Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/14

Shedden-Ralston  into 'Peregrine Pickle,' has also been erroneously assigned to him.

His portrait, engraved by Bromley for the 'European Magazine,' depicts him in a fez and loose coat. [See European Magazine, 1788, ii. 83-7, 167, 168 (works), 244-5, 283-6 (character of Clarendon, 'now first published'); Gent. Mag. 1788, p. 753; Lowndes's Bibliogr. Manual; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Answer to the Queries contained in a Letter to Dr. Shebbeare, &c.; Boswell's Johnson, ed. Hill, iii. 315, iv. 112-13, 214, 318n.; Almon's Anecdotes, i. 373, 376; Walpole's Letters, ed. Cunningham, iii. 54, 74, iv. 262; Memoirs of George II, pp. 153-4, and of George III (Barker), i. 141n. 262; Early Diary of Frances Burney, ed. A. R. Ellis, i. 275-9; Cunningham's Biogr. Hist, of Engl. v. 389-94; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Wright's England under the House of Hanover, i. 284, 373.]

 SHEDDEN-RALSTON, WILLIAM RALSTON (1828–1889), Russian scholar. [See ]

 SHEE, MARTIN ARCHER (1769–1850), portrait-painter and president of the Royal Academy, born in Dublin on 20 Dec. 1769, was the younger surviving son of Martin Shee, a merchant in Dublin, and Mary, daughter of John Archer of Dublin, his wife. His grandfather, George Shee of Castlebar, co. Mayo, belonged to an old Irish catholic family claiming to be the same stock as the family of O'Shea. Shee lost his mother in his early infancy, and, as his father (who died in 1783) was afflicted by blindness, he was brought up chiefly by his maternal aunt, Mrs. McEvoy (afterwards Mrs. Dillon). He received a classical education in Dublin; but, displaying a strong inclination to drawing, he was allowed to enter as a pupil in the drawing academy of the Royal Dublin Society, under Robert Lucius West, where his rapid progress insured him permission to adopt painting as a profession. On leaving West's school he set up for himself as a portrait-painter, beginning in crayons, and afterwards in oils, and obtained some employment in fashionable circles at Dublin. He also had a predilection for the stage, which he maintained throughout life. In 1788 he was induced by Gilbert Charles Stuart [q. v.], the American portrait-painter, to go and seek his fortune in London, where he arrived on 29 June of that year. Though furnished with recommendations to Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Opie, and other notable people, Shee met with little success in London, and was reduced to making engravers' copies for Macklin the publisher. On the advent, however, in London of his cousin, Sir George Shee, a rich Indian nabob, and also with the assistance of Alexander Pope [q. v.], the actor, Shee obtained a second and more successful introduction to Burke, which led to another interview with Reynolds, and to Shee being entered as a student in the Royal Academy in March 1790. From this time his career was one of steady progress in his art, that of portrait-painting, to which he almost entirely devoted himself. The quality of his work was quickly recognised, and he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy on 3 Nov. 1798, and a full academician on 10 Feb. 1800. His sitters were drawn from the royal family and every rank of society, and his education and literary accomplishments obtained him an entry into the most select circles of culture and fashion. In 1802 he visited Paris, where his knowledge of the French language was of great use to him. In 1805 Shee published a poem entitled ‘Rhymes on Art, or the Remonstrance of a Painter,’ which reached three editions, and in 1809 a sequel to it, entitled ‘Elements in Art,’ a poem in six cantos, in which his very conservative views upon painting are set forth. In 1807 he was largely concerned in the foundation of the British Institution. Among his acquaintances was Lord Byron, who in his ‘English Bards and Scotch Reviewers’ paid a tribute (perhaps in a satirical vein) to Shee in the lines:

During the first half of his life Shee's fame was overshadowed by that of his more brilliant rival, Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. Although Shee's numerous portraits lack the grace and vigour of Lawrence's, they are often more solidly painted and more estimable as works of art, being impressive rather than interesting. On the death of Lawrence in 1830, the coveted post of painter-in-ordinary to the crown was conferred upon Sir David Wilkie, but Shee was elected by a large majority of votes to be president of the Royal Academy, for which, besides his sound qualities as a painter, his dignified demeanour and his social and literary gifts rendered him well fitted. He received the honour of knighthood shortly after. During his tenure of office the academy was removed from the apartments which had been granted to it by the king in Somerset House to what