Opie, JOHN, R.A., was born at the village of St Agnes, 7 miles from Truro, Cornwall, in May 1761. His father, a master-carpenter, wished him to follow the same trade, but his bias for art was strong; and his attempts at portrait-painting secured the friendly help of Dr Wolcot ('Peter Pindar'). In 1780 he was taken to London by Dr Wolcot, and immediately came to be acknowledged by the fashionable world as the 'Cornish Wonder.' This tide of good-fortune soon ebbed, but not before Opie had realised a moderate competency. The loss of popular favour, however, only served to bring out Opie's manly independence and strong love of art, and he calmly entered on that department of painting which was then regarded as the only style of high art, namely, historical or scriptural subjects, executed on a large scale. His pencil was employed by Boydell in his well-meant and magnificent scheme to elevate British art; he also painted a number of works in the illustration of Bowyer's English History, Macklin's Poets and Biblical Gallery, and other similar undertakings. His pictures of the 'Murder of James I. of Scotland,' 'The Slaughter of Rizzio,' 'Jephtha's Vow,' 'Presentation in the Temple,' 'Arthur and Hubert,' 'Belisarius,' and 'Juliet in the Garden' are his most noted works. Opie was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1786, and Academician in the following year. He wrote the 'Life of Reynolds' in Dr Wolcot's edition of Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters, and
An Inquiry into the Requisite Cultivation of the Fine Arts in Britain; and delivered lectures on Art at the Royal Institution. Opie was twice married. He obtained a divorce from his first wife; his second was the novelist. He died April 9, 1807, and was buried in the crypt of St Paul's, near the grave of Reynolds.—AMELIA OPIE, daughter of a Norwich physician, Dr Alderson, was born in 1769, and while very young wrote songs and tragedies, and was acquainted with Godwin, Mrs Inchbald, Mrs Siddons, and much of the literary society of the time. She was married to Opie in 1798. In 1801 her first novel, Father and Daughter, appeared; the following year, a volume of poems. Adeline Mowbray and Simple Tales were her next works. On her husband's death she returned to Norwich, and published his lectures with a memoir prefixed. She wrote also Temper, Tales of Real Life, Valentine's Eve, Tales of the Heart, and Madeline. Having been long acquainted with the Gurneys, Mrs Opie became a Quaker in 1825, and afterwards published Illustrations in Lying, Detraction Displayed, and articles in periodicals, but no more novels. She died at Norwich, 2d December 1853. See her Memoirs by Miss Brightwell (1854), and Miss Thackeray's Book of Sibyls (1883).