Medals and Medallists connected with Ireland. 17 



several large official seals for corporate bodies in Dublin and elsewhere. He also 

 executed a head in carnelion, and a small copy in ivory, from the celebrated gem 

 of the marriage of Cupid and Psyche. In the domestic relations of son, hus- 

 band, and father, he was most exemplary, and obtained respect wherever he was 

 known. 



William Stephen Mossop, jun., also a native of Dublin, was born in 1788, 

 and after receiving a liberal education at the celebrated school of Samuel Whyte, 

 he commenced in 1802 his studies in the fine arts at the academy of the Royal 

 Dublin Society, under the care of Mr. Francis West, then master of the Figure 

 School. The progress he made not proving satisfactory, he was placed amongst the 

 private pupils of Mr. West, with whom he continued until his father's death left 

 him, at the age of sixteen, very inadequately prepared to commence the practice of 

 his profession ; and the first work he produced was the medal for the Society 

 incorporated for promoting Charter Schools. It was commenced in the life-time 

 of his father, and finished shortly after his death, when the artist was not seventeen 

 years of age. In 1806 he was employed by the Farming Society to execute a badge 

 to be worn by such persons as were life members ; and in 1809 he commenced a 

 medal of considerable merit, for the purpose of commemorating the fiftieth year 

 of the reign of George III. By his own account I find that in the following 

 year he visited London for the first time ; but, as he expresses it, " his stay was 

 so short, and he was so much bewildered by the variety that surrounded him, that 

 he did not derive all the advantages from it he might have done." However, 

 his spirit was greatly aroused, for though after his return to Ireland he was 

 much occupied in working at medals for various branches of the Farming So- 

 ciety, then in active operation, he found time to execute a medal, the die of 

 which was afterwards purchased by the Feinaglian Institution as a Premium 

 medal, and for which he obtained a premium himself from the Society of Arts at 

 the Adelphi. In 1814 he obtained another premium from the same body for a 

 head of Vulcan, which he engraved in compliance with an advertisement from 

 that Society, who promised to purchase the die, but left it, through neglect, on 

 his hands. Thus it appears his merit was acknowledged, but his works were 

 very inadequately remunerated. 



In 1820, I find from his letters, that he projected a series of medals of dis- 

 tinguished Irish characters, but I cannot discover that he put his design fully 



VOL. XIX. c 



