WAINEWRIGHT, Thomas Griffiths (1794-c. 1852), journalist and subject-painter, was born at Chiswick in October 1794. He was educated by his distant relative Dr Charles Burney, and served as an orderly officer in the guards, and as cornet in a yeomanry regiment. In 1819 he entered on a literary life, and began to write for The Literary Pocket-Book, Blackwood's Magazine, and The Foreign Quarterly Review. He is, however, most definitely identified with The London Magazine, to which, from 1820 to 1823, he contributed some smart but most flippant art and other criticisms, under the signatures of “James Weathercock,” “Mr Bonmot,” and “Herr Vinkbooms.” He was a friend of Charles Lamb,—who thought well of his literary productions, and in a letter to Bernard Barton, styles him the “kind, light-hearted Wainewright,”—and of the other brilliant contributors to the journal. He also practised as an artist, designing illustrations to Chamberlayne’s poems, and from 1821 to 1825 exhibiting in the Royal Academy figure pictures, including a Romance from Undine, Paris in the Chamber of Helen, and the Milk Maid’s Song. Owing to his extravagant habits, Waine-wright’s affairs became deeply involved; and in 1830 he insured the life of his sister-in-law in various offices for a sum of <£18,000. The lady died in the December of the same year, and payment of the amount was declined by the companies on the ground of their having been misrepresentation when the insurance was effected. Wainewright now retired to France, but here he was seized by the authorities as a suspected person, and imprisoned for six months. On his being examined there was found upon his person a quantity of strychnine, a poison by means of which it was afterwards found he had destroyed, not only his ...