The Irish standard., 1888-09-01
SHERRY &HAYES,
Choice Coceries, Fruits, Vegetables,
and Berries in Season.
Goods Delivered to Any Part Of the Citv.
3O1 University Avenue Southeast.

vV11uO ouG1 U1xNJ4U0U s
IT IT.
are told. expressed to the patriot the
satisfaction he felS in meeting one whose
eyertions in the cause of religious free
dom in Ireland deserved the undying
gratitude of the country. ''Sir," said
O'Connell, 'snations are never grateful"
a very sentenhous remark for Daniel,
and one which it appears had the effect
Of cooling the hero worshipping ardor of
Shee. In 1929 the artist published a
three-volume novel named cold Court"
which, indeed, was more collection of
essays, humorous and serious, on all
subjects, than tale, and it attracted
little or no notice. On the death of Sir
Thomas Lawrence IN 1880 Shee was
elected President OF the Royal Academy,
and he was knighted in the same year on
the occasion of the first visit OF William
|IV. to the exhibition. In 1916 he sent
to the Council Of the Academy his resig
nation of the presidency owing to his in
ability through old age and feebleness to
discharge it's duties. The entire body of
the Academy signed 81 address asking
him not to resign the Office, and he ac-
coded to the request, and as further
proof of his popularity with his fellow
academicians the Academy allowed him
from 1846 G300 a year out of the Sir
Francis Chant1yr bequest, and 4200
year out OF the Civil List Fund was con.
ferred on Lady Shee by Sir Robert Peel.
Lady Shee died in the following year,
and the pension was continued in the
name of her husband. Sir Martin died
at his residence in Brighton on the 10Th
August, 1856 He was 81 years of age
at the time; very feeble and helpless,
and the last remark he made, addressed
to one OF his sons who was assisting him
to bed, was-"Don't wish for long life,
you 500 the state to which I am reduced"
The members of the Royal Academy
! wanted to have the artist inferred in the
Painters Corner of St. Paul's Cathedral
with many Of his predecessors in the
chair OF the Academy; and they under
took to superintend the arrangements
for public funeral. The family of the
artist, however, very wisely considered
that the honor would not be worth the
G700 which it was estimated the public
funeral would cost them, and which it
had cost the relatives of the preceding
President Of the Royal Academy, Sir
Thomas Lawrence, who was buried in
ST. Paul's Cathedral. During the four
years preceding h1s death Sir Martin
lived very retired life, but this fact
does not at all prepare us for the state
ment his son makes in his life OF the
artist, that when the announcement Of the
artists death appeared as an ADVERTISE
ment in the ordinary obituary columns of
the Press, his name, character, career, and
position as an artist and as President of
the Royal Academy we're wholly un-
noticed by the principal organs of public
opinion in England, In word, the art
list was almost completely forgotten so
far as newspaper circles were concerned.
Shee exhibited altogether 1922 works at
the Academy; but the vast majority of
them were portraits. He continued and
ended as he had commenced; the practice
of his profession was almost exclusively
limited to portraiture. He has therefore
left no picture to perpetuate his fame.
The only specimen Of his work in the
National Gallery, London, in a portrait
of William Thomas Lewis, the comedian,
as the marquis in the Midnight Hour
which was painted as far back as 1871,
and was exhibited at the Royal Academy
in the following year. The National
Gallery in Dublin has not even single
copy of any work Of the great Irish por-
trait painter. The opinion entertained
nowadays of Shee as an artist is not
very favorable. He was man of fine
presence, good dlner-out. charming
conversationalist, courtier in society, a
writer Of pretty verses, and it was to
these qualities and not to his capacity as
an artist that Shee owed his appoint
ment to the position of President Of the
Royal Academy, which he held for thirty
years.
The artist is buried in the cemetery on
the Dyke-road, Brighton. The grave is
marked by stone slab, on which merely
his name, profession, and age are re-
corded, surrounded by high iron rail
ing.
& Idleness travels very slowly, and pow
erty soon oyertakes her. q unter.
3 ,I=9 r