Show Bachelor Arts I I I is a remarkable fact that the greater number of most distinguished painters have lived and died free from the thraldom of hymen Take for example the presidents of the Royal academy Sir Joshua Reynolds i was a bachelor Benjamin West his I successor was a bachelor so was Sir I Thomas Lawrence s too Sir Edwin I Landseer for he be it remembered I was elected president and his refusal did not take effect until thirteen days afterward so also Sir Frederick Grant and as everybody knows Sir Frederick Leighton Maclise too who was offered the presidency and a knighthood and refused both was no more amenable t the idea of marriage Then Turner Etty Sir David Wilkie Sir William Boxall Sir W Gordon and Sir W C Cross all of them regarded re-garded matrimony with the same aversion aver-sion a Reynolds who when he heard I of Flaxmans engagement exclaimed Then hes ruined for an artist The celibacy of Raphael and Michael Angelo An-gelo was to him a sacred example as sacred a it is to the priesthood Westminster West-minster Gazette |