In 1869 he published 'Masterpieces of English Art'; in 1872 he edited and prefaced a photographic edition of Hogarth's works; in 1877 came a 'Handbook of Precis Writing'; in 1879 an excellent short life of Turner for Cundall's 'Great Artists,' and in 1887 a little guide-book on the 'Italian Pre-Raphaelites' in the National Gallery. In 1890 followed a valuable volume on the 'Earlier English Water Colour Painters' (2nd edit. 1897).
In 1890 Monkhouse returned to poetry with 'Corn and Poppies,' some portions of which had appeared in the 'Magazine of Art.' This volume contained many of his best pieces, and notably his highest effort, the stately 'Dead March.' Of a fine ballad entitled 'The Christ upon the Hill,' a limited edition was issued with etchings by William Strang in 1895; and after his death appeared a slender volume entitled 'Pasiteles the Elder and other Poems,' in which this ballad was included. Other prose works were : 'A Memoir of Leigh Hunt' in the 'Great Writers' series, 1893; 'In the National Gallery,' 1895; 'British Contemporary Artists,' chiefly contributed to 'Scribner's Magazine,' 1899; 'A History of Chinese Porcelain,' 1901; and 'Life of Sir John Tenniel' (for the 'Art Journal'), 1901. To this Dictionary Monkhouse was a diligent contributor of lives of artists, including Reynolds and Turner. As a critic he had the happy faculty of conveying a well-considered and weighty opinion without suggesting superiority or patronage; as a poet, though he lacked the leisure to realise his full ambition, he left much which no true lover of finished and thoughtful work can wisely afford to neglect.
Monkhouse died at Skegness on 2 July 1901. He was twice married: (1) in 1865 to Laura, daughter of John Keymer of Dartford in Kent; (2) in 1873 to Leonora Eliza, the daughter of Commander Blount, R.N., by whom he had two sons and six daughters. There are painted portraits of him by C. E. Johnson, R.I., and J. M'Lure Hamilton, and an etching by William Strang, A.R.A.
[Monkhouse's works; personal knowledge. See also art. in Art Journal for March 1902, by Edmund Gosse, on Cosmo Monkhouse as an Art Critic.]
MONRO, CHARLES HENRY (1835–1908), author, born in London on 17 March 1835, was second of three sons of Cecil Monro, chief registrar of the court of chancery, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Henry Howe Knight-Erskine of Pittodrie. Alexander Monro [q. v.], principal of Edinburgh University in 1660, was an ancestor, six of whose descendants are already commemorated in this Dictionary. His older brother, Cecil James, a man of extraordinary powers, was incapacitated by phthisis soon after his election to a fellowship at Trinity in 1855. He younger brother, Kenneth, a brilliant artillery officer, died in early manhood of phthisis in Nova Scotia. Charles Henry entered Harrow in 1847, proceeded to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, as Sayer scholar in 1853, graduated B.A. in 1857 with a first class in classics, and in the same year was elected to a fellowship, of which he resigned the emoluments in 1897. Called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1863, he did not practise, but continued his study of law, though the work was hampered by ill-health, necessitating much residence abroad. From 1872 to 1896 he was law lecturer at his college. In 1900 he represented Cambridge University at the 500th anniversary of the second foundation of the University of Cracow.
In 1891 he published an annotated text and translation of the title 'Locati Conducti' in Justinian's 'Digest'; in 1893 'De Furtis'; in 1896 'Ad legem Aquiliam'; in 1900 'De Adquirendo Dominio'; and in 1902 'Pro Socio.' Meanwhile he had begun the heavy task of translating the whole 'Digest.' One volume of this work appeared in 1904 and another in 1909, alter his death, covering, altogether, about one-fourth of the book. His work was marked by great acuteness and independence of judgment and accuracy of scholarship. He had a peculiar gift for translation, and his rendering of the 'Digest,' so far as it proceeded, was much superior to any earlier attempt.
Monro, who was an accomplished linguist, and was specially interested in Celtic, died, unmarried, at Eastbourne on 23 Feb. 1906, and was buried there. By his will he left a large sum to his college, which has perpetuated his memory by a Monro fellowship, a Monro lectureship in Celtic, a Monro endowment to the Squire law library in Cambridge, and a Monro extension to the college library.
[Venn. Biogr. Hist. of Gonv. and Caius Coll., ii. 310; memorial notices in The Caius, xvii. 161; Burke's Landed Gentry, s.v. Knight-Erskine; Cass, Hist. of Monken Hadley, p. 181; notices of members of the family in this Dictionary; school college records; communications from friends; personal knowledge.]
