a remarkably noble work. It was a full length. The stately lady was represented standing on the steps of a terrace in a garden, and the glorious picture was painted at the residence of Sir Joshua, Allerton Hall.

He would seldom carry his canvas and colour box, and this large canvas he refused to carry. Sir Joshua had called upon him, bringing his carriage to convey him to his home, and said - "Now, Daniels, bring your canvas," which the painter refused point blank to do, when Sir Joshua shouldered it, laughing, and took it to the footman on the box

The lady was imperious, and the artist, always deferential and very polite, (when quite sober) abstained from his beloved weed until nature would no longer bear the privation. He told her ladyship one day, when the picture was finished, so far as the face was concerned, that it was his custom to smoke at work, and politely, apologetically, even humbly, asked permission to light his pipe. He was a dainty smoker, used good tobacco, never (when quite sober) raised a dense vapour, like "cloud-councelling Jove", and the appartment was a large one, but the 1ady refused to grant an interval for a smoke in the garden, and curtly and emphatically refused permission to the artist to light his pipe where he was. "Then," said he "I'll take the picture away and finish it where I can smoke." He shouldered it on the spot and, to the wonder of all who saw him carried it in his home. No entreaties could induce him to return, and after an interval my lady's white satin dress was forwarded to him; placed by him upon his lay-figure, and the picture was duly finished and sent home.

He smoked shortly before he died, and was frequently during his last illness solaced with a few whiffs.

With one instance of the man's humour I must conclude this chapter. He lived in a house in Cresswell Street, Everton, which had been built on the site of an old quarry, and the subsidence of the rubble wherewith the place had been filled up caused the house to settle down, so as to need shoring up at the back, and propping with beams. The floors were all out of level, as were the windows and doors. The doors had been cut away to admit of their opening, and showed wedge-shaped apertures above. Daniels had a whimsical love for the tumble-down premises as great as was his aversion to whitewash, and that prejudice went so far as his prohibting the whitewashing of the ceilings. His painting room was as black as Erebus, and thickly festooned with cobwebs, which he would not allow to be removed. He loved the spiders, and would not disestablish. them. In this ricketty house he died. Calling to read for him, as I did daily for some little time prior to his decease, I found him smoking.

"How are you today, Will?" I enquired. "I'm like the house," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "gradually sinking."

The way in which the picture described had been treated by the Hanging Committee very greatly and righteously incensed the artist, he believing that the way in which it was placed was an intentional affront, and he determined to resent it. None of his pictures were ever well placed at the Liverpool Corporation Autumn Exhibitions, and he felt that he was disliked by the committee, and there was no love lost on his part.

His studio was at this time in the top room of a lofty building in Castle-street, Liverpool, and to this place he invited the gentlemen of the Hanging Committee. There were some wary old soldiers amongst them, and they fought shy of the proffered engagement, but one, whom I will call Longford, innocent of any wrong to him no doubt, innocently wended his way to the studio of the indignant and chafing artist. Arrived at the top of the last staircase, and modestly and gently tapping at the door, a stentorian voice within cried "Come in," and in he went. Danicls no sooner saw whom it was than, dropping his pencils and palette, he sprang fiercely to the door, and, placing his back against it, demanded in a voice of thunder and with flashing eyes:- " Are there any more of you beggars ?" N-n-no stammered Longford, who perceived that he was in the angry lion's den. "That's a pity," growled the artist and then he thundered furiously:- "What did you mean by using my picture with such indignity as you did?" The affrighted visitor - an amiable and very quiet gentleman - had probably heard Sidney Smith's saying, that "Committees have neither souls to be saved nor bodies to be kicked," but now began to doubt the latter part of the sentence, feeling that he was in a very likely way to have it disproved on his own person. "You are a nice Hanging Committee-man!" cried Daniels, scowling, and in tones of withering contempt, and then, "You soon will be," he roared, furiously, "Do you see the rope over that beam? You will be a Hanging Committee-man at the end of it in a brace of shakes, by Gog and Magog you will, and then I'll fling your carcass through the window."

