Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/36

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occasionally employed in painting tradesmen's signs, till these were prohibited by act of parliament in 1762. A whole-length portrait of Shakespeare by Wale, which hung across the street outside a tavern near Drury Lane, obtained some notoriety owing to the splendour of the frame and the ironwork by which it was suspended. The whole was said to have cost 500l., but it had scarcely been erected when it had to be removed, and the painting was sold for a trifle to a broker. Wale acquired a thorough knowledge of perspective by assisting John Gwynn [q. v.] in his architectural drawings, especially in a transverse section of St. Paul's Cathedral, which was engraved and published in their joint names in 1752. But his principal employment was in designing vignettes and illustrations on a small scale for the booksellers, a large number of which were engraved by Charles Grignion (1717–1810) [q. v.] Among the chief of these were the illustrations to the ‘History of England,’ 1746–7; ‘The Compleat Angler,’ 1759; ‘London and its Environs described,’ 1761; ‘Ethic Tales and Fables,’ Wilkie's ‘Fables,’ 1768 (eighteen plates); Chamberlain's ‘History of London,’ 1770; Goldsmith's ‘Traveller,’ 1774. He also published numerous plates in the ‘Oxford Magazine’ and other periodicals. He exhibited ‘stained drawings,’ i.e. designs outlined with the pen and washed with indian ink, and occasionally larger drawings in watercolours, at the exhibitions of the Society of Artists in Spring Gardens, 1760–1767, and designed the frontispiece to the catalogue in 1762.

He became one of the original members of the Society of Artists of Great Britain in 1765 and of the Royal Academy in 1768, and was the first professor of perspective to the academy. He exhibited drawings of scenes from English history, and occasionally scriptural subjects, described as designs for altar-pieces, from 1769 to 1778, when his health failed, and he was placed upon the Royal Academy pension fund, being the first member who benefited by it. He continued to hold the professorship of perspective, though he gave private instruction at his own house instead of lecturing; and in 1782, on the death of Richard Wilson, he became librarian. He held both offices till his death, which occurred on 6 Feb. 1786 in Castle Street, Leicester Square. His portrait appears in Zoffany's picture of the Royal Academy in 1772, engraved by Earlom.

[Sandby's Hist. of the Royal Academy, i. 86; Edwards's Anecd. of Painters, p. 116; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]

C. D.

WALEDEN, HUMPHREY de (d. 1330?), judge, was a ‘king's clerk’ on 8 Feb. 1290, when he was appointed to the custody of the lands of Simon de Montacute, first baron Montacute [q. v.], in the counties of Somerset, Devon, Dorset, Oxford, and Buckingham, and on 16 Jan. 1291 to the custody of the lands of the late Queen Eleanor (Pat. Rolls, pp. 341, 468). He was among the clergy who submitted to Edward early in the course of his struggle with Archbishop Robert Winchelsey [q. v.], receiving letters of protection on 18 Feb. 1297 (ib. p. 236). On 23 Sept. 1299 he received a commission of oyer and terminer (ib. p. 474), and on 1 April 1300 was appointed with three others to summon the forest officers to carry out the perambulations of the forests in Somerset, Dorset, and Devonshire (ib. p. 506); but on 14 Oct. others were appointed, as Humphrey and some of his colleagues were unable to attend to the business (ib. p. 607). Humphrey was appointed a baron of the exchequer on 19 Oct. 1306, but he only retained his office till the following July (Madox, Hist. of the Exchequer, ii. 46, 325). In December 1307 he is mentioned as going beyond seas with Queen Margaret (Pat. Rolls, p. 25). The temporalities of the archbishopric of Canterbury were committed to him during Winchelsey's absence in 1306 (8 June 1306 to 26 March 1307 only; see Close Rolls, Edw. II, 1307–13, p. 85). He acted as justice in 1309, 1310, 1311, and 1314 (Pat. Rolls, pp. 239, 255, 329, 472; Parl. Writs, pt. ii. p. 79, No. 5), in this last year to try certain collectors and assessors of aids, and was summoned to do military service against the Scots on 30 June 1314. In 13 Edward II (1319–20) he received a grant of the stewardship of various royal castles and manors in eleven counties, among which was the park of Windsor and the auditorship of the accounts. He is mentioned also as steward to the Earl of Hereford, and seems to have been appointed, at his desire, one of the justices to take an assize in which he was interested (Rot. Parl. i. 398 b). On 31 March 1320 he was summoned to give the king counsel on certain matters within his knowledge (Close Rolls, p. 226), and on 30 March 1322 received instructions to choose, with two others, suitable keepers of the castle of the ‘king's contrariants’ in certain of the southern and eastern counties (ib. p. 435). On 18 June 1324 he was appointed one of the barons of the exchequer (Parl. Writs, ii. 257, Nos. 138–9). He was summoned among the justices and others of the council to the parliament at Westminster by prorogation from 14 Dec. 1326 on 7 Jan.