n6 A HISTORY OF 



life, executed by Martin Shee, portrait painter, who 

 resided in Dame street, and who had received his art 

 education in the schools, under Robert L. West, were 

 laid before the Society, when a silver palette, with suit- 

 able inscription, was presented to him, in testimony of 

 its approbation. Shee, afterwards Sir Martin Archer 

 Shee, and President of the Royal Academy, was born 

 in Dublin. In 1788, he went to London, where he 

 had a number of sitters drawn from the best classes, 

 and, being a man of considerable culture, he had access 

 to the most cultivated society in the capital. Shee 

 published some poems, and to his work as painter and 

 poet, Byron alludes in English Bards and Scotch 

 Reviewers — 



" And here let Shee and Genius find a place 

 Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace." 



Shee's Life was written by his son. 



A figure taken from a book entitled The Sorrows 

 of Werter, finished in the new stipple engraving, exe- 

 cuted by Henry Seguin. who had received his art 

 education in the Society's school, was laid before it, 

 and greatly commended. In May 1785, this artist 

 requested that the Society should subscribe to a work 

 in preparation, entitled The School of Fencing, which 

 was to contain fifty folio copperplates, the engravings 

 to be executed by him. To encourage so promising 

 an artist, and to excite emulation in the schools, his 

 request was acceded to, but the work does not seem 

 to have been published. Soon after, a sum of £j, y. 

 was paid to Michael Angelo Pergolesi for publications 

 of ornamental designs in the Etruscan and grotesque 

 style, for the use of the schools. 



The architectural school sustained a great loss in 

 December 1786 by the death of Thomas Ivory, who 



