Telegraph, 16 Feb. 1872). Although we can no longer credit the account given by his friend O'Driscoll, nor that of Samuel Carter Hall (Art Union, 1844, p. 214), with regard to his parentage, the family were of no ordinary type, as Maclise and his sisters were remarkably handsome, and one of his brothers (John) rose to eminence in his profession as surgeon.
Maclise, as he afterwards spelt his name, was sent to an English day-school in Cork, and soon attracted attention by his drawings of soldiers, horses, artillery, &c., on small pieces of cardboard, which he sold to his schoolfellows and playmates. In 1820 he obtained a situation in Messrs. Newenham's bank, but soon left it, and devoted himself to art. He studied the collection of casts from the antique sculpture in the Vatican which had been presented by Pope Pius VII to George IV, and by George IV to the city of Cork, and was so engaged in 1820 when he was seen and encouraged by Samuel Carter Hall. He subsequently became a student at the Cork Academy, which was opened in 1822.
In 1825 he made his first success through a sketch of Sir Walter Scott, drawn by him unobserved while the great novelist was visiting the shop of Mr. Bolster, a bookseller in Cork. Of this he made an elaborate pen-and-ink drawing, which was shown to Sir Walter, who wrote his name at the foot, and prophesied the future eminence of the young artist. The drawing was lithographed and became popular, five hundred copies being sold as soon as struck off. He now opened a studio in Patrick Street, which was soon crowded with sitters, and Mr. Sainthill, a lover of art and an antiquary, gave him access to his library, full of legendary and antiquarian lore, which encouraged his natural taste in those directions. Mr. Sainthill introduced him to Crofton Croker, who had just (1825) published the first edition of ‘Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland.’ The second edition contained a number of spirited illustrations by Maclise (included in Murray's ‘Family Library’).
Refusing the assistance of these friends, who offered to send him to London, he went on taking pencil portraits (at sums rising at last to five guineas a head) until he had saved enough to start himself. He arrived in London on 18 July 1827, with letters of introduction to Charles Robert Leslie, Mr. Bagley of the ‘Sun,’ and others, and took lodgings at the house of a carver and gilder in Newman Street, Oxford Street. Before he left Ireland he had (1826) taken a walking tour in Wicklow with a friend, filling his sketch-book on his way, and had sent (March 1826) a highly finished drawing to Somerset House to support his application for admission into the Academy schools. Mr. Sainthill consigned him to the care of Croker, and he soon had the opportunity of meeting Thomas Moore, Samuel Rogers, Barham, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, Miss Landon (‘L.E.L.’), Theodore Hook, Planché, Samuel Lover, and other persons distinguished in literature and art. He attracted every one he met, for he was very handsome, with fine eyes and forehead, dark, curling hair, and strong, athletic figure; his manners had charm, but were modest and frank, and, according to Mr. J. C. Horsley, R.A., then a lad of fourteen, ‘his generous, rollicking humour shone like sunlight on all around him.’ Soon after his arrival in London he made a sketch of the young Charles Kean, as Norval in ‘Douglas,’ bowing his acknowledgments after his début at Drury Lane on 1 Oct. 1827. This was lithographed, and did much the same service for him in London as his portrait of Sir Walter Scott had done in Cork. He made a good deal of money by it also, but his mind was bent on going through a regular training as a painter, and he entered the Academy schools on 20 April 1828. He gave his age as twenty, which seems to show that he was always careless or ignorant about the year of his birth, for this statement must have been wrong, whether he was born in 1811, as he used to say, or in 1806, as was probably the fact. Three of his pencil portraits of this time, finely finished and of much character, are in the British Museum. One of them represents the Rev. R. H. Ryland, and another his little daughter, Olympia Maria. The latter is signed and dated December 1827. The third is of Edmund Lodge [q. v.], F.S.A., Norroy king at arms, in his seventy-second year. It is dated January 1828. Maclise drew him again for ‘Fraser's Magazine’ some years later. He carried off all the prizes for which he competed at the Academy, the medals for the ‘antique,’ and for a copy of a picture (by Guido), and finally in 1829 the gold medal for historical composition (‘The Choice of Hercules’), but he would not accept the travelling studentship which was attached to it. He now began to exhibit at the Royal Academy, sending in 1829 a picture from Shakespeare, ‘Malvolio affecting the Count.’ In the catalogue of that year his name is given as D. M'Clise, and his address as 14 Chandos Street, Middlesex Hospital. The position which he now held in literary circles is testified by the celebrated series of ‘character portraits’ which, under the nom de plume of Alfred Croquis, he began in 1830
