In 1782 lie was appointed professor of painting at the Royal Academy, but, owing to his nervous temperament, irritated by disappointment, lie soon lost the position, and was also expelled from the Academy through the influence of those against whom he had inveighed. Toward the close of his unhappy life—which ended in 1806—an annuity was raised for him, but he died without realizing a penny from it. He was carried from a garret of squalor and poverty to a place by the side of Sir Joshua Reynolds in St. Paul's Cathedral. The contrasts of fortune followed poor Barry even to his grave.
James _Vail/rave was another brilliant artist of the English school of this period who made a name for himself by steady application to por traiture and history-painting. He was the son of a watchmaker of Plymouth, where lie was born in 17.46. Forced to serve an apprentice ship with his father, be did not go to London until he was twenty five Years old. Sir Joshua Reynolds kindly assisted him, and in 1777 lie visited Italy. The painting entitled the Young Princes murdered in the Tozeer first attracted public attention to Northcote, and procured him a commission from the corporation of London to paint his great picture, the Death of If at Tyler. Besides producing a number of illustrations for Boydell's " Shakespeare," Northcote was among the first English art ists to paint animals—a field in which the British school has since been so successful. In his Diligent Servant and the Dissipated be attempted a subject already more successfully treated by Hogartli in the Idle and Industrious Apprentice. Although conventional in chiaroscuro, Northcote composed with vigor and naturalness, and is entitled to a respectable rank. He died in 1831, and left a fortune as a result of his diligence.
John Opie was another history-painter of this period, who, however, found more fame than fortune in the pursuit of so-called high art. He was born at St. Agnes in 1761 in humble circumstances. His mother secretly en couraged the lad in his taste for drawing, and in time lie obtained some local encouragement in portraiture, which gave him opportunity to go to London. Probably no other English painter of note had so little prepara tory study in his profession as Opie, yet the historical works be exhibited in London attracted marked attention, and his masterpiece, The Jlurder of Daz'id Ri.72:io, secured his election as member of the Academy in his
twenty-sixth year. But portrait-painting was the only branch of paint ing which was pecuniarily profitable in England in the last century, and to that Opie was forced to resort for a precarious livelihood.
111'1796 he was divorced from bis first wife, who had proved unfaith ful, and not long after married Amelia Alderson, well known as a clever authoress to whom the world is indebted for a sympathetic biography of the painter. His severe struggles to earn a livelihood finally drove poor Opie into insanity, and, completely broken down, lie died in 1807. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral with a pomp which cost a sum that might better have been bestowed on the artist during his lifetime. Opie was a man of unusual mental power; he was a deep and original thinker, who made a strong impression in conversation, as well as in the art-lectures lie delivered at the Academy. As a painter his style showed the lack of early training, but the color was rich and the composition full of imagi native power.
Sir I lemy Rachnrn, a native of Scotland, was one of the strongest portrait-painters of this period, and to him we owe many important portraits of the leaders of Scotch society and thought. He was born near Edin burgh in 1756, and began at first as a miniature-painter; but he aban doned this for oils, taking lessons of David Martin (died in 1797), and sub sequently of Reynolds, devoting two years after this to study in Italy., He settled in Edinburgh and became president of the Society of Artists in Scotland and member of the Royal Academy. He was knighted by George IV. in 1822, and died the following year. His life was prosperous. In his portraits he shows breadth of style and a happy facility in seizing and agreeably representing traits of character.
Thomas SteMara', born in London in 1755, may appropriately be classed with the artists of the eighteenth century, although he lived until 1834. He is chiefly known as an illustrator of the poets in exquisite black-and white drawings in which female beauty and purity are distinguishing features, but he also painted many pictures in oil-colors presenting sim ilar characteristics. One of his great works was the decoration of the grand stairway at Burleigh House.