795 



STUART, JAMES. 



STUBBS, GEORGE. 



796 



painting, he embraced the offer made to him by his friend Revett and 

 Gavin Hamilton of joining them in an excursion to Greece ; though 

 Hamilton, who was probably the originator of the scheme, afterwards 

 declined accompanying them. 



Revett (Nicholas, second son of John Revett, of Brandeston Hall, 

 Suffolk) may be supposed to have been better qualified by education 

 for an undertaking which required some knowledge of antiquity, 

 whereas Stuart may be thought to have been very ill prepared. He 

 had however, during his long residence at Rome, applied himself so 

 diligently to the study both of the classical tongues and of archaeology, 

 at the College della Propaganda, as to be able to give proof of his 

 proficiency in a Latin dissertatiou, ' DB Obelisco Ctesaris Augusti 

 Campo Martis nuperrime effosso,' dedicated to Viscount Malton, and 

 printed in 1750, at the pope's expense. Whether either himself or 

 Ids companion had paid particular attention to architecture is doubt- 

 ful, or rather the probability is that they were acquainted with it 

 merely as a collateral branch of art. At all events it is not a little 

 remarkable that it should have been reserved for two painters to show 

 the world what Grecian architecture was, and thereby lead to a com- 

 plete revolution in architectural taste. Having previously issued a 

 prospectus of their undertaking, and raised funds for their tour by 

 subscriptions received from England, the travellers quitted Rome in 

 March 1750; and after passing some time at Venice, made an excur- 

 sion to Pola in the following July, where they employed themselves 

 three mouths in making drawings of the amphitheatre, &c., which 

 however formed no part of their original work, and remained unpub- 

 lished till 1816, when they first appeared in a fourth or supplementary 

 volume, edited by Mr. Joseph Woods. In March 1751 they reached 

 Athens, where they remained till about the end of 1753 ; and while 

 there Stuart met with Mr. Dawkins, a lover of ancient art, the com- 

 panion and patron of Wood (author of 'Ruins of Palmyra '), and who 

 afterwards proved a most liberal patron to Stuart also on his return to 

 England, affording him both encouragement and assistance in pre- 

 paring his materials for publication. Dawkins himself however did 

 not live to see the ' Antiquities of Athens ' in a published form, for 

 he died about two years before the work was brought out. 



Stuart nd his companion returned to England in the beginning of 

 1755; but it was not until several years afterwards (1762) that the 

 first volume of the ' Antiquities ' was published. Stuart appears to 

 have had by far the greater share in the labour, and the literary part 

 is ascribed entirely to him. The work was well received by the 

 learned, and by artists, notwithstanding that, owing to the delay in 

 bringing it out, the subject had been forestalled by Leroi's ' Ruines,' 

 &c. [LEROI.] The grtater care bestowed upon the English work 

 grtve it however a permanent architectural value, while the rival one 

 has fallen into disrepute as untrustworthy, and, .though by a pro- 

 fessional architect, as being more pictorial than antiquarian. Perhaps 

 it was rather an advantage to Stuart, that in examining Grecian archi- 

 tecture he was unbiassed by any previous professional prejudices, and 

 had nothing to unlearn. Still it was not every one who was satisfied 

 with the first portion of the 'Antiquities;' for Winckelmann has 

 spoken of it very disparagingly in a letter to Fuessli, where he hints 

 that it had disappointed many persons both in England and elsewhere. 

 Its success however admits of no dispute. There was considerable 

 encouragement afforded just then to such studies ; and it was about 

 the same time that Adam published his work on Diocletian's Palace 

 [ADAM], while Wood's 'Ruins of Palmyra' and 'Ruins of Baalbec' 

 had appeared a few years previously, and the ' Ionian Antiquities ' 

 somewhat later. 



The patronage and encouragement which Stuart received did not 

 cause him to prosecute the continuation of his work very diligently, 

 for the second volume was not entirely completed, aud the third only 

 in progress, at the time of his death. Neither was he very eager to 

 avail himself to the extent he might have done of the opportunities 

 afforded him as a practising architect. His patrons, the Marquis of 

 Rockingham, Lord Anson, &c., had aided him so effectually (the latter 

 bestowing on him the appointment of Greenwich Hospital), that he 

 was now in easy circumstances, and willingly relaxed from that con- 

 tinued exertion which prudence no longer imposed upon him as a 

 duty. His employment as an architect was consequently by no means 

 equal to what his celebrity would have obtained for him. His princi- 

 pal work is the chapel of Greenwich Hospital, as rebuilt by him, after 

 being destroyed by fire; but although beautiful as regards the details, 

 and the individual decorations borrowed from Grecian architecture, 

 it is, if considered as a whole, very far from Grecian in character. 

 For Lord Anson he built a mansion in St. James's-square, and also 

 several ornamental structures, in imitation of antique models, in the 

 grounds of that nobleman's seat at Shuckburgh. He also erected 

 Mrs. Montagu's house, Portman- square, and some other private man- 

 sions, but none of any particular note for their architecture. 



Stuart was twice married. When he had reached the mature age of 

 sixty-seven, he took for his second wife a very young woman, by 

 whom he had five children : among them a son, who entered the navv, 

 and died in 1800. Another boy, who is said to have exhibited an 

 extraordinary talent for drawing, was carried off by the small-pox not 

 very long before his father's death, which occurred on the 2nd of 

 February 1788. Another son, born (April 13, 1788) two months after 

 his father's death, entered the navy and attained the rank of lieutenant, 



and is still living (1857). The second volume of the 'Antiquities ' wan 

 edited by Newton in 1790, and the third by Beverley in 1794. 



