639 



SMEDLEY, REV. EDWARD. 



SMIRKE, SIR ROBERT, R.A. 



510 



patent right one-third of the coal saved by their machine in comparison 

 with those previously used. The low state of the mechanic arts in 

 England led Smeaton, during the early part of Watt's career, to 

 doubt the possibility of hia machines being made with the required 

 accuracy. 



Smouton also introduced many improvements in mathematical 

 apparatus, and had an ardent love for science. He was particularly 

 attached to astronomy, and had an observatory at Austhorpe, where, 

 even during the most active part of his career, he occasionally 

 resided. 



In person he was of middle stature, broad and strong made, and of 

 good constitution. His manners were simple and unassuming. His 

 temper was warm, but not overbearing ; and his social character un- 

 impeachable. Very little is recorded of his private history ; but his 

 daughter Mary Dixon, in a letter prefixed to his ' Reports,' gives a 

 pleasing account of his character as a husband, parent, and friend. 

 He was by no means grasping or avaricious, as many anecdotes related 

 of him seem to show. The Empress Catharine of Russia was at one 

 time very desirous of engaging his services, and offered him his 

 own terms; but the Princess Daechkov, by whom the request was 

 communicated, found him to be, as she said, a man who had no price. 



SMEDLEY, REV. EDWARD, was born about 1789, and was the 

 son of the Rev. Edward Smedley, who died in 1825, after having 

 been one of the ushers of Westminster school for nearly half a century. 

 The elder Sinedlcy was the author of 'Erin, a Geographical and 

 Descriptive Poem,' published by subscription in 1810. His son was 

 admitted a king's scholar at Westminster in 1800 ; and thence he 

 removed in due course to Trinity College, Cambridge. He took his 

 degree of B.A. in 1809, as tenth Junior Optimo, and, having obtained 

 0110 of the Member's Classical Prizes in 1810, and again in 1811, was 

 then elected a Fellow of Sidney College. He obtained no fewer than 

 four of the Seatoniun Prizes for English poems ; the first on the Death 

 of Saul and Jonathan, 1814; the second, on Jephtha, 1815 ; the third, 

 on the Marriage at Cana, 1827; the fourth, 011 Saul at Endor, 1828. 

 In 1829, he was collated by Bishop Tomline to a prebend in the 

 cathedral church of Lincoln, the value of which, however, was only 

 14/. a-year; and t.his was the only ecclesiastical preferment he ever 

 obtained. Besides his Seatonian prize poems, he was the author of a 

 poem entitled ' Prescience,' and of some others ; and also of a ' History 

 of the Reformed Religion in France,' in five vols., 12ino., and of one 

 volume of a History of France, published under the superintendence 

 of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. At the time of 

 his death he was editor of the ' Encyclopaedia Metropolitaua ;' and he 

 contributed several articles on French biography and English and 

 Roinuu literature to the earlier volumes of the ' Penny Cyclopaedia.' 

 His death took place at Dulwich on the 29th of June, 1836. 



*SMEE, ALFRED, surgeon, distinguished for his acquaintance 

 with electricity and its practical applications. He was educated for 

 the medical profession, and became a member of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons of England in 1840. He is also surgeon to the Bank of 

 England, to the General Dispensary, Aldersgate-street, and to the 

 Central London Ophthalmic Hospital, and was formerly a lecturer at 

 the Aldersgate-street School of Medicine. He has devoted much time 

 to the study of the laws of galvanism, and a galvanic arrangement 

 suggested by him is familiarly known as Smee's battery. He is one 

 of the earliest experimenters on electro-plating, and has written a 

 work on the subject, entitled ' Electro-Metallurgy.' Since then he has 

 devoted himself to the theoretical application of the laws of elec 

 tricity to the phenomena of life. His views are embodied in a work 

 entitled ' Electro-Biology.' He attributed the potato disease to the 

 attacks of an aphis, and in a work on * The Potato-Plant its Uses 

 and Properties,' has developed this theory. He is a copious writer, as 

 the following list of his more remarkable books and papers will indi- 

 cate : ' Vision in Health and Disease ; ' ' Accidents and Emergencies;' 

 1 Principles of the Human Mind ; ' ' Instinct and Reason ; ' ' Detection 

 of Steel Needles impacted in the Body ; ' ' Process of Thought 

 adapted to Words and Language ; ' ' Lectures on Electro-Metallurgy, 

 delivered at the Bank of England ; ' ' Lecture on the Human Mind al 

 Different Periods of Life.' Mr. Smee was elected a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society in 1841. 



SMIRKE, ROBERT, R.A., during his later years the Nestor of the 

 Royal Academy, of which he was a member for fifty-three years, was 

 born in 1751. Originally a painter of coach-panels, he was one of the 

 most distinguished of the English genre painters, and had indeed no 

 great rival before the time of Wilkie. His subjects are various, but 

 his favourite author was Cervantes ; a great proportion of his pictures 

 are from Don Quixote. Though so long a member of the Academy 

 he sent few pictures to its exhibitions, and only three before his elec 

 tion as a member, which were Narcissus, and tho Lady and Sabina 

 from Comus, in 1786 ; and the Widow in 1791. He was elected an 

 Academician in 1792, the year that Reynolds died, and he gave as his 

 presentation picture Don Quixote and Sancho. He contributed two 

 pictures also in this year to the Academy exhibition : The Lover'; 