It was now poor Longford's turn to roar, and he did so right lustily, but no help came, and Daniels went across deliberately, as if to adjust the rope, saying:- " I"m sorry all the other beggars did not come. By Gog and Magog, if I had them here I'd hang up the whole bunch of them, like a rope of onions."

Never had Longford moved with such preciptancy as that with which he now darted to the door, -- never did a trapese-flier bound with greater agility than the Hanging Committee-man did down stairs and into the street, pale, panting, and palpitating, escaped, as he thought from the jaws of death.

Daniels had seen the man's terror and anguish, and his almost demented condition, and, though in a towering passion, had perceived the ludicrous side of the episode so he walked from the door to permit the poor fellow to escape.

Whether he and his fellows had the grace to return thanks for deliverance from great peril, I know not but it was a narrow escape.

The intelligence of the awfully sudden death of Mr. William Dawbarn reaches me as I write. The deceased gentlemen was a great admirer of Daniels as an artist, and, introduced to him by the good offices of Mr. W. H. Jude, served him greatly in a great emergency. Daniels was careless in money matters, never kept books, or very indifferently: believing other men to be as honest as himself, he had no distrust, and so did business carelessly. During many years the artist was intimately connected with the late John Williams, an engraver, a licentised victualler, a picture dealer. Daniels painted the "Gold fish," and other pictures, at Williams's house, the Opera Tavern, Williamson-square, and he was indebted to John Williams a man of extensive information, rare taste, and great judgment in art, for many valuable hints and suggestions, and Williams frequently sat to him as a model, notably as "The prisoner of Chillon," for the artist's chef d'oevre, the property of William Somerville, Esq., of Nottingham.

Williams, being deserted by Daniels, who had found other patrons, Mr. Dawbarn being one, sued the painter for a large sum of money alleged to be due, and Daniels could neither dispute the debt nor pay it, when Mr. Dawbarn generously met the demand, Mr. Martin Brown, Solicitor, arranging the matter to the satisfaction of all parties, and Daniels painted several noble pictures for Mr. Dawbarn after that - two large groups of Mr. Dawbarn's intimate friends, a superb candle-light picture of "A Fisherman," three religieuses, some family portraits, &c., and honourably repaid the large sum advanced.

Mr. Dawbarn exercised a wholesome restraining influence on the painter, took him to Wisbeach and on other friendly tours, and was in all ways his true unostentatious friend, which Daniels ever gratefully acknowledged, and the now dead merchant paid kindly visits to the dying painter daily up to the last.

I CANNOT dismiss the gold-fish picture without quoting a brief critique that appeared concerning it in a leading contemporary. It is from the pen of a venerable artist-critic, whose art notices are considered of great weight and importance.*

" No.487, 'Gold Fish.' William Daniels. A splendid work, from one of the most able men in art Liverpool ever produced. This picture ought to be studied by anyone wishing to know what true and legitimate art is. Here are no brush marks, and we are quite sure no one could say they could improve it. Here the subject appears to the eye from the picture exactly as it would appear in nature. But there are higher principles involved in the production of this singular work than the handling of the material. Here is a glass globe of water, and two fish in it. Now, the fish are inside the globe: we see their apparent motion. We see the water in the globe, and we see through the water, and the opposite side of the globe through all. It is simply marvellous. There is something approaching to magic in it. There is no flourish of the hand to show who or what did it. The painter is not there: the palette is. The glass globe is there with all that it contains, but how that near surface of glass was produced, and all in it and beyond, is a miracle of art known only to the exalted genius that created it."

And that miracle of art was placed in a dark recess, upon the floor, where it could only be seen by the visitor going close to it on his knees, and then imperfectly, on account of the gloom.

I see elsewhere:- "In a gloomy corner we come upon a splendid painting by Daniels. It is placed below a daub that should be sold like calico, at three farthings per yard."

