Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/216

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
EAR
194
EAS

have it on the high authority of Baxter that, though a firm cavalier and a determined high churchman, Earle was of a moderate and kindly temperament. When the plague burst upon London, scattering the terrified people, he accompanied the court to Oxford, and there he died on 17th November, 1665. He is author of a work entitled "Microcosmography, or a Piece of the World Discovered in Essays and Characters," of which an eleventh edition, by Dr. Bliss, was published in 1811. It is good in itself as being a true and popular picture of the manners of his day, and it is remarkable as being the germ from which were developed the Spectator, and other periodicals. He also published a Latin translation of the "Eikon Basilike," and several minor pieces less known.—J. B. J.

EARLOM, Richard, the engraver of Claude's Liber Veritatis, was the most distinguished of the English artists in mezzotinto at the close of the last century. He is said to have been a native of Somersetshire. The year of his birth is not known, but he died at an advanced age in 1822. The dates on his works range from about 1760 to 1795. Some of his prints, which embrace all subjects and various styles of execution, are among the triumphs of the art of engraving in England. Among his masterpieces of the higher class is his "Lord Heathfield," after Reynolds; and some fruit and flower pieces, after Van Os and Van Huysum, are of exquisite beauty of effect. Earlom was almost exclusively employed by Boydell. A list of his principal works is given in Bryan's Dictionary.—R. N. W.

EARNULPH. See Arnulf.

EAST, Sir Edward Hyde, son of Edward East, Esq., of Jamacia, by his first wife, Amy, daughter of James Hall, Esq., of Hyde Hall in the same island (a descendant of Robert Hyde, uncle of Edward Hyde, lord chancellor of England), was born in 1764. He was called to the bar, and in early life he sat in parliament for the disfranchised borough of Great Bedwin, and in conjunction with the late Mr. Durnford, he was the author of the celebrated "Term Reports," and of "East's Reports," as well as of another legal work entitled "Pleas of the Crown." He received the honour of knighthood in 1813, upon the occasion of his being appointed chief justice of the supreme court of judicature at Calcutta, and held that post until his return from India, in or about 1822, In that year he was elected M.P. for Winchester, which he continued to represent in parliament, down to his final retirement from public life in 1830. In India his name will be long remembered and respected as the founder of the Hindoo college at Calcutta. He died January 8, 1847. The noted Hortus Eastensis, of which Bryan Edwards gives a catalogue in his history of Jamaica, was founded by a member of the East family, and was purchased from Sir E. H. East by the assembly of Jamaica for a public horticultural institution.—E. W.

