offered his services to him, and entered into articles to work for him. Before long, however, he again fell into trouble, and was assisted by Lutterel, with whom he became associated in the development of the art. He is said to have been noted for his gallantries, and to have married a woman of fortune, which enabled him to set up as the publisher of his own prints, and Lutterel did many heads for him, being more expeditious and more skilful in drawing than Beckett, but they were often finished by the latter. His plates are all referable to dates between 1681 and 1688, yet he survived until 1719. Isaac Beckett and Robert Williams were the first native Englishmen who extensively practised engraving in mezzotint, and, in a measure, may be considered to have founded the school, for the earlier works were executed chiefly by engravers of foreign birth. John Smith was Beckett's pupil, and appears to have obtained possession of many of his plates and to have placed his own name on them, not only as publisher, but on some even as engraver.
Beckett executed several scriptural and allegorical subjects, as well as a few landscapes, but by far the greater number of his plates are portraits, of which Mr. Chaloner Smith describes 107. Among the best of them may be mentioned full-length portraits of Charles II, the Duchess of Portsmouth, James II, and Catharine Sedley, countess of Dorchester, after Kneller; and of Lady Williams, said by Granger to have been a mistress of the Duke of York, after Wissing; and other portraits of Catharine of Braganza, queen of Charles II, Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland, and Elizabeth, countess of Chesterfield, after Sir Peter Lely; Mary of Modena, queen of James II, after Kneller and Largillière; Queen Anne, after Wissing; Prince George of Denmark, after Riley and Wissing; Beau Fielding, after Kneller and Wissing; Henry Compton, bishop of London, after Riley; Thomas Cartwright, bishop of Chester, after Soest; and Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Nicolas de Largillière and his family, after paintings by themselves. The most important of Beckett's subject plates are 'The Virgin and St. Joseph, with the Infant Jesus asleep;' 'Time cutting the Wings of Love;' 'Cupid and Psyche,' after Turchi; 'The Village Surgeon,' after Lingelbach; and 'The Dutch School,' after Egbert van Heemskerk. Beckett's own portrait has been engraved by John Smith and others.
[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting (ed. Wornum), 1849, iii. 960-1, with portrait; J. Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits, 1878-84, i. 20-54; Meyer's Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, 1872, &c., iii. 272-274.]
BECKFORD, PETER (1740–1811), eminent sportsman and master of foxhounds, was the son of Julines Beckford, of Stapleton.
Dorset, and grandson of Peter Beckford,
governor and commander-in-chief of Jamaica,
He was thus cousin to William Beckford,
the celebrated lord mayor of London. His
pre-eminence among foxhunters is due to the
fact that he was the first English writer to
describe minutely and accurately the whole
system of the sport of hunting. This he did
in a work entitled 'Thoughts upon Hare and
Fox Hunting; also an account of the most
celebrated Dog Kennels in the Kingdom,'
Sarum, sm. 4to, 1781, 1796, 1820. 'Never,'
says a writer (Sir Egerton Brydges?) in the
'Retrospective Review' (xiii. 231), 'had fox
or hare the honour of being chased to death
by so accomplished a hunter; never was
huntsman's dinner graced by such urbanity
and wit. He would bag a fox in Greek, find
a hare in Latin, inspect his kennels in Italian,
and direct the economy of his stables in exquisite French.' In 1781 Beckford published
'Essays on Hunting; containing a philosophical inquiry into the nature and properties
of Scent; on different kinds of Hounds,
Hares, &c., with an introduction describing
the method of Hare-hunting among the
Greeks,' London, 8vo.
In 1773 he married Louisa, daughter of Lord Rivers, and by a special patent, granted in 1802, his son William Horace succeeded to the barony, and became the third Lord Rivers. Peter Beckford sat in parliament, as representative of Morpeth, in 1768.
In 1787, just before the outbreak of the French revolution, he travelled in Italy, and wrote an entertaining account of his journey, which was published some years later under the title of 'Familiar Letters from Italy to a Friend in England,' 2 vols. 8vo, Salisbury, 1805. Here he described visits to Voltaire, Rousseau, and other celebrities. In Turin, he writes, he had met Sterne in 1765, and had 'passed hours with that eccentric genius that might have been more profitably employed, but never more agreeably.' He seasons nearly every letter with anecdotes, both grave and gay, and makes remarks, political and philosophical, that must have astounded the country squire of later days. That he was an extensive reader of classical and modern literature is proved by the tenor of both his published works. He died on 18 Feb. 1811, and was buried in Stapleton church, where the following doggerel was inscribed above his grave:–
- We die and are forgotten; 'tis Heaven's decree:
- Thus the fate of others will be the fate of me.
