had been his partner, in conjunction with Sir Walter Scott, bought from the various publishers in whose hands they were, all Scott’s novels which had been issued up to that time, and began the issue of the forty-eight volume edition (1829–1833). The result of its publication was that the debt on Abbotsford was redeemed, and that Cadell bought the estate of Ratho near Edinburgh, which he owned till his death on the 21st of January 1849.
Archibald Constable’s son, Thomas (1812–1881), was appointed in 1839 printer and publisher in Edinburgh to Queen Victoria, and issued, among other notable series, Constable’s Educational Series, and Constable’s Foreign Miscellany. In 1865 his son Archibald became a partner, and when he retired in 1893 the firm continued under the name of T. & A. Constable.
See also Archibald Constable and his Literary Correspondents, by his son Thomas Constable (3 vols., 1873). This book contains numerous contemporary notices of Archibald Constable, and vindicates him from the exaggeration of J. G. Lockhart and others.
CONSTABLE, HENRY (1562–1613), English poet, was born in 1562. His father, Sir Robert Constable, was knighted by the
earl of Essex in Scotland in 1570, and was the author of a work
On the Ordering of a Camp. The poet went to St John’s College,
Cambridge, where he took his degree of B.A. in 1580. He was
(or now became) a Roman Catholic, and we hear of him next in
Paris, whence in 1584 and 1585 he wrote to Walsingham letters
which still exist, and which prove Constable to have been in the
secret service of the English government. A later correspondence
with Essex contains protestations of his loyalty. He was
probably still abroad, when, in the autumn of 1592, a London
publisher issued Diana, the praises of his Mistress in certain
sweet sonnets, by H C., containing 23 poems. A reissue of this
pamphlet in 1594 (misprinted 1584) was greatly enlarged, not
merely by more sonnets which may or may not be Constable’s,
but by eight poems which were certainly the work of Sir Philip
Sidney. Published a few weeks after the Delia of Daniel, the
original Diana of 1592 claims a very early place in the evolution
of the Elizabethan sonnet. In 1598 Constable was sent on a
mission from the Pope to Scotland, the idea being that James VI.
was to be supported in his claim to the English succession on
condition of his setting English Romanists free from the existing
disabilities. Constable’s mission came to nothing, and he
entered the service of the king of France. Later he asked for
permission to return to England, but it was refused. In consequence
of a surreptitious excursion to London, he was captured
and imprisoned in the Tower in 1604. After a manhood spent
in almost continuous exile, Henry Constable died at Liége on
the 9th of October 1613. The Diana was the only work printed
in the poet’s life-time; it was augmented from MS. sources by
H. J. Todd, in 1813. His Spiritual Sonnets first appeared in
1815, edited by Thomas Park. Almost the only known pieces by
Constable which are not sonnets are the song of “Diaphenia,”
and the beautiful pastoral canzone on “Venus and Adonis,”
contained in the England’s Helicon of 1600. In 1594 he prefixed
four sonnets, addressed to the soul of Sir Philip Sidney, to that
writer’s Apology of Poetry. A prose work of devotion, The
Catholic Moderator (1623), has been attributed to Constable.
Who Diana was has never been determined, but it has been
conjectured that she may have been Mary, countess of Shrewsbury,
who was a distant cousin of the poet. The body of
Constable’s writing is so small, and its authenticity so little
supported by evidence, that it is rash to give a very definite
opinion as to its character. But it is evident, from his undoubted
productions, that he was much under the influence of the French
poets of his time, particularly of Desportes, as well as of Petrarch
and Sidney. That Shakespeare was acquainted with Constable’s
poetry and admired it seems to be certain, and that he borrowed
from it, “gives it,” as Mr Sidney Lee has said, “its most lasting
interest.” In the arrangement of his rhymes, Constable usually
keeps closer to the Petrarchan model than Daniel and the other
contemporary sonneteers are accustomed to do.
(E. G.)
