Robert Seymour

Robert Seymour may refer to:

John Mottley

John Mottley (1692–1750) was an English writer, known as a dramatist, biographer, and compiler of jokes.

Life

He was the son of Colonel Thomas Mottley, a Jacobite adherent of James II in his exile, who entered the service of Louis XIV, and was killed at the battle of Turin in 1706; his mother was Dionisia, daughter of John Guise of Ablode Court, Gloucestershire. John was born in London, was educated at Archbishop Thomas Tenison's grammar school in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and obtained a clerkship in the excise office in 1708. He was compelled to resign his post in 1720, and from that time gained a precarious subsistence by his pen.

He died in 1750, having for some years previously been almost bedridden with gout.

Works

He made his debut as a dramatic author with a tragedy in the pseudo-classic style, entitled ‘The Imperial Captives,’ the scene of which is laid at Carthage, in the time of Genseric, who with the Empress Eudoxia and her daughter plays a principal part. The play was produced at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in February 1719–20. At the same theatre was produced in April 1721 Mottley's only other effort in tragedy, ‘Antiochus,’ based on the story of the surrender by Seleucus Nicator of his wife Stratonice to his son Antiochus. Both tragedies were printed on their production.

Robert Seymour (illustrator)

Robert Seymour (1798 – 20 April 1836) was a British illustrator. Seymour is known for his illustrations of the works of Charles Dickens and for his caricatures.

Early years

Seymour was born in Somerset, England in 1798, the second son of Henry Seymour and Elizabeth Bishop. Soon after moving to London Henry Seymour died, leaving his wife, two sons and daughter impoverished. In 1827 his mother died, and Seymour married his cousin Jane Holmes, having two children, Robert and Jane.

After his father died, Robert Seymour was apprenticed as a pattern-drawer to a Mr. Vaughan of Duke Street, Smithfield, London. Influenced by painter Joseph Severn RA, during frequent visits to his uncle Thomas Holmes of Hoxton, Robert’s ambition to be a professional painter was achieved at the age of 24 when, in 1822, his painting of a scene from Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, with over 100 figures, was exhibited at the Royal Academy.

He was commissioned to illustrate the works of Shakespeare; Milton; Cervantes, and Wordsworth. He also produced innumerable portraits, miniatures, landscapes, etc., as can be seen in two Sketchbooks; Windsor; Eaton; Figure Studies; Portraits at the Victoria and Albert Museum. After the rejection of his second Royal Academy submission, he continued to paint in oils, mastered techniques of copper engraving, and began illustrating books for a living.