James Northcote, an English painter, born in Plymouth, Oct. 22, 1746, died July 13, 1831. He was the son of a watchmaker, with whom he served an apprenticeship, and subsequently devoted himself to painting. In 1771 he became a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and from 1777 to 1780 he studied in Italy. After his return he was occupied in portrait painting until the establishment of Alderman Boydell's "Shakespeare Gallery," for which he executed various pictures, the best of which are " Prince Arthur and Hubert," " The Murder of the Princes in the Tower," "The Death of Wat Tyler," and "The Entry of Bolingbroke and Richard II. into London." In 1787 he was elected an academician. He was subsequently eclipsed in portraiture by Lawrence and other artists, and his harsh criticisms of the works of his contemporaries made him exceedingly unpopular. He published " Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds" (4to, London, 1813; with supplement, 1815; 8vo, enlarged, 1819), valuable chiefly for the savings and anecdotes of Reynolds; "Life of Titian" (2 vols., 1830), the joint production of himself and Hazlitt; and two volumes of fables, of which the first, entitled " One Hundred Fables " (1828), contained original and selected pieces, with illustrations of his own, and the second, also illustrated by himself, was published after his decease under the title of "The Artist's Book of Fables".