mate knowledge of all nautical matters. It was whilst a sailor that he taught himself to paint; and when he resolved to become an artist by profession, he found employment as scene-painter at the old Royalty, a sailor's theatre in Wells Street, Wellclose Square. The superior character of his scenery attracted notice, and he was offered an engagement at Drury Lane. There, whilst his general scenery was admitted to be unequalled, he for several seasons produced panoramas in the pantomimes, which had an unexampled popularity. But he was at no time merely a scene-painter. He had early painted marine subjects in oil and water colours for private friends. In 1822 he sent two pictures to the British Institution; and his pictures were leading attractions at the exhibitions of the Society of British Artists, of which society he was a member from its foundation in 1823 till 1831, when he resigned his connection with it in order to his election into the Royal Academy. Mr. Stanfield received in 1827 from the British Institution a premium of fifty guineas for "the general merit of his pictures." In 1832 he was elected A.R.A.; in 1835 R.A. He had now ceased, except on special occasions, to paint for the theatre. By common consent he was recognized as the chief of English marine painters; and he held that position unquestioned to the day of his death. His pictures are too numerous to permit, and too well known to require, enumeration. They are of three or four distinct classes. There are those in which ships are painted upon the open sea, and some poetic or historical incident is introduced to deepen the sentiment called forth by the wide waste of waters—as in "The Abandoned," and "The Victory bearing the Body of Nelson." Another class equally impressive, and one in which the power of the artist is, perhaps, most fully displayed, is that in which some unhappy ship is seen trying to escape the coming storm, or lying a shattered wreck, whilst the sea is beating sullenly upon the rocky coast: such are "Against Wind and Tide," the "Castle of Ischia," "Wreck of a Dutch East Indiaman," and "Port na Spana, with the wrecked vessels of the Spanish Armada." His most numerous class, however, consists of placid coast views. Among these are comprised some portions of almost the entire coast of Europe; and whilst sea and land are always true and always picturesque, the characteristic naval craft are never absent, and always so painted as to satisfy those who are most familiar with them. Again, there are naval battles, such as "Trafalgar," painted for the United Service Club, and "The Victory towed into Gibraltar after the Battle." There should also be mentioned those large and very remarkable mountain and military scenes, of which "The French Troops fording the Magra," "The Pyrenees," and "The Battle of Roveredo," are striking examples. Several of Mr. Stanfield's pictures are in the national and royal collections. Besides his oil paintings he executed a great many in water colours, and made a large number of drawings for engraving—including the series for Heath's Picturesque Annual, the Harbours of England, &c. A series of thirty folio lithographic drawings from his Views on the Moselle, was published in 1830. Mr. Stanfield died on the 18th of May, 1867. His son, George C. Stanfield), born about 1823, is a very able painter of inland scenery, somewhat in his father's manner.—J. T—e.