After all this no one can say with truth that my strictures on the hanging-committee were too severe, or that the artist's angry conduct was to be wondered at. I find in another paper, about the same period this, after the Petrarchan model:-

THE lamented death of Mr. William Dawbarn will shortly throw open to public compctition a number of very fine paintings by Daniels, viz :- "Macbeth," seen by the glare of the witches' cauldron fire ; Mr. James Hargreaves was the model "The Card-players," a remarkably fine group ; "The Fisherman's Home," a candle-light picture of the highest merit, "The Street Musician," a dark complexioned girl with an accordion, sheltering in an archway, looking up piteously at the falling sleet ; "A Sister of Charity," the model being the mother of a lady pupil of the artist ; and " Ironing Day," a portrait of Mrs. Daniels, pausing in her ironing of the clothes to put a tea-cup to her lips. Mr. Dawbarn had several other pictures by Daniels, that do not appear in Messrs. Walker, Ackerley, and Co.'s, published list.

One of the artist's pictures hangs in the club room at "The Clock" inn, London-road, a huge canvas, on which is painted "The Friar of Orders Grey," for which subject Mr. Condliff sat. The jovial old friar elevates a glass, pledging a toast, his rubicund face glowing with enjoyment. The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and attracted great notice as the work of a "country" artist, and one piece of criticism annoyed the painter not a little, the critic pointing out that the friar should have held a horn cup, and not a glass goblet, in which the critic was undoubtedly right.

A portrait of Jem Ward, by Daniels, hung many years upon the wall of the billiard room in a public house in Williamson-street, and was recently sold by Mr. Tabley, for the sum of fifty pounds, though the surface of the picture was sadly cut here and there by being struck and scraped with the harsh chalked tips of the cues carricd around the board by the billiard players. Another picture in the room represented the late John O'NeilI, billiard-table maker, a licenced victualler in Houghton-street, a genial man, and a good amateur actor. His house was during many years the resort of professionals (actors), literati, and public men. John is represented on the canvas in the act of playing billiards,. a bright-looking boy, the bil1iard-marker, standing near him holding the bridge, and watching the player. This picture has been ignorantly spoken of as a portrait of the artist.

An early picture painted by Daniels had for subject "Washing the baby," portraits of Mr L Daniels, and their daughter Mary, now in Boston, U.S.A, which splendid work of art became the property of Humphrey Roberts, Esq., timber merchant, of Liverpool. Gazing on that picture spectators used to say they fancied they could hear the baby cry.

Of one of the pictures above-mentioned; that called "The Fisherman's Home," I find this notice in a newspaper of the time when it was exhibited at the new Walker Art Gallery:-

For a real gem of a picture, see - if you can see it at that height - William Daniels' "Fisherman." There are breadth, roundness, admirable colour, texture, form, splendid candle-light effect, everything that such a subject could be made to embrace. What a capital subject the man is, and how real are his costume and surroundings. He seems to be alive, seated there, pledging some friend, with his earthenware cup elevated, his face full of animation, and his pipe in his left hand; and all this literally illuminated, as it seems, by the light behind that creel, through the wicker-work of which bright rays pierce here and there. This wonderful work is 'skied.' It is not here for sale but 'to do honour to the Mayor,' it having been brought from the collection of one of our merchant princes. If Daniels' picture representing light cast through stained glass* had not been rejected, we should have seen a marvellous contrast to the crude daub just under it, but on the line, where paint cans appear to have been spilt upon the pavement." +

This was in November, 1877. The sitter for the the "Fisherman"' was Mr. Robson, Egremont, Cheshire.

* Portrait of Mrs Seymour, as a nun, reading, chromatic light cast through lattice window, on book, and white linen.
+ "Sanctuary," by Eyre Crowe

IN addition to the pictures included in Messrs. Walker, Ackerly and Co's preliminary announcement, several other paintings by Daniels are likely to be offered for sale, either at the same time, or at some other early date, notably a group of figures in a sylvan scene; a male figure, one of a lad, and a child's, with a dog, all perfectly life-like; which noble work the artist did not live to finish, though it lacks only very little of completion, and need never lie touched by another hand, as it surely should not if it were mine.

The public should be put on their guard as to the possibility of fraud being practised on purchasers now that an active demand has arisen, or, rather, been stimulated; there have been a number of copies executed, and others are being turned out daily, so that anyone buying a picture set forth as a genuine Daniels, should require to know its history. For some of these copies has been demanded about six times the sum that the artist received for the original picture, and of cours