Amelia Opie was the daughter of Dr. Alderson, a physician in Norwich, and was born here in 1769. The varied circumstances of her early life gave the bent to her after career. In her girlhood she beguiled the solitude of her father’s summer house by composing songs and tragedies; on her visits to London, the superior society into which the graces of her person and the accomplishments of her mind introduced her, served to stimulate her aspirations; and after her marriage, in 1798, to the painter, Mr. John Opie, she was encouraged by her husband to become a candidate for literary fame. Accordingly, in 1801, she published a novel, entitled Father and Daughter. Although this tale showed no artistic ability in dealing either with incidents or with characters, yet it was the production of a lively fancy and a feeling heart, and speedily brought its author into notice. She was encouraged to publish a volume of sweet and graceful poems in 1802, and to persist in the kind of novel writing which she had commenced so successfully. Adelaide Mowbray followed in 1804, and Simple Tales in 1806. The death of her husband in 1807, and her return to Norwich, did not slacken her industry. She published Temper in 1812, Tales of Real Life in 1813, Valentine’s Eve in 1816, Tales of the Heart in 1818, and Madeline in 1822. At length, in 1825, her assumption of the tenets and garb of the Society of Friends checked her literary ardour, and changed her mode of life. Nothing afterwards proceeded from her pen except a volume entitled Detraction Displayed, and some contributions in prose and verse to various periodicals. A good deal of her life was spent in travelling and in the exercise of Christian benevolence. When in this city she was often seen in the assize court, sitting near the judge. She seemed to take a great deal of interest in criminal cases. She died here in 1853. A life of Mrs. Opie, by Miss C. L. Brightwell, was published in 1854.
Dr. William Crotch.
The celebrated musician, William Crotch, was born in the parish of St. George at Colegate in this city, July 5th, 1775. His genius for music may be supposed to have commenced with his existence, as his parents did not remember any period in which he did not shew a great predilection for an organ, to which instrument he seemed to have a special attachment. Indeed he had a penchant for every musical instrument at an early age. As soon as he could walk alone, which was at the beginning of his second year, he would frequently quit his mother’s breast to hear a tune on the organ, and when he wanted any particular tune, he would put his finger upon that key on which the tune began; and as it sometimes happened that more than one tune began on the same key, he would strike two or three of the first or leading notes of the tune he chose to have played. Before he was two years and a quarter old, he played “God save the King” with both hands. At two years and a half he had played to several ladies and gentlemen, and was soon afterwards noticed in the public journals. At two and three quarters he could distinguish any note, and call it by its proper name, though he did not see it struck. His memory was so retentive, that a gentleman only playing to him the Minuet in Rodelinda two or three times in the evening, was astonished to hear him perform it next morning, as soon as he went to the organ. Before he was three years old, he played at Beccles, Ipswich, and other places. Afterwards he was taken to Lynn, Bury, &c., and in October, 1778, to Cambridge. In November, he was nominated to a degree of Bachelor of Arts, with a small annuity annexed to it. In December he went to London, and after performing before the foreign ambassadors, maids of honour, &c., in 1779, he was introduced to the sovereign, to whom he gave the greatest satisfaction, as he had done to the nobility and gentry in general, but more particularly to the greatest musicians. At the early age of 22 he was appointed professor of music in the University of Oxford, and there, in 1799, took his degree of doctor in that art. In 1800 and the four following years, he read lectures on music at Oxford. Next he was appointed lecturer on music at the Royal Institution; and subsequently, in 1823, principal of the Royal Academy of Music. He published a number of vocal and instrumental compositions, of which the best is his oratorio of “Palestine.” In 1831 appeared an octavo volume, containing the substance of his lectures on music, delivered at Oxford and in London. He also published “Elements of Musical Composition and Thorough Bass.” He arranged for the piano-forte a number of Handel’s oratorios and operas, besides symphonies and quartetts of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. He performed all his public duties laboriously, zealously, and honourably, and in private life he was much beloved. He died on December 29th, 1847, in the house of his son, at Taunton.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Norwich Artists in the Nineteenth Century.
