1427, when he served as senior proctor in the university. He graduated D.D., and subsequently became chaplain and almoner to Henry VI. By the charter of incorporation he was on 11 Oct. 1440 appointed first provost of Eton College (Bekynton Correspondence, ii. 274, 281, 286). In 1442 he was succeeded as provost by William Waynefleet [q. v.], and at the end of that year he became chancellor of Oxford University. In the following year he was specially recommended by the university to the favour of Eugenius IV. On 29 May 1445 he was collated to the prebend of Harleston in St. Paul's Cathedral, and in April 1449 he became chancellor of that church. In 1446 the college presented him to the chapel of Kibworth, which he resigned soon after, and on 19 Feb. 1455–6 elected him warden of Merton College. In the reign of Edward IV Sever is said to have held fourteen ecclesiastical preferments (Harwood, Alumni Eton. p. 2). He died on 6 July 1471, and was buried in the choir of Merton College chapel; a monumental brass placed over his tomb is now within the rails of the communion-table on the south side of the chancel. His will, dated 4 July 1471, is printed in ‘Testamenta Eboracensia’ (iii. 188–90); by it Sever made many bequests to Merton College. While warden he rebuilt or completed the warden's house and the Holywell tower, probably at his own expense; these services won him the title of second founder of the college. Sever has been frequently confused with William Senhouse [q. v.], whose name was generally but erroneously spelt Sever.
[Testamenta Eboracensia (Surtees Soc.), iii. 188–90; Corresp. of Bekynton (Rolls Ser.); Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 113, 153; Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 360, 389, iii. 343, 467, 543; Camdeni et Ill. Virorum Lit. 1690, pp. 219–20, 224–5; Harwood's Alumni Etonenses; Maxwell-Lyte's Eton College, pp. 8, 18; Brodrick's Memorials of Merton, pp. 16, 160, 314.]
SEVER, WILLIAM (d. 1505), bishop of Durham. [See Senhouse.]
SEVERN, ANN MARY (1832–1866), painter. [See Newton.]
SEVERN, JOSEPH (1793–1879), painter, was born at Hoxton on 7 Dec. 1793. His father, James Severn, a musician by profession, belonged to an old Gloucestershire family, reduced by misfortune; his mother, whose maiden name was Littel, was of Huguenot extraction. The boy early showed a passion for drawing, which was encouraged by his father, who possessed considerable artistic sensitiveness without much taste or knowledge. Unable either to teach his son or to procure him regular instruction, he apprenticed him to an engraver. The noviciate in this profession proved intolerable to young Severn, who found himself constrained to constant copying while longing to attempt original work. He contrived to find time for the execution of drawings, purchased an easel and colours with the proceeds, and managed to pick up some instruction as a casual attendant at the academy schools. While thus struggling he formed, probably in 1816, the friendship with Keats by which he is now chiefly remembered; and his connection with Keats's brother George was even more intimate. In 1817 it was announced that the Royal Academy proposed to bestow a gold medal for the best historical painting by a student, a prize which had not been awarded for twelve years owing to the lack of merit among the candidates. The subject, ‘Una seizing the Dagger from the despairing Red Cross Knight’ (‘Faerie Queene,’ bk. i. canto 10), fired Severn's imagination, already powerfully stimulated by his intercourse with Keats, and, further encouraged by the commendation which Fuseli, then keeper of the academy, had bestowed upon some of his drawings, he resolved to be a competitor. He worked with the greatest determination, selling his watch and books to procure the necessary material, and, to his own and the general surprise, was declared the winner, on 10 Dec. 1818. For the time, nevertheless, his success obtained for him no substantial advantage; he found no encouragement except in miniature-painting. His more ambitious picture, ‘Hermia and Helena,’ though hung at the academy exhibition, attracted no attention; and the envy of disappointed rivals drove him from the academy schools. This, however, was not altogether disadvantageous in so far as it allowed him time for an increased intimacy with Leigh Hunt, Reynolds, and the other members of Keats's circle, which aided him in acquiring the culture in which he had hitherto been deficient. His friendship with Charles Armitage Brown [q. v.] became especially close. In September 1820 he formed, on the shortest notice, that generous resolution of accompanying the invalid Keats to Italy, which has fulfilled the aspiration of Shelley, that ‘the spirit of his illustrious friend might plead against oblivion for his name.’ It augments the honour due to Severn that his intention met with the strongest opposition from his father, who went so far as to
