793 



STUART, GILBERT, LL.D. 



STUART, JAMES. 



794 



as it had been acquired, by his great-grandfather the Protector ; lie 

 died 24th October 1660. It is worthy of being noted, that to one of 

 his daughters by his second wife, he gave the name of her whom he 

 had first loved and had not forgotten. 



STUART, GILBERT, LL.D., was the son of Mr. George Stuart, 

 who was related to the learned grammarian Ruddiman, and filled the 

 office of professor of Humanity, or Latin, in the University of Edin- 

 burgh, with much reputation, till his death in 1793. Gilbert was born 

 at Edinburgh, according to the common account, in 1746; but in 

 1742, according to Kerr's 'Memoirs of Smellio * (i. 499, and ii. 2). He 

 was educated for the profession of the law ; but a passion for general 

 literature early took possession of him, and drew him off from his 

 legal studies, so that he never was called to the bar. He first made 

 himself known by his ' Historical Disquisition concerning the Anti- 

 quity of the British Constitution,' which he published in 1767, and 

 which was held to have so much merit, that the University of Edin- 

 burgh immediately bestowed upon the youthful author the degree of 

 LL.D. In the following year appeared his ' View of Society in 

 Europe, in its Progress from Rudeness to Refinement; or, Inquiries 

 concerning the History of Laws, Government, and Manners." This 

 work, which reached a second edition in 1778, displayed great reading, 

 as well as ingenuity of speculation. Soon after it first appeared, the 

 professorship of public law in the University of Edinburgh became 

 vacant, and Stuart applied to the crown for the appointment, but 

 unsuccessfully, in consequence, as he conceived, of the interference 

 of the Principal, Dr. Robertson. This notion, and the event out of 

 which it arose, had a great influence on the future course of Stuart's 

 life and literary labours. If Robertson really did use his influence to 

 prevent his appointment to the academical chair, it is believed that 

 his reason was, the character for dissipation and intemperance which 

 Stuart had already established for himself, notwithstanding his occa- 

 sional hard reading and violent paroxysms of study. From this time 

 he evinced, in addition to his unfortunate habits of life, a temper the 

 most malignant, and revengeful, which went far to destroy all the 

 value of his undoubted learning and talents. On his failure in the 

 matter of the professorship, he left Edinburgh for London, but with- 

 out leaving behind him his personal resentments, which seem to have 

 comprehended the general body of the literary men of his native city. 

 In London, where he resided from 1768 to 1773, he is understood to 

 have been chiefly employed in writing for the ' Monthly Review.' But 

 he also found time to produce, in 1772, a satirical attack upon the 

 newly published Latin Grammar of Dr. Adam, the rector of the High 

 School of Edinburgh, under the title of 'Animadversions on Mr. 

 Adam's Grammar, by Jo. Rich. Bushby ; ' and he is also understood 

 to have been the writer of other papers in ridicule both of Adam and 

 of his book, which appeared about the same time in the ' Weekly 

 Magazine,' recently begun at Edinburgh -by Walter Ruddiman, the 

 nephew of the grammarian. Stuart (and his father, who is believed 

 to have assisted him) had two special reasons for these aggressions : 

 the new grammar was designed to supplant that of their relation 

 Ruddiman, and Adam was besides a great ally of Principal Robertson. 

 In 1772, also, Stuart edited (anonymously) the posthumous work of 

 Francis Stoughton Sullivan, LL.D., entitled ' Lectures on the Feudal 

 and English Laws.' 



In 1773 he returned to Edinburgh; and then he and Mr. William 

 Smellie, the printer (a man of talent and considerable literary acquire- 

 ment), set up together a new monthly periodical, entitled ' The Edin- 

 burgh Magazine and Review.' The first number of this publication, 

 which is not to be confounded with the original ' Edinburgh Review ' 

 established in 1754, in which Dr. Robertson, Adam Smith, &c. were 

 writers, appeared in October 1773, the 47th and last in August 1776. 

 The general spirit of the articles, especially of those written by Stuart, 

 was of such unsparing severity, instigated too, as was conceived, in 

 many cases by his personal resentments, that, notwithstanding the 

 attraction of no common ability, a public feeling was at last aroused 

 against the work, which compelled its conductors to give it up. A list 

 of Stuart's reviews and other communications is given in Kerr's ' Lifo 

 of Smellie,' i. 403-405. Of the former the most remarkable was an 

 article 011 the first volume of Henry's ' History of Great Britain,' the 

 first of a scries of ferocious attacks on that work by Stuart, of which 

 a full account may be found in Mr. Disraeli's ' Calamities of Authors.' 

 They were continued in the ' Political Herald ' and the ' English 

 Review/ two periodical works in which Stuart engaged when he 

 returned to London some years after this, and the proprietor of which 

 was his countryman Mr. John Murray, the father of the present 

 eminent publisher of the same name. But meanwhile he produced 

 several additional works in his own name while he still remained at 

 Edinburgh ; his ' Observations concerning the Public Law and Consti- 

 tutional History of Scotland,' 8vo, Edinburgh, 1779 (an attack upon 

 the introductory book of Dr. Robertson's ' History ') ; his ' History of 

 the Establishment of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland,' 4to, 

 London, 1780; and his 'History of Scotland from the Establishment 

 of the Reformation to the Death of Queen Mary,' 2 vols., 8vo, London, 

 1782, another attack upon Robertson, founded on his alleged unfair 

 treatment of the Scottish queen, whom Stuart zealously defends from 

 all the charges brought against her. These works all drew consider- 

 able attention in their day, but they are now little read; the amount 

 of learning and thought which they contain has not proved sufficient 



to buoy up the large portion of them composed of inconclusive unsatis- 

 factory speculation, and the sophistry of mere passion and party spirit. 