Norwich artists must have flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries, as proved by their portraits of city worthies in the Guildhall and St. Andrew’s Hall, but we have few notices of early painters or engravers. About the commencement of the present century, a gentleman named Thomas Harvey lived at Catton, and was recognised as a very clever amateur artist. He painted in oil, admirably, and he induced several of the leading artists of the day to visit Norfolk, such as Opie, Gainsborough, Sir William Beechey, Collins, and many others, who produced beautiful works of art.
About the year 1802, a few professional and amateur artists, drawn together by a similarity of taste and inclination, for the advancement of the arts of painting and design in their native city, began to associate to form a regular academy. Each member in his turn furnished matter of discussion according with his particular view; and by eliciting the opinions of his brother artists, mutually communicated and received information. The first exhibition of this society was in 1805, in Wrench’s Court, and contained 223 pictures. The following is a list of the members and exhibitors of the Norwich Society of Artists from the first catalogue of 1805:—Arthur Browne, J. Blake, E. Bell, (engraver) Mrs. Coppin, H. M. M. Crotch, M. B. Crotch, J. Crome, R. Dixon, J. Freeman, W. Freeman, Rev. Wm. Gordon of Saxlingham, C. Hodgson, W. Harwin, R. Ladbrooke, W. C Leeds, J. Percy, J. Thirtle, F. Stone, architect. This Society of Artists, after their establishment, within twenty years exhibited about 4000 pictures, the productions of 323 painters, very few of which were sold here, but which were readily purchased in London and other places. In fact, the local artists were very little patronized in the city; and old Crome, one of the very best landscape painters in England, was a very poor man all his life, though, since his death, his pictures have been sold for thousands of pounds in London.
John Crome, sen., was born December 21st, 1769, in the parish of St. Peter per Mountergate. He was apprenticed to Mr. Francis Whisler, coach, house, and sign painter, who, in 1783, lived in Bethel Street; but he felt the true impulse of genius, and his industry surmounted all obstacles. By almost unaided exertions he cultivated drawing and painting in oil with such ardour and success, that during the latter years of his life he had attained an eminence highly creditable, and was incessantly employed as a master in the one branch by families of distinction, and by the principal schools of Norfolk and Norwich. He possessed the rare faculty of communicating the ardour he himself felt to his pupils, both professional and amateur. His mind was too acute to exact from them a servile imitation of his own style; on the contrary he contented himself with instilling the more useful principles of art, and with giving freedom and spirit to their pencils. He then invited them to let loose the reins of fancy and taste, and to follow unfettered the promptings of imagination. The fruits of this wise discrimination were seen in the reputation of his son, and his companions in excellence, whose works for some time attracted much attention in the metropolis to the growing talents and promise of the Norwich school of artists. In the other department he was seldom without commissions. He principally cultivated landscape painting, and he was exceedingly happy in seizing small picturesque local scenes, which he elevated to a degree of interest which they could hardly bear in their natural state. He was in painting the counterpart of Burns in poetry, both delighting in homely scenes. His pictures were beginning to be known and appreciated in London, the great mart of talent, and those he last exhibited in the British Gallery gained him a lasting fame. He was a man of heart, of impulse and feeling, quick, lively, and enthusiastic, and in his conversation animated to a high degree, especially when speaking on subjects connected with his art, the fond, the incessant, the earliest and latest object of his thoughts. A wide field of enterprise and exertion had just opened upon his view, the last stage of his ardent ambition had unfolded itself, when he was suddenly seized with an acute disease, which terminated his life in the short space of seven days, on April 22nd, 1821, aged fifty years. He was buried in a vault in St. George’s Colegate Church, where the last sad offices of respect were paid to his memory by a numerous attendance of artists and other friends. Of late years a subscription was raised here for a monument to his memory, and after some delay a suitable memorial was placed in the church. (See page [89].)
The following list of Mr. Crome’s principal pictures, with their former possessors, was extracted from the published catalogue of his works:—
“Lane Scene near Hingham,” 1812; “Lane Scene at Blofield,” 1813; and “Grove Scene near Marlingford,” 1815—Samuel Paget, Esq., of Yarmouth.
“View at the back of the New Mills,” 1817—William Hawkes, Esq., Norwich.