 Dream, and Musidora, from Thomson's Spring and Summer. In 1793 

 he exhibited Lavinia, from the Autumn of the same poet. Smirke 

 designed much for booksellers, and for annuals and such works, am 

 he was one of the contributors to Boydell's Shakspeare. He painte 

 several pictures from Shakspore, aa Catherine and Petruchio, Julie 



and her Nurse, Prince Henry and Falstaff " This chair shall be my 

 tate, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown :" The 

 Seven Ages ; and others. From Don Quixote he painted Sancho's 

 Ludience of the Duchess ; The Countess Dolorado discovering tho 

 ause of her grief to Don Quixote ; The ceremony of beard- washing 

 performed by Don Quixote at the Table of the Duke ; Don Quixoto 

 widressing the Princess Dulciuea ; and The Combat between Don 

 Juixote and the Giants interrupted by the Innkeeper. The last time 

 te exhibited was in 1813 : the picture was styled Infancy. In other 

 lasses, the following pictures are among his best works : Infant 

 iacchus ; Psyche; the Plague of Serpents; the Angel justifying 

 rovidence, from Parnell's Hermit; the Gipsy; the Fortune-tellers. 

 &c. &c. He died at his house in Osnaburgh-street, Regent's-p.irk, 

 Tanuary 5, 1845, in his ninety-fourth year. Smirke was the contem- 

 >orary of Sir Joshua Reynolds he was the father of the present Sir 

 lobert and Mr. Sydney Smirke, the architects. 



SMIRKE, SIR ROBERT, R.A., eldest son of the preceding, was 

 jorn in 1780. Under his father he received a careful training in art ; 

 nd having adopted the profession of an architect, he after the usual 

 )reparatory studies, made a tour in Italy, Sicily, Greece, and Germany, 

 vhence he returned in 1805. His attention was mainly directed to 

 the remains of ancient art, and some of the results of his investigations 

 appeared in Donaldson's 'Antiquities of Athens,' and elsewhere. He 

 also published shortly after his return to England, 'Specimens of 

 Continental Architecture," folio, Lond., 1806. He was fortunate in 

 early finding influential friends and patrons, through whose good 

 services and his own ability he obtained, while still a young man, rare 

 opportunities of distinguishing himself. His first work (1808-9) was 

 ovent Garden Theatre, an important undertaking to be intrusted to 

 so young a man, but one which, despite of some faults, was worthily 

 carried out. This building was especially noteworthy as almost the first 

 mportant specimen of the Grecian Doric order in the metropolis, and as 

 naving given a marked impulse to the architectural improvements of 

 London. Externally the chief features of this building were a noble 

 tetrastyle Doric portico, and the sculptures in relief by Flaxman. 

 The interior of the theatre was entirely altered in 1847, under the 

 care of Mr. Albano, in order to adapt it to the purposes of the Italian 

 Opera. Its destruction by fire March 5, 1856, need hardly be men- 

 tioned. The walls and the portico were suffered to stand for about a 

 year, when they were removed, and Smirke's theatre is now a thing of 

 the past. 



Smirke's next building was the Mint, erected -in 1811, which, like 

 the theatre, is a Grecian Doric edifice, but unlike that has a rusticated 

 basement. It is a neat unpretending but substantial-looking pile of 

 three stories, having a centre with attached columns supporting a pedi- 

 ment, and wings. A still more important work was the new Post- 

 Office, St. Martin's-le-Grand, commenced in 1823, and completed in 

 1829. This vast pile has a frontage of 390 feet ; but, though an insu- 

 lated building, it is the St. Martin's-le-Grand fa9ade alone which 

 makes any pretension to architectural display ; and this is confined to 

 the three porticoes, one at each end of four columns, and one in the 

 centre of six columns, surmounted by a pediment : these porticoes 

 are of the Ionic order. The building has, on the whole, undoubtedly 

 a good deal of grandeur of character, but it is still far from satisfac- 

 tory. He also erected during the progress of the Post Office, and in 

 the same order (Grecian Ionic), the College of Physicians, and the 

 Union Club, Trafalgar square; and the club-house at the comer of 

 Charles-street, Regent-street, for the United Service Club : being 

 found too small for that club, it was, however, sold to the Junior 

 United Service Club, and recently, being (like Sir Robert's more pre- 

 tentious club-house, the Carlton) thought too sombre a pile for its 

 purpose, it has been pulled down, and replaced by one of a more 

 ornate character. In 1830-31, Sir Robert completed the Library 

 (Gothic), the extension of King's Bench Walk (Grecian), and other 

 improvements in the Inner Temple. He also, hi 1831, erected King's 

 College, as the eastern wing of Somerset House. The extensive re- 

 building and restoration of York Minster, rendered necessary by the 

 fire of 1829, were from his designs and conducted under his super- 

 intendence, and form his chief work in the Gothic style. In 1834, he 

 completed the Carlton Club, like most of his works a pseudo-classic 

 structure, but one even more than usually heavy and unattractive in 

 appearance. It is, however, unnecessary to notice it further, as it has 

 been made to give place to the building of his brother noticed below. 

 His next club-house, the Oxford and Cambridge University, com- 

 pleted in 1838, was executed iu connection with his brother, Mr. 

 Sydney Smirke, and is of a much more florid character than any of the 

 structures executed under Sir Robert's sole direction. 



The work on which Sir Robert's fame will however chiefly depend, 

 is the British Museum, with the exception of the Palace of Westmin- 

 ster the greatest architectural work erected in London iu the present 

 century. It was commenced in 1823; but owing to various causes 

 beyond the control of the architect, its progress was even slower than 

 the massive character of the building rendered necessary, and the 

 portico was not completed till 1817. Of this immense pile, too well 

 known to require description, it will be enough to say that it is of 

 the Grecian Ionic order, carried out externally with great severity, 

 and is the largest and most imposing Grecian structure in the me- 

 tropolis. The grand front, the only one of the external fronts upon 