 They are all written however with much force and vivacity of style. 

 Stuart returned once more to London in 1782; and he appears to have 

 been principally employed in conducting the two publications belong- 

 ing to Mr. Murray, already mentioned, for the next four years. But 

 jaundice and dropsy, brought on and fed by persevering dissipation, 

 had by the end of this space completely undermined his constitution. 

 He returned to Scotland in the spring or summer of 1786, and died 

 in his father's house at Musselburgh, on the 13th of August in that 

 year. 



(Kerr's Memoirs of Smellie; Disraeli's Calamities of Authors; 

 Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman.) 



STUART, GILBERT CHARLES, sometimes called American Stuart, 

 was born at Narraganset, Rhode Island, U.S., of Scotch parents, 

 in 1755. Evincing early considerable skill in taking pencil likenesses, 

 he was entrusted to the care of a travelling artist named Alexander, 

 whom he accompanied on a tour through the southern states, and 

 afterwards to Scotland. Alexander died shortly after their arrival in 

 Edinburgh, but young Stuart found friends there, and is said, in some 

 of the notices of him published in this country, to have graduated at 

 Glasgow University. This however may be doubted, as, according to 

 his American biographers, he had returned to America and was 

 established at Newport as a portrait-painter in 1773. The revolution 

 however interfered so seriously with his pursuits that in 1775 he pro- 

 ceeded to London, and there he seems for a time to have led a very 

 irregular life, depending for a subsistence as much on his musical skill 

 as on his pencil ; and for awhile he officiated as organist at a church in 

 Foster-lane, City. About 1777 however he was introduced to his coun- 

 tryman Benjamin West, who received him into his studio as a pupil and 

 assistant, and under him he made rapid progress. In 1781 he com- 

 menced practice in London on his own account, and found numerous 

 and liberal patrons ; his broad effective style gaining very general 

 favour, and Reynolds and other leading English artists assisting him 

 with the most friendly liberality. Among his more eminent sitters 

 during his resideuce in Locdon were, George III., the Prince of Wales 

 (afterwards George IV.), John Kemble, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin 

 West, Woollett the engraver, Alderman Boydell, and other distin- 

 guished artists and patrons of art. But he had always been of intem- 

 perate habits, and though he curbed them for awhile, as he became 

 prosperous he slackened the reins, an3 eventually he was obliged to 

 leave London. He removed first to Dublin, where his convivial habits 

 found ample encouragement ; and then to Paris. In the French 

 metropolis his American parentage attracted many leading politicians 

 to his studio : while here he painted a portrait of Louis XVI. 



In 1793 he returned to New York, and his European reputation 

 having preceded him, he became at once the leading portrait-painter 

 of that city. But, ambitious of painting Washington, he in the 

 following year removed to Philadelphia, and there painted what is 

 acknowledged to be the standard portrait of the greatest of Americans. 

 On the removal of the seat of government to Washington, Stuart 

 removed there; but in 1806 or 1807 he settled in Boston, where he 

 continued to reside till his death, which occurred in July 1828. He 

 left a widow and daughters, for whose benefit about 300 of his paint- 

 ings were collected and exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum. Stuart 

 painted a large proportion of the most eminent of his countrymen, 

 including Washington, Jefferson, and four other American presidents. 

 His last work was a portrait of John Quincy Adams. His original 

 portrait of Washington is in the Boston Athenzeum. Our National 

 Gallery possesses three portraits by him Benjamin West, and the 

 engravers William Woollett and John Hall. Stuart is the greatest 

 portrait-painter America has yet produced, and in male portraits he 

 ranks along with the best English portrait-painters. His style is free, 

 manly, and unaffected ; his likenesses were regarded as faithful by 

 those familiar with his sitters ; and the expression of his heads is 

 intellectual and characteristic. 



STUART, JAMES, frequently distinguished by the name of 

 Athenian Stuart, was born in Creed-lane, Ludgate-street, London, hi 

 171 3, of parents in a very humble rank of life, and by the death of his 

 father he was left at a very early age the eldest of a family reduced 

 by that event almost to indigence. Beyond this no particulars are 

 known relative to the intervening period before he could at all have 

 contributed to the support of the family by his pencil. In the 

 absence of evidence to the contrary, it may safely be assumed that 

 his education must have been a very slender one ; and that in all pro- 

 bability he had received very little instruction, if any, in drawing, 

 when the talent he showed for it recommended him to Goupy, who 

 kept a shop in the Strand, and who employed him to design and paint 

 ladies' fans a branch of art at that time greatly in vogue, and more 

 encouraged than any higher kind of painting. Such was the school 

 in which the future investigator of Athens and its monuments was 

 trained. Fortunately, Goupy himself was an artist of some ability, 

 both as an engraver and painter in body colours, and, being acquainted 

 with the works of the best masters, his instructions were no doubt 

 advantageous to Stuart. He continued with Goupy till about 1742, 

 when he set out for Italy, for the purpose of improving himself. 

 Little more is known of him during his residence in Italy than that, 

 after staying at Rome nearly seven years, industriously occupied in 



