being descriptive of different reviews and military evolutions which he had witnessed. He had already received some instruction in the rudiments of design, from an obscure animal painter, when it was determined that he should become a pupil of the celebrated Loutherbourg. With this artist, however, he only remained a sufficient time to acquire a correct knowledge of the principles of his art, having resolved to complete his studies by the contemplation of nature, and the works of the continental masters. Yet he must have attained to no ordinary skill previously to his departure from England, as his biographer tells us, he had scarcely reached the nineteenth year of his age, when he had acquired considerable reputation as a painter of landscapes, battles, and sea-pieces. In 1776, he set out on a tour through the Netherlands, France, and Italy, and upon his return to England, showed, in the numerous pictures which he exhibited, how much improvement he had derived from a study of the old masters. His works made such an impression on the Prince Primate, brother to the unfortunate Stanislaus Augustus, King of Poland, when he visited this country, that he made our artist very liberal offers to accompany him to Poland. He was appointed painter to the King of Poland in 1791, and at the same time made a Knight of the Order of Merit, a title which was confirmed to him by his own sovereign, on his being presented at court. In the following year, he was elected a royal academician, and, in 1794, appointed landscape painter to the king. On the death of Mr. Noel Desenfans, Sir Francis found himself legatee to a considerable property left him by that gentleman, together with his splendid collection of pictures, which, at his own death, in 1811, he bequeathed to Dulwich College. "The number of Sir Francis Bourgeois' pictures," says one of his biographers, "is considerable, and many of them possess distinguished merit. It is, however, to be regretted, that his various pursuits did not allow his powers to take that extensive range for which they were evidently sufficiently qualified; and in several of his productions, a slight and hasty finishing is observable, which diminishes the admiration we should

otherwise feel for the ingenuity of his compositions, and the facility of his execution."

BOYNE, (JOHN) was born in the county of Down, Ireland, about the year 1759. His father originally carried on the trade of a joiner, but was subsequently appointed to a situation in the Victualling Office, at Deptford, from which he retired on a pension as superannuated. The subject of our memoir was about nine years of age, when he came to England, where he was apprenticed to Mr. William Byrne, the engraver. At the time of the expiration of his apprenticeship, his master dying. Boyne succeeded him in his business, but finding the confinement necessary to his success too much for his buoyant spirit, he soon lost all his connexion. He now spent his evenings in dissipation, and, having at length sold all his tools, joined a company of strolling players near Chelmsford. In this situation he sustained, for a time, with tolerable applause, the joint character of actor and author, but returned to London in 1781, and taking lodgings in Shoe Lane, commenced business as a pearl-setter, in which he was very skilful. He next became master of a drawing school, first in Holborn, and afterwards in Gloucester Street, Queen Square, where he had, among his pupils, Messrs. Holmes and Heaphy. Yet he still continued to work as a pearl-setter. and also turned his literary abilities to some account. Several of his productions were inserted in The Old London Magazine, and he also published a letter to Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Esquire, on his late proceedings as a member of the Society of the Freedom of the Press; Observations on French Politics; and Touchstone, or A Defence of those Artists who are lashed by Peter Pindar. For the first work, an anonymous correspondent sent him a present of £10. Boyne lived in a sottish and extravagant manner, and though, what with his engraving of caricatures, tuition in drawing, and pearl setting, he obtained an ample sufficiency, he was always poor. used generally to frequent, in an evening, a public-house in West Harding Street, where he entered himself, "although," says his biographer, "a very

He

clean man," a member of the Dirty Shirt Society. As an artist, though soon forgotten, he attracted, or rather his productions attracted, some notice in their time. They consisted chiefly of heads from Shakspeare's plays, in water colours, a branch of art then in its infancy. His biographer specifies the following subjects, also from his pencil, as possessing much merit :-The Assignation; A Sketch to the Memory of the Duke of Bedford; The Muck Worm, and the Glow-Worm, being portraits of a miser and a voluptuary; and his Meeting of Connoisseurs, a composition full of humour. Boyne, who was a Roman catholic, died on the 22nd of June, 1810, at his house in Penton Place, Pentonville.

