STRANGE, RICHARD (1611–1682), jesuit, born in Northumberland in 1611, entered the Society of Jesus in 1631, and was professed of the four vows on 21 Nov. 1646. After teaching classics in the college of the English jesuits at St. Omer, he was sent to Durham district in 1644, and about 1651 was removed to the London mission, in which he laboured for many years. In 1671 he was appointed rector of the house of tertians at Ghent. He was in 1674 declared provincial of his order in this country, and he held that office for three years. His name figures in Titus Oates's list of jesuits, and also in the narrative of Father Peter Hamerton. Having escaped to the continent in 1679, he became one of the consultors of father John Warner, the provincial, and died at St. Omer on 7 April 1682.
His principal work is ‘The Life and Gests of S. Thomas Cantilvpe, Bishop of Hereford, and some time before L. Chancellor of England. Extracted out of the authentique Records of his Canonization as to the maine part, Anonymous, Matt. Paris, Capgrave, Harpsfeld, and others. Collected by R.S.S.I.,’ Ghent, 1674, 8vo, pp. 333. A reprint forms vol. xxx. of the ‘Quarterly Series,’ London, 1879, 8vo. Strange translated one of Nieremberg's works, ‘Of Adoration in Spirit and Truth,’ Antwerp, 1673, 8vo; and left in manuscript ‘Tractatus de septem gladiis, seu doloribus, Beatæ Virginis Mariæ.’
[De Backer's Bibl. des Écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus (1876), iii. 960; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 313; Foley's Records, v. 623, vii. 743; Oliver's Collections S. J., p. 199; Southwell's Bibl. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu, p. 719.]
STRANGE, Sir ROBERT (1721–1792), engraver, eldest son of David Strang of Kirkwall in the Orkneys, by his second wife, Jean, daughter of Malcolm Scollay of Hunton, was born at Kirkwall on 14 July 1721. He was the lineal representative of the ancient family of Strang of Balcaskie in Fife, which property was alienated in 1615, the family migrating to Orkney, where two members of it, George and Magnus, had held clerical office in the previous century. Robert entered the office of an elder brother, a lawyer in Edinburgh; but his heart was not in the work, and he was constantly occupied in secret in drawing and copying anything which came in his way. His brother one day, when looking for some missing papers, found a batch of these drawings and submitted them privately to the engraver, Richard Cooper the elder [q. v.], who had settled in Edinburgh, and was almost the sole judge and teacher of art in Scotland. Cooper estimated Strange's sketches very highly, and Strange was bound as apprentice to him for six years.
Shortly before the Jacobite rising of 1745 Strange fell in love with Isabella, daughter of William Lumisden (son of the bishop of Edinburgh and a descendant of the Lumisdens of Cushnie in Aberdeenshire), and sister of Andrew Lumisden [q. v.], a fervent Jacobite. The lady, sharing her brother's predilections, made it a condition of her favour that Strange should fight for her prince. Already of some repute as an engraver, he published a portrait of Charles Edward, which was not without merit, and made the artist very popular. While with the army at Inverness he also contrived, amid the confusion, to engrave a plate for the bank-notes of the coming dynasty. This plate, in eight compartments, for notes of different value from a penny upwards, was found about 1835 in Loch Laggan, and is now in the possession of Cluny Macpherson. Strange fought at Prestonpans and Falkirk in the prince's lifeguards, and, finally, took part in the abortive night march and doubtful strategy which led to the disaster of Culloden, of all which he left a graphic account.
While in hiding for some months afterwards he found a ready sale for pencil portraits of the proscribed leaders and small engravings of the prince. It is recorded that at this time, while he was at the house of his lady-love, Isabella Lumisden, soldiers came in to search for him, whereupon Isabella lifted up her hooped skirt, and he took refuge under it, the lady steadily carolling a Jacobite song over her needlework while the baffled soldiers searched the room. In 1747 they were married clandestinely; and after the amnesty Strange proceeded to London and thence—carrying with him the prince's seal, which had been left behind in Scotland—to Rouen, a centre of the exiled Jacobites. Here he studied anatomy under Lecat, and drawing under Descamps; and, after carrying away the highest prize in Descamps's academy, went in 1749 to Paris and placed himself under the engraver Le Bas. There he made rapid strides, and learned especially the use of the dry-point, much employed by that master (who introduced it in France) in the preparatory parts of his work. Le Bas would gladly have engaged his pupil's services, but Strange's face was already set towards the great Italian masters. Having therefore first executed (along with Vanloo's ‘Cupid,’ for he always brought out his prints in pairs) Wouverman's ‘Return from Market,’ the only genre picture among his principal works (they were issued at 2s. 6d.
