Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neagle, James
NEAGLE, JAMES (1760?–1822), engraver, is said to have been born about 1760; he worked with ability in the line manner, confining himself almost entirely to book illustrations, of which he executed a very large number, from designs by Stothard, Smirke, Fuseli, Hamilton, Singleton, R. Cook, and other popular artists. They include plates to Boydell's and other editions of Shakespeare; Sharpe's and Cooke's ‘Classics,’ Forster's ‘Arabian Nights,’ 1802; ‘Gil Blas,’ 1809; ‘Ancient Terra-Cottas in the British Museum,’ 1810; and Murphy's ‘Arabian Antiquities of Spain,’ 1816. Neagle's most important work is ‘The Royal Procession in St. Paul's on St. George's Day, 1789,’ from a drawing by E. Dayes. In 1801, in the action brought by Delattre the engraver against J. S. Copley, R.A., to recover the price of a plate made from the latter's ‘Death of Chatham,’ Neagle was a witness for the plaintiff. Towards the end of his life he emigrated to America, and, according to a statement on a crayon portrait of him in the print room of the British Museum, died there in 1822. He had a son, John B. Neagle, who practised as an engraver in Philadelphia until his death in 1866.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dodd's manuscript Hist. of English Engravers (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 33403); Baker's American Engravers and their Works, 1875.]