EDRIDGE, (HENRY,) was born at Paddington, in the year 1768, and, at the age of fourteen, was placed with Mr. Pether, the mezzotinto engraver and landscape painter. In 1784, he was admitted a student of the Royal Academy, and two years afterwards he obtained a medal for the best drawing of an academy figure. Sir Joshua Reynolds was much pleased with the performances of Edridge at the Academy, particularly with a copy, in miniature, of one of Sir Joshua's own pictures, which he insisted on purchasing from the subject of our memoir, who would willingly have given it as a present. He not only paid Edridge twice the sum asked, but meeting him a few days afterwards, insisted upon making him a still further present; observing, that he had since sold the drawing to a nobleman for a considerable profit, and he was therefore his debtor for the difference. During his apprenticeship with Pether, Mr. Edridge, having little or no taste for mezzotinto engraving, made an arrangement with his master to permit him to study miniature painting, which branch of business he commenced on his own account, about the time of his marriage, in 1789. His earliest works were miniatures on ivory, and portraits on paper with black lead and Indian ink. "It was only of late years," says his biographer, "that he made those elaborately high-finished pictures on paper, uniting the depth and richness

of oil-paintings with the freedom and freshness of water-colours, and of which there is perhaps scarcely a nobleman's family in England without some specimens." Mr. Edridge, who was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1820, died, much respected, on the 23rd of April, 1821.

The

BURNET, (JAMES,) was born at Musselburgh, in 1788. His father was general surveyor of Excise in Scotland, and had married the sister of Cruikshank, the celebrated anatomist. On leaving school, he was placed under the care of Liddell, the wood carver, but on the termination of his apprenticeship, resolved to study painting, and for that purpose removed to London in 1810, and took up his residence with his brother John, the engraver. latter was at the time employed upon an engraving of Wilkie's Blind Fiddler, and James was so struck with it, that Wilkie and the Dutch masters im mediately became his favourite studies. He drew sketches from nature in excursions near London, and was particularly successful in his drawings of animals, which he seldom failed to introduce in his landscapes. Consumption cut short his very promising career; he died on the 27th of June, 1816. As a pastoral painter he has left few equals. Among his best pictures are, Cattle going out in the Morning, and Cattle returning home in a Shower. In the latter, which was purchased by Sir Thomas Baring, Burnet is said to have introduced everything that could in any way characterize the scene. "The rainbow in the sky," says an excellent judge, "the glittering of the rain upon the leaves, the dripping poultry under the hedge, the reflections of the cattle on the road, and the girl with the gown over her shoulders, all tend with equal force to illustrate his subject. His colouring had the depth of Rembrandt, and the luminousness of Cuyp: he could employ either with equal success. His pictures display considerable poetic feeling, and a thorough acquaintance with nature; his cowboys and milkmaids are not without grace, and his cows, a favourité animal with him, seem to enjoy the grass they feed upon."

SCHEEMAKERS, (PETER,) was born at Antwerp, some time in the year 1690. After having studied sculpture under old Delvaux, he determined on visiting Italy for further improvement, and possessing very inadequate funds for that purpose, set out to walk to Rome. He left Antwerp in 1728, but before he had arrived at the eternal city,' had been obliged to part with one or two of his shirts from his knapsack, in order to procure him the means of subsistence. It seems, however, that before proceed ing to Rome, he worked as a journeyman in some town in Denmark, where he was detained some time by illness. He was much noticed and encouraged in Italy, where he employed himself in constructing models from most of the celebrated statues and groupes in and about Rome. With these he came to England, and after a short stay there, returned to Rome, where he remained about two years. At the expiration of this period, he settled as a statuary in London, and was soon employed upon several important works, which he executed in a manner that procured for him a high reputation. "Scheemakers, on his way to England," says Smith, "visited his birth-place, bringing with him several roots of brocoli, a dish till then little known in perfection at our tables." He first resided in Westminster, near St. Margaret's Church; and afterwards, in December, 1741, removed to Vine Street, Piccadilly. He returned to his native city in 1769, and died there shortly afterwards; "having," says Nollekens, "grown so fat, that when he was kneeling down to say his prayers, he placed his legs under him with his hands." The principal works of Scheemakers are as follow:-Dr. Chamberlain's monument in Westminster Abbey; the statue of Sir John Barnard, in the Royal Exchange; of Admiral Pocock, Major Lawrence, and Lord Clive, in the India House; of Guy, in Guy's Hospital; and of Edward the Sixth, in the court-yard of

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St. Thomas's Hospital; the two last in bronze. To these we may add the monuments of Dr. Mead, in the Temple Church, the statue of Shakspeare, in Westminster Abbey, and a variety of admirable busts in private collections. He was also employed in the decorations at Stowe, where there are, besides other of his works, life-size statues of Lycurgus, Socrates, Homer, and Epaminondas. "Of Scheemakers' models," says Smith, in allusion to the sale of them, "I have frequently heard my father speak with considerable pleasure, when he used to state, that they were placed upon tables, stands, and shelves, covered with green baize, round the auction-room, and made a most beautiful appearance. One of them was a small copy of the Laocoon, in marble, which was bought by the Earl of Lincoln."