EASTLAKE, Sir Charles Lock, P.R.A., was born at Plymouth in 1793; his father was solicitor to the admiralty there. He was educated at Plymouth and Plympton grammar-schools, and studied also for a short time at the Charter-house, London. He early decided upon following painting as his profession, partly through the example and influence of his fellow-townsman, Haydon, then, in 1808, engaged at his picture of Dentatus; and after working a few years at the Royal Academy, when Fuseli was keeper, he visited Paris, in order to make some copies in the Louvre. The return of Napoleon from Elba caused the young painter to leave Paris, and he returned to his native town, and there commenced practising as a portrait painter. When the Bellerophon visited Plymouth, with Napoleon on board, Mr. Eastlake made some careful sketches of the emperor, as he stood at the gangway of the ship, and from these painted the last portrait of Napoleon that was executed in Europe. In 1817 Mr. Eastlake went to Italy; he was one of the first English artists to visit Rome after the peace. In 1819 he visited Greece, then returned to Rome by way of Sicily the following year. From this time he took up his residence at Rome for many years, and painted a series of characteristic pictures from the life of the Greek and Italian peasantry, and occasionally poetical and historical subjects: his favourite pictures, however, were banditti scenes. He appeared as an exhibitor in London, in the British institution, as early as 1820, and at the Royal Academy in 1823, where he exhibited three views in Rome. The first picture by which he attracted much public notice was "The Spartan Isidas," a large and ambitious work, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1827, and at Paris in 1855, for which the painter was elected an associate of the academy; this was followed the next year by the well-known beautiful picture of an Italian scene in the Anno Santo, "Pilgrims Arriving in Sight of Rome and St. Peter's: Evening," repeated in 1835 and 1836, with some variations; and in 1829 by "Lord Byron's Dream," a poetical landscape. In December of this year Mr. Eastlake was elected a full member of the academy. In 1833 was exhibited "Greek Fugitives; an English ship sending its boats to rescue them;" in 1834, "The Escape of Francesco di Carrara, last Lord of Padua, and Taddea d'Este, his wife, from Galeazzo Visconti, duke of Milan," of which there is a repetition in the Vernon collection; in 1837, "An Arab Chief Selling Captives, monks endeavouring to ransom them;" in 1838, "Gaston de Foix before the Battle of Ravenna," in which he was killed. In 1839 Mr. Eastlake commenced a series of religious subjects. In this year's exhibition was the picture of "Christ Blessing Little Children;" in 1841, "Christ Weeping over Jerusalem," of which a repetition is now in the Vernon collection; and in 1843 the exquisite composition of "Hagar and Ishmael," one of the masterpieces of the English school of painting. From this time Sir Charles Eastlake's name appeared rarely in the exhibition catalogues. He was much occupied by the royal commission for decorating the new palace of Westminster, to which he was appointed secretary in 1841, but resigned the office in 1847; and he was engaged also in considerable literary labours. He contributed a few articles to the Penny Cyclopædia, and in 1840 published a translation of Göthe's Theory of Colours; and in 1842 he edited a translation of Kügler's Italian Schools of Painting, by a lady. The papers or appendices accompanying the reports of the commissioners on the fine arts, collected, or written and edited by the secretary, are most valuable contributions to the practical literature of art; though Sir Charles Eastlake's chief labour for this commission is the very learned work on the "Materials for a History of Oil Painting," 8vo, 1847, dedicated to the late Sir Robert Peel, and which, perhaps, exhausts the subject of vehicles and methods of painting, more particularly as regards the Flemish schools. In 1843, on the death of the original keeper of the National Gallery, Mr. Segnier, Sir Robert Peel gave the appointment to Mr. Eastlake, which, however, he resigned after a troubled tenure of the office for four years only. An exceeding outcry was made about the purchase of a spurious Holbein; but during this short time, though the government was little disposed to spend funds over this institution, four of the most valuable pictures in the collection were added—the Doge Loredano by Bellini; the Judgment of Paris by Rubens; the Boar Hunt by Velazquez; and the Vision of a Knight by Raphael. And for the first time an elaborate catalogue of the collection was prepared—Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery; with Biographical Notices of the Painters, by Ralph N. Wornum: Revised by C. L. Eastlake, R.A., 8vo, 1847.

In 1850 Mr. Eastlake succeeded Sir Martin Archer Shee as president of the Royal Academy, and he was then, as is usual on that occasion, knighted by the queen. In 1855, on the reorganization of the National Gallery management. Sir Charles Eastlake accepted the post of director, an office giving greater responsibility and far greater power than the previous office of keeper; and, as the government now provides a liberal fund for the growth of the collection, the opportunities of increase are limited only by the market of fine works. Since the period mentioned, in consequence of these powers and advantages, the additions to the gallery have far exceeded the whole previous purchases from its foundation in 1824. Of the purchases so added, chiefly of the earlier Italian schools, many are among the best and most renowned pictures in Europe—as the Mantegna, Benozzo Gozzoli, Perugmo, Pollajuolo, Filippino Lippi, Paul Veronese, Ghirlandajo, Romanino, Orcagna, Paolo Uccello, Fra Filippo Lippi, Marco Basaiti, Zoppo, Girolamo da Treviso, Giulio Romano, Moretto, Borgognone, and two Ruysdaels. In 1849 Sir Charles Eastlake married the daughter of the late Dr. Rigby of Norwich. In 1853 he received the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford, was made knight of the legion of honour in 1855, and was a member of several foreign academies. He died at Florence on the 23rd December, 1865. His remains were interred in Kensal Green cemetery; the Royal Academy taking upon themselves the conduct of the funeral, as a mark of the high esteem in which they held him.

* EASTWICK, Edward Backhouse, a member of a family long and honourably connected with India, was born in the early