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 actually done at the second examination of Mr. Eager's pupils in music, educated upon Mr. Logier's system. … June 18, 1819, addressed to Major Peter Hawker,’ published by Hunter in St. Paul's Churchyard. The appendix to the account gives certain letters written to, but not inserted in, the ‘Norwich Mercury’ and the ‘Norfolk Chronicle’ by persons who considered that the opinions expressed by those papers were unfair. Eager's reputation does not appear to have suffered; ten years afterwards he is spoken of in the highest terms by the writer of the ‘History of Norfolk,’ and then held the post of organist to the corporation. In 1833 Eager left Norwich for Edinburgh, where he resided till his death about twenty years later. He separated from his wife, by whom he had two daughters, Mrs. Bridgman and Mrs. Lowe, before leaving England; obtained a Scotch divorce about 1839, and afterwards married a Miss Lowe, sister of his second daughter's husband. He wrote pianoforte sonatas, and some songs and glees of no importance.

[General Hist. of the County of Norfolk (Norwich, 1829), ii. 1282; Assembly Books of the Corporation of Yarmouth; Brown's Biog. Dict. of Musicians; Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 346, 478; information from Sir Thomas Paine of Broomfield, Dorking.] 

EAGLES. [See also .]

EAGLES, JOHN (1783–1855), artist and author, son of Thomas Eagles [q. v.], was born in the parish of St. Augustine, Bristol, in 1783, and baptised 8 Nov. of that year. After receiving some preliminary training under the Rev. Samuel Seyer [q. v.] at Bristol, he was admitted a pupil of Winchester College on 9 July 1797, and continued there until 16 July 1802 (College Register). His wish was to become a landscape-painter. He went on a tour in Italy, and tried to form his style on Gaspard Poussin and Salvator Rosa. While in Italy he narrowly escaped death when sketching on a tier of the Coliseum at Rome. When on his way to draw the Three Temples of Pæstum, between Salerno and Eboli he fell in with banditti, and was ‘ literally stript to the skin.’ Both adventures are related by him in the ‘Sketcher’ (ed. 1856, p. 9). He had, too, the reputation of being a good etcher, and in 1823 published six examples after his idol, G. Poussin. In 1809 he was an unsuccessful candidate for admission in the Water-Colour Society (, Dictionary of Artists, 1878, p. 135). At length he determined to take orders, and with that view entered Wadham College, Oxford. He took the two degrees in arts, B.A. 14 Jan. 1812, M.A. 13 May 1818 (Oxford Graduates, ed. 1851, p. 202). His first curacy was that of St. Nicholas, Bristol. In 1822 he removed with his family to the curacy of Halberton in Devonshire, where he resided for twelve or thirteen years. For the last five years of this time Sydney Smith was his rector. From Halberton he removed to the curacy of Winford, near Bristol, and thence to Kinnersley in Herefordshire, ‘where he held the living for a friend;’ but in 1841, relinquishing all regular duty, he returned to live near his birthplace. He died at King's Parade, Clifton, on 8 Nov. 1855. He left a numerous family.

From 1831 till within a few months of his death Eagles was a contributor to ‘Blackwood's Magazine.’ His contributions were chiefly on art, and the best of these were contained in a series of papers entitled ‘The Sketcher,’ which appeared in the magazine during 1833–5. Having been revised by himself the autumn before he died, they were published in a volume, 8vo, Edinburgh and London, 1856. Another volume of miscellaneous ‘Essays contributed to Blackwood's Magazine’ was issued the following year. Though not in the first rank, they are brimful of shrewd sense, genial humour, amusing anecdote, apt quotation, and duly italicised puns. Eagles wrote on the fine arts as a critic of the old-fashioned school, to which he loyally adhered in artistic as in other matters. Scattered throughout the ‘Sketcher’ are many pleasing lyrics. A selection from these and other of his poems, original or translated, was made by the author's friend, John Mathew Gutch [q. v.], and fifty copies printed for private distribution, 8vo, Worcester, 1857. It contains a reissue of a Latin macaronic poem which had appeared at intervals in the columns of ‘Felix Farley's Bristol Journal,’ then under the editorship of Gutch, and was written to expose the abuses which had for years existed in several public bodies in Bristol, especially in the corporation. These rhymes, enlarged and translated with notes and some humorous designs, were afterwards published as ‘Felix Farley, Rhymes, Latin and English, by Themaninthemoon,’ 8vo, Bristol, 1826. Some imitations in English of the Horatian ode, mostly on similar subjects, also contributed to ‘Felix Farley,’ are less happy. A volume of ‘Sonnets,’ edited by another friend, Zoë King, 8vo, Edinburgh and London, 1858, contains 114 examples, characterised for the most part by thought and refinement.

Eagles left in manuscript translations of the first two books of the ‘Odyssey’ and of five cantos of the ‘Orlando Furioso.’ He