ABRAM, an eminent English mathematician and astronomer, was born at Little Horton, near Bradford, in the year 1651. He was put as apprentice to a merchant at Manchester, but so strongly was he inclined to the study of mathematics that he soon found his situation both irksome and disagreeable. By the mutual consent, therefore, of his master and himself, he quitted the business of a merchant. He then removed to Liverpool, where he devoted himself wholly to mathematical studies, and where, for a subsistence, he taught writing and accounts. Soon after this, a merchant from London, in whose house the celebrated Flamsteed then lodged, engaged Sharp to be his bookkeeper. With this eminent astronomer he soon contracted an intimate friendship, and by his recommendation he obtained a more profitable employment in the dock-yard of Chatham, where he continued till his friend and patron called him to his assistance. Sharp was chiefly employed in the construction of the mural arch, which he finished in the course of fourteen months, so entirely to the satisfaction of Flamsteed, that he spoke of him in terms of the highest praise. In the opinion of Smeaton, this was the first good instrument of the kind, and Sharp the first artist who cut delicate divisions on astronomical instruments. When this instrument was constructed, Sharp was but twenty-five and Flamsteed thirty years of age. Sharp assisted his friend in making a catalogue of nearly three thousand fixed stars, with their longitudes and magnitudes, their right ascensions and polar distances, with the variations of the same while they change their longitude by one degree. But, from the fatigue of constantly observing the stars by night in a cold thin air, added to a weakly constitution, his health was much impaired. For the recovery of it he requested leave to retire to his house at Horton, where, as soon as he felt himself recovering, he began to fit up an observatory of his own; and the telescopes he made use of were all of his own construction, and the lenses ground and adjusted with his own hands.

It was about this time that he assisted Flamsteed in calculating most of the tables in the second volume of his Historia Coelestis, as appears by their letters, to be seen in the hands of Sharp's friends at Horton. Sharp, in 1717, published an elaborate treatise on Geometry, which he entitled Geometry Improved. He possessed a remarkably clear head for contriving, and an extraordinary hand for executing anything, not only in mechanics, but likewise in drawing, writing, and making the most beautiful figures, in all his calculations and constructions. The quadrature of the circle was undertaken by him for his own amusement, in the year 1699, deduced from two different series, by which the truth of it was proved to seventy-two places of figures, as may be seen in Sherwin's Tables of Logarithms. In the same book may likewise be seen his ingenious improvements on the making of logarithms, and the constructing of the natural sines, tangents, and secants.

Sharp kept up a correspondence with most of the eminent mathematicians and astronomers of his time, as Flamsteed, Newton, Halley, Wallis, Hodgson, the answers to whose letters are all written on the backs or empty spaces of the letters he received, in a short hand of his own invention. Being one of the most accurate and indefatigable computers who ever existed, he was many years the common resource for Flamsteed, Sir Jonas Moor, Halley, and others, in all sorts of troublesome and delicate calculations. Sharp was never married, and spent his time as a hermit. He was of a middle stature, very thin, of a weakly constitution, and remarkably feeble during the last three or four years before his death, which happened on the 18th of July 1742, in the ninety-first year of his age. He was very irregular as to his meals, and uncommonly sparing in his diet. A little square hole, resembling a window, formed a communication between the room where he usually studied, and another where a servant could enter; and before this hole he had contrived a sliding board. It often happened, that the breakfast, dinner, and supper remained untouched; and when the servant returned to remove the dishes, the meal was found just as it had been left.

GLENVILLE. See SLAVERY.

James, Archbishop of St Andrews, was born of a good family in Banffshire in the year 1618. He devoted himself early to the church, and was educated for that purpose in the University of Aberdeen. When the solemn league and covenant was framed in 1638, the learned men in that seminary, and young Sharp in particular, declared themselves decidedly against it. To avoid the insults and indignities to which he was subjected in consequence of this conduct, he retired to England, where he contracted an acquaintance with some of the most celebrated divines in that country. At the commencement of the civil wars he returned to Scotland. During his journey thither, he accidentally met with Lord Oxenford, who was so charmed with his conversation that he invited him to his house. While he resided with that nobleman, he became known to the Earl of Rothes, who procured him a professorship at St Andrews. By the interest of the Earl of Crawford, he was soon afterwards appointed minister of Crail, where he conducted himself, it is said, in an exemplary manner. Sharp had always inclined to the cause of royalty, and had for some time kept up a correspondence with his exiled prince. After this he began to declare himself more openly, and seems to have enjoyed a great share of the confidence of Monk, who was at that time planning the restoration of Charles II. When that general marched to London, the presbyterians sent Sharp to attend him, in order to support their interests. At the request of General Monk and the chief presbyterians in Scotland, Mr Sharp was sent over to the king at Breda, to procure from him, if possible, the establishment of presbytery. On his return, he assured his friends that "he had found the king very affectionate to Scotland, and resolved not to wrong the settled government of the church; but he apprehended they were mistaken who went about to establish the presbyterian government."

Charles was soon afterwards restored without any terms. All the laws passed in Scotland since the year 1633 were repealed; the king and his ministers resolved at all hazards to restore prelacy. Sharp, who had been commissioned by the Scotch presbyterians to manage their interests with the king, was prevailed upon to abandon the party; and as a reward for his compliance, he was made archbishop of St Andrews. This conduct rendered him very odious in Scotland. He was accused of treachery and perfidy, and reproached by his old friends as a traitor and renegade. The absurd and wanton cruelties which were afterwards committed, and which were imputed in a great measure to the archbishop, rendered him still more detested. Nor is it probable that these accusations were without foundation. The very circumstance of his having formerly been of the presbyterian party would induce him, after forsaking them, to treat them with severity. Besides, it is certain, that when, after the rout at Pentland Hills, he received an order from the king to stop the executions, he kept it for some time before he produced it to the council.

