MULREADY, WILLIAM, it. A., was b. at Ennis, in Ireland, about the year 1786. When a boy he went to London with his parents; at the age of fifteen entered as a student in the royal academy, and made good progress, aiming at first at the classic style, or what, according to the notions of the day, was called high art. Following the bent of his genius, however, he soon relinquished this course, and devoted himself to the study of nature and the works of those artists who attained high reputation in a less pre tentious walk of art. His first pictures were landscapes of limited dimension and sub ject, views in Kensington gravel-pits, old houses at Lambeth, and interiors of cottages. He next essayed figure-subjects of incidents in every-day life, such as "A Roadside Inn," " Horses Baiting," the " Barber's Shop," and " Punch" (painted in 1812), "Boys Fishing" (1813), " Idle Boys" (1815). Mulready was elected an associate of the royal academy in Nov., 1815, and an academician in Feb., 1816; a strong proof of the high estimation in which his talents were held by his brethren, for the higher dignity is rarely conferred till after a probation of several years as associate. Even in his earliest time his works were characterized by much elaboration; but those he executed about the middle period of his career exhibit an extraordinary amount of finish and greater brilliancy of coloring, qualities that he carried further and further as he advanced in years; ane though he lived to a great age (he died on July 7, 1863), he continued to work with undimin ished powers till within a day of his death. A great number of Mulready's best works
now belong to the public, as portions of the Vernon and Sheepshanks's collections. In the first named there are four pictures, one of these, " The Last in, or Truant Boy," exhibited in 1835, being one of the most elaborate works of his middle period; while in the Sheepshanks' collection there are no fewer than twenty-eight of his works, among which, " First Love," exhibited in 1840, is a remarkable example of refinement in draw ing, and delicacy of feeling and expression. " The Sonnet," exhibited in 1839, is per haps his highest effort in point of style; and by " The Butt—Shooting a Cherry," exhib ited in 1818, is best exemplified the remarkable minuteness of his finish and richness of his coloring. An edition of the Vicar of Waleeftekl, published in 1840, by Van Voorst, embellished with twenty wood-cuts from Mulready's drawings. is a very fine work. " Women Bathing" was exibited in 1849; and, in 1852, "Blackheath Park." "The Toy Seller," a large picture exhibited the year before he died, was unfinished, and not at all equal to earlier and smaller ones, but remarkable as the work of a man whose artistic efforts had been lauded sixty years before.