RYSBRACH, (JOHN MICHAEL,) was the son of a landscape painter at Antwerp, according to Walpole-at Brussels, according to Smith-in one of which cities he was born, about the year 1694.

He studied under Theodore Balant, an excellent sculptor, and came to England about the year 1720, where he soon obtained employment, reputation, and profit. He resided in Vere Street, Oxford Street, and died there on the 11th of January, 1770. His principal works are, the monuments, in Westminster Abbey, of Mrs. Oldfield, Sir Isaac Newton, Duke of Newcastle, Matthew Prior, Admiral Vernon, Earl Stanhope, and Sir Godfrey Kneller; the statue of Locke, in Christchurch College, Cambridge; George the Second, at Greenwich Hospital, &c. Several of his works are also in our best private collections, especially the busts of the English worthies at Stowe, which have been improperly attributed, by Smith, to Scheemakers.

WILTON, (JOSEPH,) the son of a wealthy plasterer, was born in London,

her by Horace Walpole, but resigned it, in 1818, to Lord Waldegrave, and removed to York House, in the same neighbourhood. Her enthusiasm for

art continued unabated to the last: she finished a bust of Nelson, in bronze, for the Duke of Clarence, only a few days previous to her death, which took place on the 28th of May, 1828. In person, Mrs. Damer was lightly and elegantly formed; her manners were fascinating, and in youth she is said to have been very beautiful. Besides many accomplishments, she possessed no ordinary share of learning: Homer, Herodotus, Plutarch, Cicero and Livy, were among her favourite authors. Her principal works, in addition to those already mentioned, are busts of her father, Fox, Queen Caroline, and one of Nelson, in the Commoncouncil room in the city of London; two colossal heads of Thames and Isis, on the key-stones of Henley Bridge; a statue of George III., in the Edinburgh Register Office; two marble kittens, and an osprey, in terra-cotta, for Horace Walpole, who has inscribed the following pentameter on the latter :—

"Non me Praxiteles fecit, at Anna Damer." Of the merits of Mrs. Damer, little, according to Allan Cunningham, is to be said. He treats her as a vain, enterprising woman, who is constantly failing in all she attempts, and as constantly imagining she has succeeded. A quotation from Smith is also brought in to assist an insinuation that the finest touches in her works were not made by her own hand; but sneers and conjectures do not afford us sufficient ground for coming to such a conclusion. That her performances are of the highest order has never been insisted on; but a woman of fortune and fashion, who devotes herself voluntarily and enthusiastically to a laborious and difficult art, and achieves in it so much as Mrs. Damer has done, must be surely one of no common genius, and, among her own sex, at least, almost a prodigy.

LOCATELLI, (JOHN BAPTIST,) was born at Vienna, about the year 1750, but came to England early in life, and settled in London, under the patronage, chiefly of Lord Orford. The celebrated Mr. Rossi was, for some time,

his pupil, but acquired from him, if we may credit the assertion of Smith, no part of his present excellence as a sculptor. Locatelli was employed occasionally by Robert Adam, the architect, for whom he executed, among other commissions, a chimney-piece for Harewood House, in Yorkshire. He does not seem to have been an artist of eminence, though, in a pamphlet which he published, he asserts that he had been much noticed by the English at Verona and Venice; and that, during his residence at Milan, he was employed by Count Fernier, M. Pilot, and Cardinal Crescenzi; and that he had executed upwards of seventy statues and groupes for the brothers Battoni, &c. His name was more notorious than distinguished, in this country, in consequence of a dispute with Lord Orford, and which gave rise to the pamphlet above mentioned. It appears that this nobleman had behaved with great kindness to Locatelli ; but after having advanced him as much as £350 on account of a groupe of Theseus and Hercules, refused to receive it, when complete, on account of the bad manner in which it was executed. He agreed, however, to take the opinion of a committee of artists on the subject: this was decidedly unfavourable to Locatelli; to whom, however, Walpole generously paid a further sum, and, upon receiving the groupe, sent it to Houghton, where it was subsequently destroyed in the conflagration of that mansion. Nollekens used to say of this groupe, that "the figures looked like the dry skins of two brickmakers, stuffed with clotted flocks from an old mattress;" and, at other times, that "Locatelli must have studied Goltzius's Hercules, a figure well known to the collectors of engravings, under the appellation of the Potatoe Man, in consequence of his muscles appearing more like that root than any thing produced either above or below the earth." Locatelli left England in 1796, for Milan, where he was patronized by Buonaparte, and granted a pension for life. The time of his death is uncertain.

PROCTER, (THOMAS,) an artist of great promise, both as a painter and sculptor, was born at Settle, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on the 22nd of April, 1753. He was at first appren.