STANHOPE, Charles, third earl, an eminent mechanician and inventor, was born on the 3rd of August, 1753, and at an early age was sent to Eton. He was but ten years old when he accompanied his family to Geneva, where he was placed under the direction of M. Le Sage, a man of letters. His strong bent for mathematical studies was carefully fostered, and from free intercourse with the young Genevese he acquired those strong political opinions which in England were regarded with distaste as violent radicalism. At the age of eighteen he gained a prize offered by the Society of Arts at Stockholm, for the best treatise on the structure of the pendulum. In 1775 he published "Considerations on the means of preventing fraudulent practices on the gold coin," an essay which abounds in ingenious suggestions, especially one with regard to milling the coin. Equally valuable proposals concerning bank-note paper were published by him at a later period. In 1777 he made his famous experiment at Chevening, the family seat, for securing dwellings from fire by excluding air from the combustible floors and other timbers by means of a cement. A large company of distinguished visitors remained eating ices in the apartment above that in which the fire was raging. His next invention was a peculiar kiln for burning lime, which produced mortar as durable as Roman cement. Improvements in tiles, cures for injured trees, and experiments in electricity successively occupied his attention. He arrived at a singular conclusion with regard to the electric fluid, which he believed often returns to a body from which it has been expelled by what he calls the "electrical returning stroke." In 1777 he invented his first calculating machine, and about the beginning of the French revolution conceived the idea of applying the steam engine to navigation, and built two or three vessels for his experiments. Though he failed then, he lived to see the idea successfully carried into practice. Fulton, the builder of the first steamer at New York, derived valuable hints from Lord Stanhope, during an intercourse which took place relative to a watercourse his lordship proposed cutting. The invention of the "Stanhope press" claims a high place in the enumeration of the benefits conferred upon the civilized world by Lord Stanhope. His political career offers less interest than the record of his inventions. The times were not ripe for his innovating doctrines, and he was looked upon as an eccentric man. At first he had the support of his relative Pitt in schemes for parliamentary reform, but their views in finance and other matters came to differ very decidedly. Lord Stanhope, after he entered the house of lords in 1786, was in declared opposition to the minister. He was opposed to the American war, and applauded the French revolution; and in 1794 moved an address to the king, praying that he would acknowledge the French republic. He strove to obtain liberty of conscience for all classes of the population. In 1795, finding his efforts unavailing to prevent war with France, he took a formal leave of the house of lords, to which he did not return till 1800. His children left him on Mr. Pitt's account. He was contemplating the writing of a digest of the statutes, when he was taken ill and died at Chevening in 1816.—R. H.
STANHOPE, George, Dean of Canterbury, was born in 1660, at Hartshorne in Derbyshire, his father being the incumbent. He was educated at Uppington in Rutland, and afterwards at Eton, from which he passed to King's college, Cambridge. Having become A.M. in 1685, he went into orders, and obtained the living of Tring, but resided principally on his vicarage of Lewisham, to which he had been presented by Lord Dartmouth, to whose son he had acted as tutor. In 1701 he preached the Boyle Lecture, and in 1703 he resigned the living of Tring, on his being presented to the vicarage of Deptford. He became D.D. in 1697, and in 1710 was appointed dean of Canterbury. He was also chaplain to William and Mary. He died in 1728, and was buried in the chancel of the church at Lewisham. His works are—"On the truth and excellence of Scripture"—the Boyle Lecture; "Paraphrase and Comment on the Epistles and Gospels," written for the use of the duke of Gloucester, heir presumptive to the throne. He published also several translations, as of Marcus Antoninus and the De Imitatione Christi. He edited Epictetus, with the Commentary of Simplicius, &c. Dean Stanhope was a man of learning and integrity, and was distinguished for great simplicity of manners.—J. E.
STANHOPE, James Stanhope, first earl, was the grandson of Philip, first earl of Chesterfield, by his second son, Alexander Stanhope, and was born in 1673. He was educated at the university of Oxford, but left it when a mere stripling to accompany his father in his embassy to Spain shortly after the Revolution. In spite of this interruption of his studies, however, by the diligent employment of his intervals of leisure young Stanhope afterwards became an accomplished scholar. After spending a year or two in Spain, he made the tour of France and Italy. He then entered the service of the duke of Savoy, and subsequently carried arms as a volunteer under King William in Flanders. His brilliant courage at the siege of Namur attracted the notice of that monarch, who gave him, young as he was, a company of foot, and soon after a colonel's commission. In the last parliament of that prince, he was elected member for Newport, and in the first of Queen Anne he sat for Cockermouth. In 1702, on the breaking out of the war of the succession, he commanded the vanguard of the English in the miserable expedition to Cadiz; he served in Portugal in 1704 under the duke of Schomberg, and in the following year in Spain under the brilliant earl of Peterborough. He acted as envoy-extraordinary to the Spanish court in 1706, and in 1708 was appointed commander-in-chief of the British forces in Spain. He gained the important battles of Almenara and Saragossa in 1710, at which he displayed great courage and skill. But a few months later he was
