*LOUGH, JOHN GRAHAM, sculptor, was born early iu the present century at Greenhcad, in Northumberland, where his father was a small farmer. Employed from his earliest days in the fields he received but little school education, yet he became very fond of books, taught himself to draw, and eventually to mould figures in clay. Some of his models accidentally caught the eye of a gentleman in the neighbourhood, who, becoming interested iu the youth, invited him to his house, showed him casts and engravings from the great sculptors of ancient and modern times, and thoroughly aroused his opening ambition. Young Lough laboured hard in his spare hours till he felt himself strong enough to venture on the hazardous step of proceeding to London and there maintaining himself while he mastered the sculptor's art. Under many privations he toiled ou, until success began to reward his labour. In London ho found friends and advisers, among the most ardent of whom was Hayden the painter, who from the first prognosticated his future eminence. As a matter of course Hayden urged the earnest study of the Elgin marbles, and to these Lough devoted himself for some time with great advantage. After one or two more modest ventures, Mr. Lough in 1827 sent to the Royal Academy exhibition a colossal statue of 'Milo,' which excited a very vivid impression, and brought the sculptor patrons and commissions. The ' Milo' ho executed in marble for the Duke of Wellington, and the cast of it in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham will suffice to show that the self-taught sculptor had caught the old Greek spirit, though not perhaps the manner, better than many a carefully-trained academician.
In 1834 Mr. Lough visited Italy, where ho remained four years diligently occupied in studying the great works there, but, as in England, without placing himself under the direction of any master. During these four years he executed several commissions for tho dukes of Northumberland and Sutherland, Lord Egremont, and other English noblemen and wealthy commoners. On his return he exhi bited (1838) a marble group of A Boy giving Water to a Dolphin,' in which the influence of his Italian studies was plainly visible. In 1840 he exhibited A Roman Fruit Oirl;' in 1843 a marble statue of ' Ophelia,' a group, also in marble, of ' A Bacchanalian Revel,' and a ' Bas-Relief from Homer; ' in 1844, a marble group, Ilebe Banished,' a statue of ' Ingo,' and a 'Design for the Nelson Monument.' He
also iu this year eent to tho Westminster Hall Exhibition his now well-known poetic group entitled 'The Mourners : ' but for some reason he was not one of the sculptors employed iu the decoration of the New Houses of Parliament. From this time monumental statues and portrait-busts came more and more to employ his chisel, though not to the exclusion of the ideal. The first to be mentioned of this order is the statue of ' Her Majesty ' (1845), which stands in the centre of the Royal Exchange area. The companion statue of Prince Albert which Mr. Lough was commissioned to execute, was placed in 1847 in the great room at Lloyds :' both are works of much merit. In 1848 be executed a colossal marble statue of the Marquis of Hastings' for Malta, and a recumbent statue of Southey' for Keswick church. From 1845 to 1856 Mr. Longh contributed nothing to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, though fully occupied during that period. But to the Great Exhibition of 1851 he sent his vigorous group of Fighting Horses,' and from his Sbaksperian series (executed for Sir Matthew White Ridley), The Jealousy of Oberon,' Ariel," Puck,' and ' Titania,' works of much quaint and original fancy ; and a colossal marble group, ' Satan subdued by the Archangel Michael,' in many respects the grandest of his works—scarcely suffering even by com parison with Flaxman'e famous group of a similar subject. Mr. Lough's chief contribution to the Academy exhibition of 1856 was a very admirable posthumous bust of Edward Forbes,' one of two executed for the Museum of Practical Geology, and King's College. In the Crystal Palace at Sydenham may be seen casts from his statues of Milo," David," Satan," Ariel," Titania,' and Puck ; ' his fine group of The Mournera'—a dead warrior by whom a female is kneeling in an agony of grief, while his charger stands beside him with drooping head ; and • has-relief entitled 'The Apotheosis of Shakspere,' n cast from the original executed in marble for his muni ficent patron Sir M. W. Ridley, as a frieze for the room in which his series of Shakaperian statues is placed.