467 



SHEEPSHANKS, REV. RICHARD. 



SHEIL, RICHARD LALOR. 



463 



41 Some slanderous tool of state, 

 Some taunting, dull, unmanner'd deputy," 



is thought to bode mischief, and is expunged accordingly. This was 

 Shee's latest appearance aa a poet, but once later he tried his hand as 

 a novelist. 



Literature however was but his amusement. During all these years 

 he had been steadily making his way to a foremost place among the 

 fashionable portrait-painters of his day. The mantle of Reynolds had 

 not fallen on his successor, but Lawrence's easy gracefulness of style 

 concealed his deficiencies from the eyes of his contemporaries, and he 

 reigned in undisputed supremacy. But Lawrence could not alone 

 supply the demands of the titled and wealthy claimants for the 

 immortality of portraiture; and though among the political and 

 literary celebrities Phillips perhaps was most in repute, his gay 

 colour and polished manners undoubtedly rendered Shee second 

 favourite with lords and ladies. On the death of Lawrence in 1830, 

 ha naturally aspired therefore to succeed him not only as the fashion- 

 able portrait painter, but also as president of the Royal Academy. 

 Wilkie became his opponent, but though of course there could be no 

 comparison between the artistic power of the two men, the acade- 

 micians felt that Shee's fluency of speech and courtly address were 

 of far more consequence in the academic chair than more eminent 

 artistic abilities with reserved manners and a faltering tongue. 

 Khee was elected president by a large majority, and soon afterwards 

 received the honour of knighthood. Ho is said to have filled all the 

 duties of his office with zeal and ability, and his official eloquence on 

 those public occasions which called it forth was much admired. He 

 continued to paint till 1845, in which year he exhibited for the last 

 time five pictures ; but his powers had been for some years evidently 

 failing. He now, on the ground of inability to discharge its duties, 

 resigned the presidency, but at the unanimous request of the acade- 

 micians he was induced to withdraw his resignation, and he continued 

 to hold the office till his death, which occurred on the 13th of August 

 1850, in his eightieth year. 



Sir Martin Archer Shee will not rank among the great portrait 

 painters of the English school. He is deficient in depth and force, 

 in intellectual expression, and in characterisation. But his colour is 

 often pleasing though too florid, and his figures have an air of ease 

 and ^refinement ; aud his pencil has undoubtedly preserved the best 

 portraits of many of the more eminent of his contemporaries. He 

 occasionally painted historical figures and fancy subjects, but none of 

 them won much attention. He was an accomplished gentleman, 

 rather than a great painter. 



SHEEPSHANKS, REV. RICHARD, M.A. F.R.S, F.R.A.S., was 

 born at Leeds, July 30th, 1794. His father was engaged in the cloth 

 manufacture, and destined his son for the same pursuit. At the 

 age of fifteen however, and after an ordinary school education, the son 

 discovered his own preference for a learned profession, and the father 

 accordingly placed him under the care of the Rev. James Tate, M.A., 

 the master of the Grammar-school of Richmond in Yorkshire, well 

 known as one of the most successful teachers of his day and sub- 

 sequently as an editor of Horace. Here he remained until 1812, 

 when he was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge. He took his 

 degree with honours in 1816, obtained a fellowship in the next year, 

 aud proceeded to study for the bar, to which he was called about 1822. 

 A weakness of sight, to which he was always subject, is supposed to 

 have been the principal cause of his not practising law; but it must be 

 added that his share of his father's property placed him in easy cir- 

 cumstances, independently of his fellowship, and his taste for science 

 had become very decided. He took orders about 1824, and soon 

 began to devote himself entirely to astronomy. He became a fellow 

 of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1824, and was elected into the 

 Royal Society on the 1st of April 1830. Of the former he was always 

 one of the most active of the executive body. His leisure, and his 

 desire to help the young astronomer so long as he wanted advice and 

 guidance, gave a peculiar value to his services, and a peculiar utility 

 to his career. 



Mr. Sheepshanks resided in London till about 1842, when he 

 removed to Reading, where he died of apoplexy, August 4th, 1855. 

 There is much reason to suppose that his life was shortened by his 

 laborious exertions in the restoration of the standard scale of linear 

 measure. " Though an ardent politician of the school of opinion which 

 had to struggle for existence during the first half of his life, but 

 gradually became victorious in the second, he never took any public 

 part in a political question, except that of the Reform Bill. He was 

 one of the Boundary Commissioners appointed in 1831 to fix the 

 boundaries of the boroughs under the new system of representation." 

 His reading in politics and history is stated to have been extensive ; 

 and he was especially partial to military matters, with which he was 

 very well acquainted, both ancient and modern-tactics having formed 

 a portion, and no inconsiderable portion, of his studies. To this must 

 be added literature and poetry, to which he was much attached. He 

 never abandoned classical reading, and those who knew him best were 

 often surprised at the extent to which he had cultivated modern 

 literature. 



But his subject was astronomy, and his especial part of that 

 subject was the 'astronomical instrument.' His reputation among 

 astronomers on this point, and the articles which he contributed to 



the 'Penny Cyclopaedia,' have induced an expression of regret that 

 he did not draw up a full treatise on a matter which he had so com- 

 pletely fathomed. 



