Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/161

 Varley stars.' But, if not spiritual, he was very humane, and spent his life mainly in endeavours to benefit his fellow-creatures, with little regard to his own interest.

In 1803 Varley married Esther Gisborne, sister of Shelley's friend John, and also of Mrs. Copley Fielding and Mrs. Clementi (wife of the famous musician). She died in 1824, and in 1825 he married his second wife, Delvalle Lowry, the daughter of his old friend, Wilson Lowry [q.v.] the engraver. Varley had eight children, all by his first wife. Two of them, Albert (d. 1876) and Charles Smith (d. 1888), followed his profession. John Varley, the son of Albert, and the painter of Cairene subjects, is still alive (1899). Edgar John, the son of Charles Smith Varley, also a painter, died in the same year as his father.

Varley was the author of: 1. 'A Treatise on the Principles of Landscape Design,' illustrated by sixteen views on eight aquatint plates. It was issued in eight parts at 5s., between 20 Feb. 1816 and 1 May 1821. 2. 'A Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy' (five illustrations), 1828. 3. 'A Practical Treatise on the Art of Drawing and Perspective,' 1815. 4. 'Precepts of Landscape Drawing, exemplified in fifteen views,' 1818. 5. 'Varley's List of Colours' (a sheet used by Varley's pupils). 6. 'Studies for Drawing Trees.' Six aquatints, after Varley's landscapes, by F. C. and G. Lewis, were published in 1806.

[Roget's 'Old Watercolour' Soc. (in which will be found references to earlier authorities); James Holmes and John Varley by Alfred T. Story; Gilchrist's Life of Willinm Blake; Redgraves' Century; Monkhouse's Earlier English Painters in Watercolours.] 

VARLEY, WILLIAM FLEETWOOD (1785–1856), artist, younger brother of Cornelius Varley [q. v.] and of John Varley [q. v.], was born in 1785. He received his first art instruction from his brother, and began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1804. About 1810 he was teaching in Cornwall, and afterwards at Bath and Oxford. At the latter place, through the thoughtless frolics of some students, he was nearly burnt to death, and received a shock to his system from which he never recovered. He exhibited twenty-one landscapes at the Royal Academy between 1804 and 1818. He died at Ramsgate on 2 Feb. 1856. He was married, and left seven daughters and one son. He was the author of 'Observations on Colouring and Sketching from Nature,' of which an enlarged edition was published by W. Mason of Chichester in 1820.

[Roget's 'Old Watercolour' Society; Story's John Holmes and John Varley; Redgrave's Dict.; Gent. Mag. 1856, i. 656.] 

VARLO or VARLEY, CHARLES (1725?–1795?), agriculturist, was born in Yorkshire about 1725. He visited Ireland in his twenty-first year, spending some time with Edward Synge [q. v.], bishop of Elphin. 'At that period,' writes in 1796 the anonymous editor of Varlo's 'Floating Ideas,' 'being fifty years back, farming in Ireland was in its infancy; but flax-farming was yet less known, neither had the linen board been long instituted; and as the author was bred in a district in Yorkshire renowned for flax-farming, and he being deemed a proficient in that science, he was fix'd upon by the linen board, and honourably rewarded for being a farmer general, that is, to direct their stewards in the art of farming in general, but flax-farming in particular.' He is said to have received from the linen board a premium of 100l. for the quality of flax raised under his management.

In 1748 he would seem to have been farming on his own account in the county of Leitrim, and to have been also an early experimenter in the turnip husbandry, then coming more and more to the front (New System of Husbandry, i. 107). This agrees with the account given by his editor.

'Being arrived at the twenty-seventh year of his age he married, and commenced farmer and grazier in Ireland on a large scale. . . . He also took over English farming servants and implements of husbandry, particularly a plough of his own invention, which is now the most general of any in the kingdom, known by the name of the Yorkshire or Rotherham plough.' The statement that Varlo was the inventor of the Rotherham plough is incorrect, as the implement had been patented in 1730, when Varlo was a child, by Stanyforth & Foljambe of Rotherham (Journal Royal Agricuitural Society,1892, 3rd ser. iii. 53).

In 1760 the prohibition on the export of Irish cattle to England was removed. Varlo accordingly sold his land in Ireland, and proceeded to bring his cattle over to this country. The step was, however, very unpopular. Varlo's cattle were slaughtered by the mob in the streets of Dublin, and he himself had a very narrow escape. A small compensation was given to him by the government at the instance of the Duke of Bedford, then lord lieutenant, and he appears to have begun grazing in England, probably in his native county of Yorkshire. In 1764 he finished his machine 'that harrows, sows, and rolls at one time' (System of Husbandry, i. 292), for