The foregoing is a tolerably correct list of the most eminent artists of the commencement of the century, many names of minor note, being of necessity, left out.

In sculptors, this decade was rich. The veteran Nollekens still worked, and continued to work, till his eighty-second year, and was then living in Mortimer Street. In Newman Street lived Thomas Banks, R.A., whose colossal statue of Achilles bewailing the loss of Briseis, is now in the hall of the British Institution. Sir Francis Chantrey, R.A., was then a young, and rising, sculptor, as yet but little known. John Flaxman, R.A., was then in his zenith, being made professor of sculpture to the Royal Academy in 1810. His successor, Sir Richard Westmacott, was made A.R.A., in 1805; and these names alone form an era of glyptic art unparalleled in English history.

Engravers, too, furnish a list of well-known names, among whom, for delicacy of work, Francis Bartolozzi probably stands pre-eminent, his engravings challenging competition at the present day. There were also Thomas Holloway, and William Sharp; but, perhaps, the most popular names—none of whom will ever rank as first-class engravers—are Gillray, Rowlandson, and Isaac and George Cruikshank. Their names were on every lip, and their works the theme of every tongue. Nor must we forget John Boydell, who was Alderman and Lord Mayor of the City of London. Not only an engraver by profession, he encouraged art, by commissioning the first artists of the day to paint pictures, which he afterwards had engraved, notably his magnificent Shakespeare, than which there is no more sumptuous English edition. On this he spent no less than £350,000, and by this expenditure of capital, and bad trade, owing to the war with France, and the stoppage of commercial relations with the Continent, he fell into debt, and was obliged to get an Act of Parliament passed to enable him to get rid of the original pictures and plates, of his Shakespeare Gallery, by a lottery, which was drawn in 1804.

Besides the Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall, and Alderman Boydell’s Gallery in Cheapside, there were several dealers’ collections—the chief of which was “The European Museum,” Charles Street, St. James’s Square. Here pictures, some of them good, were on sale on commission, and, to prevent its being merely a lounge, a shilling was charged for admission.

Not to be forgotten are the two Water Colour Societies—“The Exhibition of Paintings in Water Colours,” established in 1804, and located in 1808 in Bond Street. Reinagle was treasurer, and its members were Messrs. G. Barrett, J. J. Chalon, J. Christall, W. S. Gilpin, W. Havell, T. Heaphy, J. Holworthy, F. Nicholson, N. Pocock, W. H. Pyne, S. Rigaud, S. Shelley, J. Smith, J. Varley, C. Varley, and W. F. Wells. The associate members were Miss Byrne, and Messrs. J. A. Atkinson, W. Delamotte, P. S. Munn, A. Pugin, F. Stevens, and W. Turner.

The other society was started in 1808 or 1809, under the title of “The Associated Artists in Water Colours,” and their first exhibition was held at 20, Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, where a picture gallery already existed.

It is a thankless task to attempt to give a list of names of literary note, of this epoch, because, as in the case of foregoing lists, it is impossible to avoid giving some critic occasion to slay—an omitted name, being a heinous sin, outweighing all the patient hard work of research and reading, necessary for the writing of a book like this. Still an attempt thereat is bound to be made:

Austen, Jane.Keats, John.
Baillie, Joanna.Lewis, M. G. (Monk).
Barbauld, Mrs.Lingard, John.
Beckford, Peter.Lamb, Charles.
Beckford, William.Landor, W. S.
Bentham, Jeremy.London, John.
Bloomfield, Robert.Lysons, Daniel.
Brougham, Henry.Maturin, Charles Robert.
Byron, Lord.Montgomery, James.
Campbell, Thomas.Malthus, Rev. T. R.
Canning, George.Mill, James.
Chapone, Mrs.Moore, Thomas.
Coleridge, S. T.More, Hannah.
Crabbe, George.Morgan, Lady.
Cobbett, William.Opie, Mrs.
Cumberland, Richard.Porter Miss A. M.
Cunningham, Allan.Porter, Miss Jane.
D’Israeli, Isaac.Rogers, Samuel.
De Quincey, Thomas.Roscoe, W.
Dibdin, T. F., D.D.Shelley, P. B.
Edgeworth, Miss.Scott, Sir W.
Godwin, William.Southey, Robert.
Hazlitt, William.Smith, Sydney.
Heber, Bishop.Tooke, John Horne.
Hemans, Mrs.Trimmer, Mrs.
Hogg, James.Turner, Sharon.
Hook, Theodore.Wilberforce, W.
Holcroft, Thomas.Wollstonecroft, Mary.
Inchbald, Mrs.Wordsworth, W.

This was an age of dear books, and not of literature for the million. We are apt to think that three volumes for a novel is rather too much—when it can be, and is, afterwards, published comfortably in one; but, in those days, novels ran to four or five volumes, as may be seen by only taking one advertisement. Morning Post, July 18, 1805: “Family Annals; a Domestic Tale, in 5 Vols. 25s. by Mrs. Hunter of Norwich. The Demon of Sicily; a Romance. 4 Vols., 20s. Friar Hildargo; a Romance. 5 Vols., 25s.”

Mudie’s Library was not, but Hookham’s, and Colburn’s were in existence, and Ebers’ started in 1809.