Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/136

 a savage attack on Wright in the ‘Register,’ alleging that he had detected him falsifying his accounts and describing graphically ‘the big round drops of sweat that in a cold winter's day rolled down the caitiff's forehead’ when his villainy was discovered. Wright obtained 500l. damages against William Innell Clement, the bookseller, for publishing the libel, and when Cobbett returned to England he commenced proceedings against him also, and on 11 Dec. 1820 obtained 1,000l. damages (Times, 12 Dec. 1820).

When Wright's connection with the ‘Parliamentary Debates’ ceased in 1830, he undertook a ‘Biographical Memoir of William Huskisson’ (London, 1831, 8vo), a work of considerable merit. He was next employed by the publishers John Murray (1778–1843) [q. v.] and Richard Bentley (1794–1871) [q. v.] in literary work. In 1831 Murray published an edition of Boswell's ‘Life of Johnson,’ founded on that of John Wilson Croker [q. v.] The ninth and tenth volumes, consisting of a supplementary collection of contemporary anecdotes concerning Johnson under the title ‘Johnsoniana,’ were edited by Wright. They appeared in a separate edition in 1836 (London, 8vo). Between 1832 and 1835 he was engaged on the ‘Life and Work of Lord Byron,’ published by Murray, and in 1835 on the collective edition of Crabbe's ‘Works.’ Between 1838 and 1840 he assisted William Stanhope Taylor and Captain John Henry Pringle in editing the ‘Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham’ (London, 4 vols. 8vo). He was editor of the first collective edition of Horace Walpole's ‘Letters,’ which appeared in 1840 (London, 6 vols. 8vo). A revised edition was published in 1844 and a third in 1846. An American edition appeared in Philadelphia in 1842. At the time of his death Wright was engaged in his most important work, the publication of ‘Sir Henry Cavendish's Debates of the House of Commons during the Thirteenth Parliament of Great Britain, commonly called the Unreported Parliament’ [see ]. The original notes, written in shorthand, are contained in forty-eight volumes in the Egerton manuscripts at the British Museum. Wright deciphered and transcribed the manuscript as far as 27 March 1771, and supplemented the text with ‘illustrations of the parliamentary history of the reign of George III,’ drawn from unpublished letters, private journals, and memoirs. In 1839 he published a preliminary volume, containing the ‘Debate of the House of Commons on the Bill for the Government of Quebec’ (London, 8vo), a subject at that time of considerable interest. The work was approved by Lord Brougham, who, together with Hudson Gurney [q. v.], assisted Wright financially. Seven parts appeared between 1841 and 1843, which, when bound, formed two volumes (London, 8vo).

Wright died in London on 25 Feb. 1844 at his residence, 26 Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park, and was buried at the Marylebone parish church. Two volumes of Cobbett's correspondence with Wright are preserved at the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 22906, 22907). A third (Addit. MS. 31126) contains letters in the possession of Cobbett, and a statement of his case against Wright in regard to the ‘Parliamentary History’ and ‘Debates.’ Wright translated from the German of Alexandre Stanislas de Wimpffen ‘A Voyage to Saint Domingo in 1788, 1789, and 1790’ (London, 1797, 8vo).

[Gent. Mag. 1844, i. 437; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Report of the action Wright v. Clement, 1819; Huish's Memoirs of Cobbett, 1836, ii. 312–35; Smith's Life of Cobbett, 1878; Life of William Cobbett, 1835, pp. 167–72; Political Death of William Cobbett, 1820; Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, ed. Edmonds, 1890, p. xxiii; Nichols's Lit. Illustr. vi. 5–6; Edinburgh Review, 1839–40, lxx. 90.]  WRIGHT, JOHN MASEY (1777–1866), watercolour-painter, was born on 14 Oct. 1777 at Pentonville, London, where his father was an organ-builder. He was apprenticed to the same business, but, as it proved distasteful to him, he was allowed to follow his natural inclination for art. As a boy he was given the opportunity of watching Thomas Stothard [q. v.] when at work in his studio, but otherwise he was self-taught. About 1810 Wright became associated with Henry Aston Barker [q. v.], for whose panorama in the Strand he did much excellent work, including the battles of Coruña, Vittoria, and Waterloo. He was also employed for a time as a scene-painter at the opera-house. But his reputation rests upon his small compositions illustrating Shakespeare and other poets, which were extremely numerous and executed with admirable taste and feeling in the manner of Stothard. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1812 to 1818, and in 1824 was elected an associate of the Watercolour Society; he became a full member in 1825, and thenceforward to the end of his long life was a regular exhibitor. His drawings were largely engraved for the ‘Literary Souvenir,’ ‘Amulet,’ ‘Forget-me-not,’ and similar publications; also for fine editions of the works of Sir Walter Scott and Burns,