others being wounded. Frost was captured the same evening, and was tried before Lord-chief-justice Tindal, Baron Parke, and Justice Williams at a special assize which was opened at Monmouth on 10 Dec. 1839. He was defended by Sir Frederick Pollock and Fitzroy Kelly, and after a lengthy trial was found guilty of levying war against the queen. On 16 Jan. 1840 Frost, Williams, and Jones were sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered. On the 25th and the two following days a technical point which had been raised during the course of the trial was argued before all the fifteen judges in the court of exchequer chamber. The conviction was upheld, but owing to the considerable difference of opinion among the judges the capital sentence was on 1 Feb. commuted for one of transportation for life. Frost was sent to Van Diemen's Land, where he spent nearly fifteen years working in the gangs, serving as a police clerk, and in other capacities. Several efforts were from time to time made, especially by Thomas Slingsby Duncombe [q. v.] in the House of Commons, to procure the release of Frost and his associates. In 1854 he obtained a conditional pardon, the condition being that he should not return to the queen's dominions. He thereupon went to America, but receiving a free pardon in May 1856, he returned to England in July of that year. On 31 Aug. he delivered at Padiham two lectures on the ‘Horrors of Convict Life,’ which were afterwards printed, and in the following year he published ‘A Letter to the People of Great Britain and Ireland on Transportation, showing the effects of irresponsible power on the Physical and Moral Conditions of Convicts.’ Though it appears from internal evidence that it was his intention to write a series of letters on this subject, no more were published. Frost went to reside at Stapleton, near Bristol, where he lived for many years in comparative retirement, and died on 29 July 1877, being upwards of ninety years of age. Some account of the general convention and a list of the delegates will be found in the Place MSS. (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 27821).
[The Rise and Fall of Chartism in Monmouthshire (1840); the Dublin Review, viii. 271–85; Gurney's Trial of John Frost for High Treason (1840); Walpole's Hist. of England (1886), iv. 46–60; Molesworth's Hist. of England (1874), ii. chap. v.; Gammage's Hist. of the Chartist Movement (1854); Life of Thomas Slingsby Duncombe (1868), i. 288–9, 294–5, 301, ii. 108–9, 194–5; Ann. Register, 1839; Haydn's Dict. of Dates (1881), p. 554; Daily News, 31 July 1877; Bristol Times and Mirror, 30 July and 4 Aug. 1877; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
FROST, WILLIAM EDWARD (1810–1877), painter, was born at Wandsworth in September 1810. His artistic gifts were apparent from his earliest years. When about fifteen he was introduced to Etty, by whose advice he entered Sass's drawing school, and also studied at the British Museum. In 1829 he became a student of the Royal Academy, where he gained the first medals in each of the schools, except the antique, in which he was defeated by Maclise. During the next fourteen years he painted upwards of three hundred portraits. He began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1836, and in 1839 he was awarded the gold medal for his ‘Prometheus bound by Force and Strength,’ which was in the exhibition of the following year. In 1843 he sent to the competition in Westminster Hall a cartoon representing ‘Una alarmed by the Fauns and Satyrs,’ which obtained one of the third-class premiums of 100l., and in the same year he exhibited at the Royal Academy ‘Christ crowned with Thorns,’ which was selected by an Art-Union prize-holder. These successes led him to relinquish portraiture, and to devote himself to subjects of a sylvan and bacchanalian character, drawn chiefly from the works of Spenser and Milton. His ‘Sabrina’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1845, and engraved by Peter Lightfoot for the Art Union of London, and this was followed by ‘Diana surprised by Actæon,’ which secured his election as an associate in 1846, and was purchased by Lord Northwick. ‘Una,’ a subject from Spenser's ‘Faerie Queene,’ appeared in the exhibition of 1847, and was purchased by the Queen. In 1848 he sent to the Academy ‘Euphrosyne,’ one of his best works, painted for Mr. Bicknell, and now in the possession of Mr. J. L. Newall, by whom it was exhibited at Manchester in 1887. The group of ‘L'Allegro’ was afterwards painted from this picture as a gift from the Queen to the Prince Consort. In 1849 he exhibited at the Royal Academy ‘The Syrens,’ a picture remarkable for its beauty of colour, and in 1850 ‘The Disarming of Cupid,’ painted for the Prince Consort, and ‘Andromeda.’ ‘L'Allegro’ and ‘The Disarming of Cupid’ were engraved respectively by T. Garner and P. Lightfoot for Hall's ‘Royal Gallery of Art,’ and are now at Osborne. In 1851 he exhibited ‘Wood Nymphs’ and ‘Hylas;’ in 1852 ‘May Morning,’ and in 1854 ‘Chastity,’ from Milton's ‘Comus,’ one of his most poetical conceptions, which was engraved by T. Garner for the ‘Art Journal’ of 1864. ‘The Graces’ and ‘Bacchanalians’ were exhibited in 1856, ‘Narcissus’ In 1857, and again at the Inter-