Between Stuart and his colleague Revett some differences appear to 

 have taken place relative to the management of their joint publication, 

 which were arranged by Stuart purchasing Revett's share in it and 

 such materials as he had provided towards the completion. Having 

 got rid of that engagement, Revett undertook a second antiquarian 

 expedition at the expense of the Dilettanti Society, for the purpose of 

 exploring the remains of ancient architecture in Ionia. The result of 

 this tour, which occupied him about two years in company with Dr. 

 Chandler, was the ' Ionian Antiquities,' the first volume of which was 

 published in 1769. Like Stuart, he afterwards practised as an archi- 

 tect, was employed by Lord le Despencer at West Wycombe, and 

 erected the church at Ayot, St. Lawrence, Herts, but was so far from 

 realising an independence that he died in very straitened circumstances 

 in 1804, at the age of eighty-two. 



STUBBE, HENRY, was a remarkable example of temporary cele- 

 brity followed by nearly complete neglect and oblivion, the conse- 

 quence of great natural talents and acquired knowledge not being 

 matched with a sufficiency of judgment, and of there chancing to bo 

 little or nothing in a considerable mass of literary produce which 

 has not been superseded by later works or by the progress of discovery. 

 He was the son of a clergyman, and was born at Partney, near 

 Spilsbye in Lincolnshire, 28th February 1631. He spent his early 

 boyhood in Ireland, whither his father had transferred himself and 

 his family on adopting the doctrines of the Baptists ; but after his 

 death the breaking out of the rebellion in 1641 drove the widow and 

 her son back to England, upon which young Stubbe was put to West- 

 minster school, then presided over by Busby, with whom he became 

 a great favourite. In 1649 he was elected a student of Christchurch, 

 Oxford ; where, although he made himself many enemies by his 

 conceit and arrogance, he is said to have prosecuted his classical 

 studies with tuch success, that while still an undergraduate he used 

 to discourse in the public schools in very fluent Greek. He had before 

 going to the university attracted the notice of Sir Harry Vane, from 

 whom he received much substantial kindness; and this connection 

 naturally attached him to the parliamentary cause for which how- 

 ever he used to declare in after-life that he never had any real 

 affection. But for a considerable time he exerted himself with much 

 seeming zeal on that side in various ways. After he had taken his 

 degree of B. A. he went to Scotland in 1653, and served a couple of 

 years in the army there ; and then, hating, on returning to Oxford, 

 and taking his master's degree, been made under-librarian of the 

 Bodleian, he got himself turned out after about two years, both from 

 that office and his studentship, by a succession of violent pamphleta 

 which he published against the existing condition of both church and 

 state, under the titles of 'A Vindication of Sir Harry Vane;' 'An 

 Essay on the Good Old Cause ; ' and ' Light Shining out of Darkness, 

 with an Apology for the Quakers.' Upon this catastrophe he betook 

 himself to Stratford-on-Avon, and there practised as a physician till 

 the Restoration, when he presented himself to receive confirmation 

 at the hands of his diocesan, aud in 1661 was sent out to Jamaica 

 with the title of his majesty's physician for that island ; but, finding 

 the climate 'not to agree with him, he soon returned and re-established 

 himself at Stratford, fiom which, after some time, he removed to 

 Warwick, where he continued to reside till he met with his death, by 

 being drowned in attempting to make his way across a river between 

 Bath and Bristol, on the 12th of July 1676. Stubbe, who seems to 

 have had no principle, began to write against his old political friends 

 and his former political opinions as suou as the king returned; but 

 his only writings after the Restoration that are now remembered are 

 his attacks upon the Royal Society, the principal of which is his 

 answer to Sprat and Glanville, entitled ' Legends no History, or a 

 Specimen of -eome Animadversions upon the History of the Rojal 

 Society ; together with the Plus Ultra of Mr. Glanville reduced to a 

 Non Plus,' 4to, 1670. But here too he wasted his powers in a cause 

 with which posterity has not sympathised. Anthony Wood, who was 

 his contemporary at Oxford, has drawn his character graphically 

 enough. He was, Wood says, '' the most noted Latinist and Grecian 

 of bis age ; was a singular mathematician, and thoroughly read in all 

 political matters, councils, ecclesiastical and profane histories : had a 

 voluble tongue, and seldom hesitated either in public disputes or 

 common discourse ; had a voice big and magisterial, and a mind equal 

 to it ; was of an high generous nature, scorned money and riches, and 

 the adorers of them: was accounted a very good physician, and 

 excellent in the things belonging to that profession, as botany, ana- 

 tomy, and chemistry." Stubbe, with all his vast memory for words 

 and facte, was plainly destitute of the faculty of distinguishing, in aiiy 

 complexity, right from wrong, or truth from falsehood. Wood 

 admits that he altogether wanted even common discretion. 



STUBBS, GEORGE, an eminent animal painter and anatomist, was 

 born at Liverpool in 1724, and settled in London. He excelled 

 especially in the portraits of horses. Fuseli observes, with consider- 

 able truth, though as his wont, whether for praise or censure, in too 

 broad and unqualified a vein, " That his skill in comparative anatomy 

 never suggested to him the propriety of style iu forms, if it were not 

 eminently proved by his Phaeton with the Horses of the Sun, would 

 be evident from all his other figures, which, when human, are seldom 



