Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/292

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

288 NICHOLAS GRIMSHAW, Was a native of the country he so essentially served by first establishing the cotton manufacture in the North of Ireland. He not only, by his indefatigable perseverance, brought i t s several branches t o a degree o f perfection and excellence formerly unknown i n that realm; but his fine taste and exalted genius were strikingly displayed i n every part o f his extended manufacture, and i n the numerous improvements h e made. For the few years prior t o his decease, i n which h e acted a s a magistrate, h e was eminently useful i n that character i n his neighbourhood; and h e might also b e termed with great justice, the patron o f industry and the unwearied benefactor o f the indigent and distressed. The loss o f a n amiable wife made a n impression o n his heart that time could not cure, and which impaired his health, and hastened his dissolution, which occurred i n 1804, a t Whitehouse, near Belfast, being then i n the fifty-eighth year o f his age. NATHANIEL GROGAN, Was a teacher o f drawing i n Cork, where h e died about the year 1807. He was a pupil o f Butts, and, like him, painted figures and landscape. Grogan's pictures are coloured i n the worst manner o f the Flemish school, but nevertheless possess considerable merit and humour i n the composition. He published a series o f views o f the neighbourhood o f Cork i n aqua tinta, engraved b y himself; and also the Country Schoolmaster, a plate o f considerable size, which has been much admired. The productions o f Grogan's pencil are said t o b e chiefly i n the possession o f Lord Ennismore and Mr. John Barrett o f Cork. The breaking u p o f a n Irish Fair, and a n Irish Wake, are, we believe, his most esteemed performances. I