ing to Chamberlain, he penned the defence of Sir Lewis Stukeley [q. v.] against the charge of betraying Sir Walter Ralegh (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1611-18, p. 600). In the same year the university of Oxford conferred on him the honorary degree of D.D. In his later years he resided at Boughton Malherb in Kent, one of his parishes. There he died on 1 Jan. 1630-1, and was buried in the church, a marble monument marking his grave. About 1597 he married Ann, daughter of John Chichester of Hall in Devonshire.
He was the author of:
- 'Dialogus inter Angliam et Scotiam,' Cambridge, 1603, 8vo.
- 'Oratio Funebris in honorem Henrici Wall. Prin.,' 1612, London, 4to, with verses by his brothers Edward, Andrew, and William, prefixed; translated into English by Edward Sharp, 1616, 4to.
- 'Novum Fidei Symbolum,' 1612, London, 4to.
- 'Speculum Papae,' 1612, London, 4to.
The last two were jointly translated into English under the title 'A Looking-glass for the Pope,' 1623, 4to.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon, ed. Bliss, iv. 625; Foster's 'Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714; Harwood's Alumni Eton. p. 187; Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 385; Lansdowne MS. 984, f. 92; Gardiner's Hist. of Engl. ii. 250; Birch's Court and Times of James I, i. 326; Reliquiae Wottonianæ, p. 34; Hasted's Kent, ii. 437; Gent. Mag. 1820, ii. 16; Le Neve's Fasti, ii. 636; Hazlitt's Handbook, p. 552.]
SHARP, MICHAEL WILLIAM (d. 1840), painter, appears to have been born in London, and was a pupil of Sir William Beechey, R.A. He also studied in the schools of the Royal Academy. In 1813 he was settled at Norwich, where he appears to have been a pupil of John Crome [q. v.], with whom he lodged, and of whom he painted a small portrait, besides being godfather to one of his sons. Afterwards he became one of the prominent painters of the Norwich school, with whom he exhibited for some years. Sharp appears as a portrait-painter at the Royal Academy in 1801, but he attained his greatest success as a painter of small domestic scenes, usually of a humorous character. One of these, ‘The Music Master,’ exhibited at the British Institution in 1809, gained a premium of fifty guineas and was purchased by Mr. Thomas Hope. He obtained many commissions, and his pictures were usually quickly sold at the exhibitions. Many of them also were engraved, such as ‘Sunday Morning’ (R.A. 1820), ‘The Sailor's Wedding’ (R.A. 1828), ‘The Black Draught,’ and ‘The Spoilt Child.’ Sharp also executed for theatrical patrons several groups, containing portraits of the principal performers on the stage at that date, such as ‘Queen Constance before the Tents of the English and Foreign Sovereigns,’ painted in 1819; ‘An Author reading his Drama to an Assemblage of the Performers in the Green Room of Drury Lane Theatre;’ ‘The Shakespeare Jubilee, with Portraits of the principal Covent Garden Performers,’ &c. Sharp's works, despite a tendency to vulgarity, were very popular in his day. Sharp appears to have returned to London in 1820, and died at Boulogne in 1840. A lecture by him, delivered in 1820 to the Philosophical Society at Norwich, is printed in Elmes's ‘Annals of the Fine Arts,’ vols. iv. and v., as ‘An Essay on Gesture.’
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1893; Annals of the Fine Arts, vols. iv. and v. passim.]
SHARP, PATRICK (d. 1615), Scottish theologian, was made master of Glasgow grammar school in 1574. While in this position he was brought much into contact with Andrew Melville (1545–1622) [q. v.], to whom he acknowledged many obligations (James Melville, Diary, ed. Pitcairn, p 60). Soon after 1575 he was appointed one of a commission of classical scholars to draw up a new Latin grammar for use in the Scottish schools (Reg. of Scottish Privy Council, ed. Masson, ii. 475, v. 110, xxv). In 1585 James VI appointed him principal of the university of Glasgow. From this time he took an important part in the government and controversies of the Scottish church, He seems to have wished to preserve a position of neutrality between the two parties which divided the kirk, but he gradually inclined to the king's party. In 1586 he was placed on a commission charged by the general assembly to control the proceedings of the bishops (Calderwood, History of the Kirk, ed. Thomson, iv. 570). In 1596 the general assembly appointed him and fifteen others to organise the church in opposition to the government. In consequence he was ordered by the privy council to return to Glasgow (Reg. of Scottish Privy Council, v. 333). But in the same year he took part in the reactionary general assembly at Perth, and in 1597 he formed part of the commission to whom were delegated the powers of the general assembly when that body was not in session, and whose appointment paved the way for the re-establishment of episcopacy (ib. p. 385; Calderwood, v. 420, 609, 645, 701). In 1606 Sharp was summoned to Hampton Court; with seven other divines, to support the king's side in a debate with Andrew Melville and seven
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