Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/1031

This page needs to be proofread.

1014

STEELL— STEPHEN.

defeated in the Commons^ and in consequence dissolved Parliament, In 1859 he published " George Can- ning and his Times " in 1866, '*^ Intervention and Non-interven- tion;" in 1868, "The Origin of Fenianism ;" in 1871, " The French Case truly stated," showing how the French Government were beguiled into the declaration of war against Prussia; and in 1873, essays in Maemillan's Magazine commenting, from a contemporary point of view, on Charles Greville*s memoirs.

STEELL, Sir John, R.S.A., sculptor to Her Majesty for Scot- land, born in Aberdeen, in 1804, commenced the study of art in Edinburgh, where his parents re- sided; afterwards proceeded to Eome, and on his return from that city, in 1833, distinguished himself by a colossal model of Alexander and Bucephalus, now being cast in bronze for erection in Edinburgh. His sitting statue of Sir Walter Scott, in gray Carrara marble, under the lower ground arch of the monument to the great novelist at Edinburgh, brought him into notice. A public competition took . place for this statue, and Sir John's model was unanimously selected from among niunerous others. One of his principal works in Edin- burgh, the sitting colossal figure of the Queen, in her royal robes, with orb and sceptre, above the Royal Institution, gained for him the appointment of sculptor to her Ma- jesty for Scotland, and another of his works, the equestrian statue of the late Duke of Wellington, in bronze, was erected in 1852 in front of the Register House, Edinburgh. The bust taken from this figure so pleased the Duke that he ordered two to be executed for him — one for Apsley House, and the other for Eton. Sir John SteelFs statue of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, in the hall of Greenwich Hospital, his bronze statue of Lord Melville, his statues in marble of Lord Jeffrey and Lord Justice*General Boyle^ in

Edinburgh, and his monument to the 93rd Highlanders, in the Cathe- dral at Glasgow, have been favour- ably noticed by competent critics, and his statues of the late Marquis of Dalhousie, and of the distin- guished financier, the late Right Hon. James Wilson, have been erected in Calcutta. His statue of the late Professor Wilson, in bronze, twelve feet high, was placed on its pedestal in Princes Street, Edinburgh, March 21, 1865. He has executed another colossal statue of Allan Ramsay ; a marble statue of the Coimtess of Elgin, for Jamaica; busts of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh, and numerous other works. In 1872 Sir John Steell executed in bronze a full-size copy of his co- lossal statue of Sir Walter Scott, for the Central Park, New York; and he has completed the Scottish National Memorial to the late Prince Consort, which is erected in the centre of Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, and was inaugurated in August, 1876, by the Queen, who conferred the honour of knightiiood on the sculptor. He has executed a colossal bronze statue of the late Dr. Thomas Chalmers, erected in George Street, Edinburgh, and for America a colossal statue in bronze of the great Scottish poet, Robert Bums, erected in the Central Park, New York, as well as a replica of it for Dundee. He lately executed a large monumental work in memory of those who fell of the 42nd Royal Highlanders in the Russian war : it is in fine statuary marble, and erected in the Dunkeld Cathedral ; and a large allegorical frieze for Montreal . He was msSried early in life to a daughter of John Graham, Esq., of Edinburgh.

STEPHEN, Sir Axpbed, K.C.M.G., C.B., third son of the late John Stephen, a Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, born in 1802, was educated at the Charterhouse, and the Gram- mar School of Honiton, Devon.