Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/384

 employed by the king to paint the portrait of Prince William, afterwards Duke of Cumberland, and also painted the Prince and Princess of Wales. He did not succeed in getting sittings from the king and queen, but from frequent observation composed portraits of them, which were engraved, and enjoyed some popularity. In the same way he executed portraits of the Duke of Lorraine and the Misses Gunning. In 1744 he painted a series of twelve illustrations to Richardson's ‘Pamela;’ these were engraved by A. Benoist and L. Truchy, and excited much notice. He also painted Richardson himself; one version is in the National Portrait Gallery, and another, with a companion picture of the novelist's wife, hangs in Stationers' Hall. Among other notabilities painted by him were the queen of Denmark, General Wolfe when young, Dr. Young, Heidegger, Sir James Thornhill, Thomas Hollis (of Harvard College), and the Rev. Henry Stebbing, the last being in the National Portrait Gallery. At Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire, also, there are some good portraits by Highmore. He painted his faces rapidly at one sitting, if possible, and obtained good likenesses, though with some sacrifice of grace and elegance. His conversation-pieces were notable, and much of his work has been ascribed to Hogarth. He painted subject-pictures with less success, such as ‘Hagar and Ishmael,’ which he presented to the Foundling Hospital, ‘The Good Samaritan,’ ‘The Finding of Moses,’ ‘The Graces unveiling Nature,’ &c. Many of his portraits were engraved in mezzotint by J. Faber, jun., and others.

Highmore was also a prolific author, and wrote numerous essays on literary and religious questions, some of which were published in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine.’ He published two valuable pamphlets on perspective, viz. ‘A Critical Examination of the Ceiling painted by Rubens in the Banqueting House,’ 1754, 4to, and ‘The Practice of Perspective on the Principles of Dr. Brook Taylor,’ 1763. In these pamphlets, written some years before publication, Highmore criticised the views of Dr. Taylor and others with some force. In 1761, on the marriage of his daughter Susanna to the Rev. John Duncombe of Canterbury, Highmore retired from his profession, sold his collection of pictures, and in 1762 removed to their house at Canterbury, where he spent the rest of his life. He died in March 1780, and was buried in the cathedral ‘in the Body of the Church, and wrapped in sheep's wool’ (Harl. Soc. Publications, Register Canterbury Cathedral). He also left by his wife Susanna, daughter of Anthony Hiller, one son, Anthony (see below). Highmore was a man of mark in his day, agreeable in conversation, sound in learning, a traveller, and, if not an interesting painter, a faithful adherent to his own system of painting. An etched portrait, done by himself, is said to be his own portrait.

(1719–1799), draughtsman, only son of the above, drew five views of Hampton Court, which were engraved by J. Tinney. He was deaf, and resided principally at Canterbury, where he occupied himself with the study of theology. He married early in life Anna Maria, daughter of the Rev. Seth Ellis of Brampton, Derbyshire, and died on 3 Oct. 1799, in his eighty-first year. They had fifteen children, one of whom was Anthony Highmore [q. v.] 

HIGHMORE, NATHANIEL, M.D. (1613–1685), physician, son of Nathaniel Highmore, rector of Candel-Purse, Dorsetshire, was born at Fordingbridge, Hampshire, on 6 Feb. 1613. Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, 1632–9, he graduated M.B. in 1641, and M.D. in 1642, and was still in residence when Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, came to Oxford with the king after the battle of Edgehill. They became friends, and in 1651 Highmore, who had settled in practice at Sherburne, Dorsetshire, dedicated to Harvey his first work, ‘Corporis Humani disquisitio anatomica in qua sanguinis circulationem prosequutus est.’ This treatise was published at the Hague, and, like most of the books on anatomy of its period, gives an account of pathological appearances and of comparative anatomy, as well as of the normal structure of the human body. He was familiar with the anatomy of the dog and of the sheep, and had dissected an ostrich. Though perfectly sound in his views as regards the circulation of the blood, the physiological remarks of Highmore are sometimes mediæval. Thus he believed in an ‘alexipharmaca dispositio vitalium,’ which enabled an Oxford student of his acquaintance to devour spiders with impunity. His plates are based on those of Vesalius, and he frequently attacks Spigelius. The book is never read now, but one passage in it has made the author's name familiar to all students of anatomy. He describes accurately (p. 226 and table xvi.) the cavity in the superior maxillary bone, to which his attention was drawn by a lady patient, in whom an abscess of this