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IE

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18.

A NEW AND GENERAL

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY.

HOARE (WILLIAM), an ingenious and amiable English

artist, was born about the year 1707, at Eye, near Ipswich,. in Suffolk. His father was possessed of considerable property, holding a farm of large extent in his own hands. William shewing very early a disposition to study, was sent to a school at Faringdon in Berkshire, where the master enjoyed a high reputation for classical learning. The pupil eagerly availed himself of every opportunity of improvement, and in the course of a few years attained such a degree of proficiency as to assist his master occasionally in the tuition of the other scholars. To these acquirements be added no indifferent skill in drawing, which was also taught in the school; and he soon distinguished himself above his competitors in the prize exhibitions, which took place once a year. Indulging the bent of his mind to this art, he solicited and obtained his father's permission to follow his studies in painting with a professional view. For this purpose, after having completed the school courses with great credit to himself, he was removed to London, where he was placed under the care of Grisoni, an Italian painter of history, the best, and perhaps the only one, which that time afforded. Grisoni, however, was at the best a very poor painter, and the example of his works was little calculated to produce eminence in his scholar. But he was a man of sound judgment and benevolent disposition, and it is probable that the sense of his own insufficiency induced him to persuade young William to seek a more satisfactory guidance in the pursuit to which he devoted himself so earnestly. The schools of Italy appeared to him the place to which a learner should resort for the means of accomplishment in his art. William

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caught the suggestion with eagerness, and the father's permission was again earnestly sought, for visiting the foreign treasures of painting and sculpture, which were then known to the English only through the communications of such of our gentlemen and nobility as travelled on the continent for the purposes of polite accomplishment. William Hoare was the first English painter who visited Rome for professional study.

At the time of his departure from London he had formed a friendship with Scheemackers, the celebrated Flemish sculptor, and with Delvaux, his pupil, who were both on their way to Rome, and on his arrival at that city he hastened to rejoin them, and lodged in the same house with them. His next care was to place himself in the school of Francesco Imperiale, the disciple of Carlo Maratti, and the most eminent master then living. In this school he was a fellow-student with Pompeo Battoni, with whom he maintained through life a cordial friendship, and with others of the same profession. Here he acquired a thorough knowledge of all that could be taught in his art, and a perfect acquaintance with the system and method of study adopted in the Roman school ever since the time of Raffaelle; to which method he at all times adhered in the execution of historical works.

Under the direction of Imperiale, Mr. Hoare made many copies from the most celebrated works of the great painters in the Roman palaces; a circumstance which became of great utility to him in a very different manner from that which was intended; for the circumstances of his family having been unfortunately impaired by the explosion of the South Sea adventure, he now found it necessary to turn the skill he had gained to a provision for his own maintenance. This was no difficult task, and he continued his studies at Rome for the term of nine years, when he finally returned to London, bringing with him the few copies of the finest works which he had been able to preserve for himself, and the most enthusiastic feelings in regard of his art.

In London the young painter looked around in vain for the encouragement which he had hoped to find in the historical department of his profession; and the impoverished state of his family not allowing him any alternative, he immediately resorted to portrait-painting, in which, from his superior talents, he was sure to find an unfailing`re