There was one Mitchell, a preacher, and a desperate fanatic, who had formed the design of taking vengeance for these cruelties by assassinating the archbishop. He fired a pistol at him as he was sitting in his coach; but the bishop of Orkney, lifting up his hand at the moment, intercepted the ball. Though this happened in the midst of Edinburgh, the primate was so much detested, that nobody stopped the assassin, who, having walked leisurely home, and thrown off his disguise, returned, and mixed unsuspected with the crowd. Some years afterwards, the archbishop observing a man eyeing him with keenness, suspected that he was the assassin, and ordered him to be brought before him. It was Mitchell. Two loaded pistols were found in his pocket. The primate offered him a pardon if he would confess the crime. The man complied; but Sharp, regardless of his promise, conducted him to the council. The council also gave him a solemn promise of pardon, if he would confess his guilt, and discover his accomplices. They were much disappointed to hear that only one man was privy to his purpose, who was since dead. Mitchell was then brought before a court of justice, and ordered to make a third confession, which he refused. He was imprisoned for several years, and then tried. His own confession was urged against him. It was in vain for him to plead the illegality of that evidence, and to appeal to the promise of pardon previously given. The council took an oath that they had given no such promise, and Mitchell was condemned. Lauderdale, who at that time governed Scotland, would have pardoned him, but the primate insisted on his execution, observing, that if assassins were permitted to go unpunished, his life must be continually in danger. Mitchell was accordingly executed.

Sharp had a servant, one Carmichael, who by his cruelty had rendered himself particularly odious to the zealots. Nine men formed the resolution of waylaying him in Magus Moor, about three miles from St Andrews. While they were waiting for this man, the primate himself appeared, with very few attendants. This they looked upon as a declaration of Heaven in their favour; and calling out, "The Lord has delivered him into our hands," they ran up to the carriage. They fired at him without effect, a circumstance which was afterwards imputed to magic. They then despatched him with their swords, regardless of the tears and entreaties of his daughter, who accompanied him. On the 3d of May 1679, thus fell Archbishop Sharp, whose memory is even at present detested by the common people of Scotland. His abilities were certainly good, and in the early part of his life he appears with honour and dignity. But his conduct afterwards was too cruel and insincere to merit approbation. His treatment of Mitchell was mean and vindictive. How far he contributed to the measures adopted against the Presbyterians is not certain. They were equally cruel and impolitic; nor did their effects cease with the measures themselves. The unbridled cruelties exercised by the ministers of Charles II. against the adherents of the Covenant raised such a flame of enthusiasm and bigotry as is not yet entirely extinguished.

John, Archbishop of York, was descended from the Sharps of little Norton, a family of Bradford Dale in Yorkshire; and was son of an eminent tradesman of Bradford, where he was born in 1644. He was educated at Cambridge, and in 1667 entered into orders. The same year he became domestic chaplain to Sir Heneage Finch, then attorney-general. In 1672 he was collated to the archdeaconry of Berkshire. In 1675 he was installed a prebendary in the cathedral church of Norwich; and the year following was instituted into the rectory of St Bartholomew, near the Royal Exchange, London. In 1681 he was, by the interest of his patron, Sir Heneage Finch, then lord high chancellor of England, made dean of Norwich, but in 1686 was suspended for taking occasion, in some of his sermons, to vindicate the doctrine of the Church of England in opposition to Popery. In 1688 he was sworn chaplain to James II., being then probably restored after his suspension; for it is certain that he was chaplain to Charles II., and attended as a court chaplain at the coronation of James II. In 1689 he was declared dean of Canterbury, but never could be persuaded to fill up any of the vacancies made by the deprived bishops. Upon the death of Dr Lamplugh, he was promoted to the see of York. In 1702 he preached the sermon at the coronation of Queen Anne; and the same year he was sworn of the privy council, and made Lord Almoner to her Majesty. He died at Bath in 1713, and was interred in the cathedral of York, where a monument was erected to his memory. His sermons were collected after his death and published in seven vols. See A Life of Archbishop Sharp, written by his son, Dr Thomas Sharp, appeared in 2 vols. in 1829.

William, an eminent line-engraver, was born at London on the 29th of January 1749. He was originally apprenticed to what is called a bright engraver, but gradually becoming inspired by the higher branches of the engraver's art, he exercised his gifts with surprising success on works of the old masters. He engraved the "Doctors Disputing on the Immaculateness of the Virgin," and the "Ecce Homo" of Guido Reni; the "St Cecilia" of Domenichino; the "Virgin and Child" of Dolci; and the portrait of "John Hunter" of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The latter work is considered a masterpiece in freedom and accuracy; and, in a power which Sharp possessed beyond all engravers of his day, of representing the various textures of his subject with wonderful skill. He died at Chiswick on the 25th July 1824. Sharp, although shrewd-minded in worldly matters, was one of the greatest visionaries in matters pertaining to religion. No imposture was too gross for him to accept, no deception too glaring for his eyes to admire. The dreams of Mesmer, the rhapsodies of Brothers, and the ravings of Joanna Southcott, found in Sharp a staunch believer. At his death he enjoyed the honour of being a member of the Imperial Academy of Vienna, and of the Royal Academy of Munich.