Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/337

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Linskill
331
Linton

fortune, and among other possessions a number of Blake's works, including the plates and replicas of the drawings of the Job series, the drawings of the Dante series and the plates from them (seven only were engraved). All these had been executed on commissions from Linnell at a time when he sorely needed such kindly help. Linnell's landscapes now realise large prices. ‘The Last Gleam’ has fetched 2,500l., ‘The Woodlands’ 2,625 guineas, ‘Hampstead Heath’ 1,940 guineas, ‘The Barley Harvest’ 1,636 guineas, and ‘Removing Timber’ brought 3,200 guineas at the Price sale in April 1892. A large collection of Linnell's works of all kinds formed a principal feature of the Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1882–3.

Besides mezzotint plates after his own portraits of Callcott, Malthus, and others, Linnell engraved John Varley's ‘Burial of Saul’ (into which he introduced the figures), Collins's ‘Feeding the Rabbits,’ and ‘A Scene on the Brent.’ He also etched some plates after Ruysdael and others. Between 1832 and 1839 he copied several pictures in the National Gallery for the Society of Associated Engravers, to be engraved in their publication called ‘The British Gallery.’

There are two landscapes, ‘Woodcutters in Windsor Forest’ and ‘The Windmill,’ by Linnell in the National Gallery, and a portrait (a drawing) of Mrs. Sarah Austin in the National Portrait Gallery. Linnell, whose opinions on religious (and other) matters were strong and often eccentric, was the author of ‘Diatheekee, Covenant (not Testament) throughout the book commonly called the New Testament,’ &c., ‘The Lord's Day, an Examination of Rev. i. 30,’ and ‘Burnt Offerings not in the Hebrew Bible.’

Linnell's second wife, whose maiden name was Mary Anne Budden, died in 1886.

[Redgrave's Cent. of Painters, last edit.; Art Journal, 1881–3; Roget's Hist. of the ‘Old’ Water-colour Soc.; Royal Acad. Catalogues, 1807–81, and Winter Exhibition, 1883; art. by Mr. F. G. Stephens in Art Journal, 1882, pp. 262 sq., giving some account of Linnell's family; Mr. Alfred Thomas Story's Life of John Linnell, 1892.]

C. M.

LINSKILL, MARY (1840–1891), novelist, born at Whitby, Yorkshire, 13 Dec. 1840, was eldest child of Thomas Linskill, a worker in jet, who died leaving his wife and family in very poor circumstances. Mary was in youth apprenticed to a milliner, and afterwards acted as an amanuensis; but she soon turned to literature and art in the hope of affording material assistance to her family. With her mother she removed from Whitby to a little cottage near the village of Newholme, and there the greater part of her literary work was produced. Her earliest work, ‘Tales of the North Riding,’ 1871, was published under the pseudonym ‘Stephen Yorke,’ and, like most of her novels, appeared originally as a serial in ‘Good Words.’ Two of her novels are understood to have been to some extent autobiographical, viz. ‘The Haven under the Hill’ (1886), in which there is a sympathetic description of a Leeds Musical Festival; and ‘In Exchange for a Soul’ (1887), which contains a record of impressions received during a tour in Switzerland and Italy in that year. Her delineation of Yorkshire scenery is the most attractive feature in her writings, but the gloom, due to persistent bad health, which overshadowed all her literary work hindered her success. Several short stories from her pen were written for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Miss Linskill also attained some degree of excellence in flower-painting. She died on 9 April 1891, at Stakesby Vale, Whitby, whither she had removed with her mother some years previously. The following is a list of her works: 1. ‘Tales of the North Riding,’ 2 vols. 1871. 2. ‘Cleveden,’ 2 vols. 1876, 1893. 3. ‘Between the Heather and the Northern Sea,’ 3 vols. 1884; new edit. 1890. 4. ‘The Haven under the Hill,’ 3 vols. 1886; new edit. 1892. 5. ‘In Exchange for a Soul,’ 3 vols. 1887; new edit. with memoir of author (reprinted from ‘Good Words’), by John Hutton, 1892; an American edition appeared in New York in 1889. Also the following short stories: ‘Earl Forrest's Faith,’ 1883; ‘The Magic Flute,’ 1884; ‘A Lost Son’ and ‘The Glover's Daughter’ (in one vol.), 1885; ‘A Garden of Seven Lilies,’ 1886; ‘Hagar: a North Yorkshire Pastoral,’ 1887; ‘Robert Holt's Illusion,’ and other stories, 1888.

[Good Words, June 1891; Yorkshire Post, 11 April 1891; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

G. Le G. N.

LINTON, WILLIAM (1791–1876), landscape-painter, was born at Liverpool on 22 April 1791, but while he was yet an infant his parents removed to Lancaster. At the age of eight he was sent to school at Rochdale, but his holidays were partly spent amid the scenery of Windermere, where his mother's family possessed an estate. When about sixteen he was placed in a merchant's office at Liverpool, but his love of sketching led him often to pay truant visits to North Wales and the English Lakes. He was also afforded opportunities of copying the landscapes of Richard Wilson at Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire, and at length made