Mr. Sheepshanks was engaged in active efforts on several special 

 occasions, to which we mako brief allusion. In 1828 he joined Mr. 

 Airy [AiBY, GEORGE BIDDELL] in the pendulum operations in Corn- 

 wall, and suggested some of the most important plans of operation. 

 In 1828 and 1829 he was active in the establishment of the Cambridge 

 Observatory. In 1832 he was consulted on the part of the admiralty 

 with reference to the edition then preparing of Groombridge's Circuin- 

 polar Catalogue : the result was the publication of that work in a 

 much more efficient and more creditable form than it would otherwise 

 have appeared in. In 1832 he also interfered in a matter to which, 

 connected as it is with personal differences, we can only here allude, 

 as eliciting much information on the subject of equatorial instruments 

 in general, a result which is entirely due to the part taken by Mr. 

 Sheepshanks. In 1838 he was engaged in the chronometric determi- 

 nation of the longitudes of Antwerp and Brussels ; in 1844 in those 

 of Valentia and Kingstown in Ireland, and Liverpool. In 1843 and 

 1844 the subject of the Liverpool Observatory led him into a contro- 

 versy, his pamphlets on which will be useful study to those who are 

 interested in astronomical instruments. He was always au active 

 member of the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory at 

 Greenwich. 



Mr. Sheepshanks was a member of both the commissions (of 1833 

 and 1843) for the restoration of the standards of measure and weight, 

 destroyed by fire in 1834. The standard of measure was placed in 

 the hands of Francis Baily, [BAILY, FRANCIS] at whose death Mr. 

 Sheepshanks volunteered (November 30th 1844) to continue the resto- 

 ration. This matter occupied him closely during the last eleven years 

 of his life. It would not be possible to give any detailed account of 

 the operation, a full history of which is expected from Mr. Airy. It 

 need only be said, that after a thorough examination of the process, 

 beginning, with the very construction of thermometers, a point which 

 gave no small trouble, results were obtained which were embodied 

 in a bill (18 & 19 Viet. cap. Ixxii.) which received the royal assent on 

 the 30th of July, 1855, the day following that on which Mr. Sheep- 

 shanks was struck by the shock which ended his life. The number of 

 recorded micrometer observations is just five hundred short of ninety 

 thousand. He had given a succinct but very satisfactory account of 

 the operations for the production and verification of the new standard, 

 in the Report of the Commissioners, for March 28, 1854, which was 

 presented to Parliament. 



It has been recorded on adequate authority that Mr. Sheepshanks 

 was especially distinguished by the integrity of his mind and by his 

 utter renunciation of self in all his pursuits. He did not court fame, 

 it was enough for him that there was a useful object which could be 

 advanced by the help of his time, his thoughts, and his purse. His 

 consideration for others was made manifest by his active kindness to 

 those with whom he was engaged, and no less by his ready apprecia- 

 tion of the merits of those against whom he had to contend in defence 

 of truth and justice, as they appeared to his mind. 



(Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1855 ; Report of the Council to the 

 Thirty-sixth Annual Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1856.) 



*MR. JOHN SHEEPSHANKS, the brother of the Rev. Richard Sheep- 

 shanks, it may be mentioned, is the gentleman who in 1856 presented 

 to the nation, under certain conditions, his noble collection one of 

 the finest yet formed of pictures by British artists : it contains no 

 fewer than 233 paintings in oil, and 103 drawings and sketches, many 

 of them among the best specimens of the respective masters. 



SHEFFIELD. [BUCKINGHAM.] 



SHEIL, RICHARD LALOR, the son of Mr. Edward Sheil, a mer- 

 chant of Cadiz, was born in Dublin in the year 1793. His father was 

 a Roman Catholic, and he was educated in that religion at the Jesuit 

 College of Stonyhurst, Lancashire, whence he was removed at the 

 usual age to Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated with dis- 

 tinction. He next proceeded to London, and entered himself at 

 Lincoln's Inn to study for the English bar, which had been recently 

 opened to Roman Catholics ; but the ruin of his father's means through 

 a disastrous partnership caused a change in his destination, and he 

 returned to Ireland, where he was called to the bar in 1 8 1 4. He defrayed 

 the expenses of his years of study by the successful tragedy of 

 ' Adelaide ' in which Miss O'Neill performed, aud by those of the 

 'Apostate,' 'Bellamira,' 'Evadne,' and 'The Huguenot.' About the 

 same time he also contributed some ' Sketches of the Irish Bar ' to 

 the ' New Monthly Magazine,' then edited by Mr. T. Campbell. It 

 appears however that although Mr. Sheil gained great credit as a 

 writer and a speaker, he never heartily devoted himself to a deep 

 study of so dry a subject as the law, and that his professional income 

 in consequence was not large. He was not a lawyer but an orator by 

 nature, and he found the platform a more congenial stage for the 

 display of his talents than the law courts of Dublin. As a Roman 

 Catholic too he laboured under the civil disabilities which, though 

 modified from what they had been, still shut the doors of the House 

 of Commons against himself and his co-religionists. It is not sur- 

 prising therefore that he turned his attention to political and religious 

 agitation. In 1822 he became an active member of the Catholic 

 Association; and three years later was chosen in conjunction with 



