Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/422

Sharp hit them off in a moment. His conversational talents gave him his nickname. Some notes of his talk are given in the ‘Merivale Family Memorials,’ pp. 210–11, and Henry Mill said in 1840, ‘it was a fine thing for me to hear Conversation Sharp and my father [James Mill] converse’ (, Journals, i. 146–7). A list of the visitors at Fredley between 1797 and 1835 is given in ‘Maria Drummond,’ 1891, pp. 30–2. They included Horner (cf. Memoirs, ii. 355–6), Grattan, and Sydney Smith, who was so often there that he was dubbed ‘the bishop of Mickleham.’ Sharp was very friendly with Tom Moore, and was very kind to Macaulay at his entrance into life. Hallam introduces him as ‘my late friend, Richard Sharp, whose good taste is well known’ (Lit. Hist. Europe, pt. iv. chap. vii. n.). He was a friend of John Horne Tooke, and a familiar guest at Holland House. In the autumn of 1816 Sharp, while on the lake of Geneva, visited Byron, who preserved some of his anecdotes (, Byron, 1847 ed., pp. 205, 231, 323, 475).

Sharp often travelled on the continent, particularly in France, Switzerland, and Italy, and he was a frequent visitor to the English lakes, where he made the acquaintance of their poets. Wordsworth used to say that Sharp knew Italy better than any one he ever met (, Life of Wordsworth, iii. 250–1). In the spring of 1804 he entertained Coleridge very generously in London. His health began to decline about 1832; he spent the winter of 1834–5 at Torquay. He died unmarried at Dorchester, while on the journey to London, on 30 March 1835. His ward and adopted child, Maria Kinnaird, married Thomas Drummond (1797–1840) [q. v.] She inherited the bulk of Sharp's property, including the estate at Fredley and a house at Hyde Park Gardens, in which was the Reynolds portrait of Dr. Johnson, that had been bought at the Thrale sale in 1816. Mrs. Drummond died at Fredley on 15 Jan. 1891.

In 1828 Sharp issued to his friends an anonymous volume of ‘Epistles in Verse,’ which were composed abroad between 1816 and 1823. They were reproduced, with the addition of an ‘Epistle to Lord Holland, Windermere, 1829,’ in his volume of ‘Letters and Essays in Prose and Verse’ (anon.), 1834; 2nd ed. by Richard Sharp, 1834; 3rd ed., 1834. These were noticed in the ‘Quarterly Review,’ li. 285–304, and were pronounced remarkable ‘for wisdom, wit, knowledge of the world, and sound criticism.’ He had contributed in 1784 a preface to the ‘Essay towards an English Grammar,’ by his old schoolmaster, John Fell (1735–1797) [q. v.], and a paper by him, ‘On the Nature and Utility of Eloquence,’ was read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester on 2 Nov. 1787, and printed in its ‘Memoirs’ (iii. 307–29). A ‘Letter to the Public Meeting of the Friends to the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts from a Lay Dissenter, 1790,’ is attributed to him ( and, Dict. of Anon. Lit. ii. 1403–4).

Sharp at one time contemplated writing a history of the establishment of American independence, a scheme which was encouraged by his intimate friend, John Adams, afterwards president of the United States. Sharp assisted in the ‘Memoirs of Mackintosh.’ Numerous letters to him are in that work, i. 128 et seq.; Parr's ‘Works,’ vii. 322–4; Knight's ‘Wordsworth,’ i. 377–8, ii. 9–118, iii. 61–2, 77; and Mr. Clayden's volumes on Samuel Rogers.

[Gent. Mag. 1835 ii. 96–7; (Marsh) Clubs of London, ii. 161–2; Timbs's Clubs, i. 165–6, 169; Clayden's Early Life of Rogers, p. 253 to end; Clayden's Rogers and Contemporaries, passim; Wilson's House of Commons, 1808, p. 133; Dyce's Table Talk of Rogers, pp. 18, 132–3, 197; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. ix. 419, 513; Paul's Maria Drummond, 1891; Times, 17 Jan. 1891, p. 10; Bright's Dorking, pp. 137–44; Lady Holland's Sydney Smith, i. 129, ii. 364–6; Horner's Memoirs, i. 183–5, 253–4; Walpole's Lord John Russell, i. 229–20; Cowper's Works, ed. Bruce, i. p. cvii; Memoirs of Mackintosh, i. pp. iv. 169, 433.]

 SHARP, SAMUEL (1700?–1778), surgeon, son of Henry Sharp of the island of Jamaica, was born about 1700. He was bound apprentice for seven years to William Cheselden [q. v.], the great surgeon at St. Thomas's Hospital, on 2 March 1724. He paid 300l. when his indentures were signed, the money being found by Elizabeth Sale, a widow living at Hertford. Sharp appears to have spent a part of his apprenticeship in France, where he made the acquaintance of Voltaire, and acquired that knowledge of French surgery which afterwards stood him in good stead. He was admitted a freeman of the Barber-Surgeons' Company on 7 March 1731, obtained his diploma on 4 April 1732, and on 6 June, when he was living in Ingram Court, Fenchurch Street, he ‘was admitted into the livery and clothing of the Company.’ He was elected surgeon to Guy's Hospital on 9 Aug. 1733, the year in which Cheselden published his ‘Osteographia.’ Sharp is said to have assisted his former master in the preparation of this great work, and Cheselden introduced a portrait of Belchier and Sharp