CONSTABLE, JOHN (1776–1837), English landscape painter,
was born at East Bergholt in Suffolk on the 11th of June 1776.
His father was a man of some property, including water-mills at
Dedham and Flatford, and two windmills, in which John, the
second son, was set to work at the age of seventeen, after leaving
Dedham grammar school. From boyhood he was devoted to
painting, which he studied in his spare time in company with
John Dunthorne, a local plumber and glazier. While working
thus he made the acquaintance of Sir George Beaumont, a mediocre
painter but a keen patron of the arts, and was inspired
by the sight of Claude’s “Hagar and Ishmael” and by some
drawings of Girtin which Sir George possessed. His passion for
art increasing, he was allowed by his father to visit London
in 1795 to consult the landscape-painter Joseph Farington, R. A.
(1747–1821), who recognized his originality and gave him some
technical hints. He also made the acquaintance of the engraver
J. T. Smith, who taught him etching, and corresponded with
him during the next few years, which were spent partly in
London and partly in Suffolk. In 1797 he was recalled to work
in his father’s counting-house at Bergholt, and it was not till
February 1799 that he definitely adopted the profession of
painting, and became a student at the Royal Academy. The few
existing works of this period are heavy, clumsy and amateurish.
Recognizing their faults, Constable worked hard at copying old
masters “to acquire execution.” The remedy was effective,
for his sketches on a tour in Derbyshire in 1801 show considerable
freshness and accomplishment. In 1802 he exhibited at the
Royal Academy, and was much helped and encouraged by the
president, Benjamin West, who did him a further service by
preventing him from accepting a drawing-mastership (offered
by Archdeacon Fisher, of Salisbury), and thereby greatly
stimulating his efforts. The manner of West appears strongly
in the altarpiece painted by Constable for Brantham church in
1804, but Gainsborough, the Dutch masters and Girtin are the
predominant influences upon his landscape, especially Girtin in
the year 1805, and in 1806, when he visited the Lake District.
From 1806 to 1809 Constable was frequently engaged in painting
portraits or in copying portraits by Reynolds and Hoppner.
The effect on his landscape was great. He learned how to construct
an oil painting, and the efforts of the next few years were
devoted to combining this knowledge with his innate love of
the fresh colour of nature.
With the year 1811 began a critical period. He exhibited a large view of Dedham Vale, in which the characteristic features of his art appear for the first time almost fully developed, and he became attached to Miss Maria Bicknell. His suit was opposed by the lady’s relatives, and Constable’s apparently hopeless prospects drove him again to portrait-painting, in which he acquired considerable skill. It was not till the death of his father in 1816 that he was able to marry and settle in No. 1 Keppel Street, Russell Square, where a succession of works now well known were painted: “Flatford Mill” (1817), “A Cottage in a Cornfield,” and in 1819 “The White Horse,” which was bought by his great friend Archdeacon Fisher for £105, as was the “Stratford Mill” of 1820. In 1819 two legacies each of £4000 diminished his domestic anxieties, and his talent was recognized by his election in November to the associateship of the Royal Academy. The series of important works was continued by “The Haywain” (1821), “A View on the Stour” (1822), “Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Garden” (1823), and “The Lock” (1824). This last year was a memorable one. “The Haywain” was sold to a Frenchman, was exhibited at the Louvre, and, after creating a profound sensation among French artists, was awarded a gold medal. In the following year “The White Horse” won a similar distinction at Lille. In 1825 he exhibited “The Leaping Horse” (perhaps his masterpiece), in 1826 “The Cornfield,” in 1827 “The Marine Parade and Chain Pier, Brighton,” and in 1828 “Dedham Vale.”
In 1822 Constable had taken Farington’s house, 35 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, but his wife’s failing health made him turn his attention to Hampstead, and after temporary occupation first of 2 Lower Terrace and then of a house on Downshire Hill, he took No. 6 Well Walk, in 1827, letting the greater part of his London house. In 1828 his financial position was made
