Note o — A DISSERTATION, &c.

The fate of this ingenious youth deserves to be distinctly recorded. Born of humble parentage in one of the more distant counties, he had early manifested an admiration of the Arts, and, being admitted a student of the Royal Academy, eminently distinguished himself there by his abilities and his industry. Applying peculiarly to Sculpture, soon after the termination of his studies in the Academy he exhibited, at its annual Exhibition in Somerset-place, two models of unrivalled excellence, which might, without fear of deterioration, have been placed in competition with the happiest productions of the best days of Grecian art, and which at the time met with their well-earned applause. But, alas! applause was his only reward: no wealthy patron took him by the hand, no affluent lover of the Arts enquired into, or assisted, his circumstances; and his means being very confined, misery was his portion. He had however the soul of an Artist, and for a length of time bore up with manly fortitude against his distresses. The present worthy President of the Royal Academy, suspecting his situation, with the aid of the Council obtained for him from the Academy an annuity of 100l. a year, to enable him to go to Italy, and improve himself there: but the unhappy youth had unavoidably contracted some trifling debts, which he was utterly unable to discharge, and his mind was too delicately alive to every finer feeling to bear the thought of leaving this country without paying them. This circumstance, preying on his agitated spirits, and on a frame emaciated by the severest distress, caused his speedy dissolution, to the irreparable injury of the Arts. After his death it was discovered that, for the last two years of his life, he had resided in a miserable cock-loft in the worst house in Clare market, which he had rented for a shilling a week; and that his daily sustenance for that time had been only two dry biscuits with a draft of water from the market pump.