the heart, as he was for love of honour, for science, and for genius. He has left a widow and three children. Mrs. Bowdich was the companion of his travels, the sharer of his perils, the participator of his hopes, and in her affectionate arms he breathed his last. Herself endowed with every accomplishment that could render her the worthy associate of such a man, she entered with enthusiasm into all his views, and assisted with her talents many of the most scientific of his operations. Her skill and taste as an artist, were most successfully employed in the illustration of Mr. Bowdich's publications on natural history, &c., most of the plates of which were executed by Mrs. Bowdich; and many of them from drawings made by herself. She is now on the point of publishing a work, which, we have no doubt, will prove highly interesting, under the title of "A Description of the Island of Madeira, by the late T. E. Bowdich, Esq., Conductor of the Mission to Ashantee; to which are added, a Narrative of Mr. Bowdich's last Voyage to Africa, terminating in his Death; Remarks on the Cape de Verde Islands; and a Description of the English Settlements on the River Gambia: by Mrs. Bowdich."

No. XV.

WILLIAM SHARP, Esq.

HONORARY MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL AND BAVARIAN

ACADEMIES.

Or the numerous monthly publications which issue from the press in London, there is, we believe, no one in which so much attention is paid to the fine arts as in the European Magazine. Two recent numbers of that work contain a memoir of the late Mr. Sharp, and critical remarks on his productions, which we have reason to believe are from the pen of a gentleman, himself an admirable engraver, and otherwise distinguished by great and various talents and attainThese able and interesting papers we have taken the liberty to adopt as the basis of our biography of Mr. Sharp, making some slight curtailments and alterations in them, and adding a few facts, derived from other sources.

ments.

William Sharp was born on the 29th of January, 1749. His father was a reputable gun-maker, of Haydon Yard in the Minories, who, observing early manifestations of a talent for drawing in his son William, and not being able to estimate (as indeed no father could estimate) the full extent of those talents, thought only of qualifying him for the performance of that species of engraving which is bestowed on fire arms, and is technically termed bright engraving, because it solicits attention to itself, and not to the impressions that may be taken from it by filling its incisions with ink. Young William was accordingly apprenticed to Mr. Longmate, who practised this species of engraving near the Royal Exchange; and, soon after the expiration of his engagement, our artist (having married a Frenchwoman) commenced business for himself in Bartholomew Lane, which, being not far from

the scene of his apprenticeship, marks integrity of conduct, by showing that he was at least irreproachable, and probably respected, where the deeds of his youth were known.

His first essay in engraving was made on a pewter pot. His friends would have qualified the assertion by substituting a silver tankard, but our artist loved truth, and insisted on the veracity of this humble commencement. About this time he became acquainted with John Kaye Sherwin, from whom he no doubt derived much information. At one period he had almost concluded an engagement with Sherwin, as an assistant, but, a difference occurring, the negociation was broken off. After a few years of experience, as his powers developed, Sharp began to feel himself capable of higher works than dog's-collars, and door and card-plates, and one of his first essays in the superior branch of his art, was, to travel all the the way from Bartholomew Lane to the Tower of London, make a drawing of the old lion Hector, who had been an inmate of that fortress for about thirty years, engrave from it a small quarto plate, aud expose the prints for sale in his window.

This was a firm, and successful, and satisfactory step, made on sure ground; for the prints of the lion sold moderately well (the plate has lately been found among Mr. Sharp's effects at Chiswick); and hence he was probably induced to speculate on more important graphic concerns. Perhaps, too, the delicate health of his wife, who had been too long "in populous city pent," might form part of his inducement, when he made up his mind to remove. However these things may have been, he left the busy civic haunts and the hum of Bartholomew Lane, somewhere about the year 1782, for the more salubrious neighbourhood of Vauxhall, where he began to engrave for the Novelist's Magazine, after the designs of Stothard; contributed a single plate to Southwell's folio Bible, and soon after felt firmly seated enough on this superior branch to which he had climbed, to

this time, been expan

and prints, and he began to

"drink the spirit, breathed

From dead men to their kind;",

to look with due veneration at the great works of the old masters; and, finally, to emulate and imitate them. But the removal to the country did not much amend the infirm health of Mrs. Sharp, and he soon became a widower, but without children.

At this period of his life Mr. Sharp was a well-formed, well-looking man, inclining to corpulence, labouring zealously in his vocation, exercising and refreshing himself with daily ablutions in the Thames during the cool of the morning, and, being strong and an expert swimmer, he swam with ease over that river and back. Here, at Lambeth, he was the neighbour and occasional associate of John Browne, the distinguished etcher of landscape, and of the ingenious and philosophical Wilson Lowry (of whom a memoir will be found in the present volume), and here, at his mature age, and in the prime of his faculties, he performed some of those grand and laborious works which will long remain an honour to himself, his art, and his country. His admirable portrait of John Hunter, after Reynolds; his not less admirable Doctors, or Fathers (as it is sometimes termed), of the primitive church discussing the doctrine of the immaculate conception, after Guido, the former one of the finest portrait, the latter one of the finest historical, engravings in the world, were both executed in the small house which he occupied near Vauxhall. Here was completed West's Landing of King Charles the Second, which Woollet, at his demise, had left unfinished; and here were performed several other works not mentioned by those who have hitherto treated of his biography; among them two solemn dances by torch-light in the Friendly Islands, and some portraits of islanders of the Pacific Ocean, engraved for Captain Cook's last voyage; and

the scene of his apprenticeship, markanter benwell, an by showing that he was of which the subject is the Children in the Wood. The public have not yet done justice either to the design or to the execution of this plate. The scene is, of course, the interior of a forest, where the babes have wandered, feeding on blackberries, till they were weary, and have fallen asleep. The girl, who is a perfect cherub of innocence, still holds a bramble sprig, containing some fruit, as she sleeps, — implying that of the two strongest appetites at this early age, sleep has just obtained the mastery; or rather let us say, the

reader remembers that

"When the darksome night came on,
They sat them down and cried;"

they cried themselves to sleep; and Benwell has beautifully imagined that he saw them the following morning before they awoke, and that the robins were hovering around them in poetic anticipation of their melancholy fate. In this there is a certain delicate tenderness of sentiment, and sense of pictorial propriety; for, had the painter waited till the children were dead, the pathos of his performance would have merged in a feeling of horror; whereas, as it is, it is the most simple and touching of pathetic tragedies. But we will say more of this, at least of the engraved part of it, when we open our portfolio, and when it is fairly before us with his other works. At present we pursue the chronological course of events, as nearly as we are able, in completing our sketch of Sharp's biography.

Whilst thus living and engraving at Lambeth, our became gradually and justly dissatisfied with the scant muneration which he received for his plates from the dealers, which kept him always poor, although his exper were moderate; and, his brother dying somewhat unexpected.

* The beautiful original, which was painted by Benwell, with what are c "wet crayons," but in a style peculiarly his own, is in the possessio R. Hills, Esq., whose admirable pictures of animals have for so many yea