DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY BlCHENO BOTTISHAM DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY EDITED P,Y LESLIE STEPHEN VOL. V. BlCHENO BOTTISHAM MACMILLAN AND CO, LONDON: SMITH, ELDER, & CO. 1886 .^ VL 1 . . 18 v.S LIST OF WBITEES IN THE FIFTH VOLUME. A. J. A. . T. A. A. . . J. A W. E. A. A. G. F. E. B. R. B G. T. B. A. S. B-L. . W. G-. B. . . G-. C. B. H. B-R. . . , H. B R. H. B. . , A. R. B. . , A. H. B. . H. M. C. . . A. M. C. . , T. C C. H. C. . . W. P. C. . , M. C. . . . . A. D R. K. D. . . T. F. T. D., J. W. E. . F. E. . . . L. F. . . . C. H. F. . F. J. F. . J. G. . . . R. CK . . . J. W.-G. . J. T. G. SIR ALEXANDER JOHN ARBUTHNOT, K.C.S.I. T. A. ARCHER. JOHN ASHTON. W, E. A. AXON. G. F. RUSSELL BARKER. THE REV. RONALD BAYNE. G. T. BETTANY. A. S. BlCKNELL. THE REV. PROFESSOR BLAIKIE, D.D. G. C. BOASE. HORATIUS BONAR. HENRY BRADLEY. R. H. BRODIE. THE REV. A. R. BUCKLAND. A. H. BULLEN. H. MANNERS CHICHESTER. Miss A. M. CLERKE. THOMPSON COOPER, F.S.A.. C. H. COOTE. W. P. COURTNEY. THE REV. PROFESSOR CREIGHTON. AUSTIN DOBSON. PROFESSOR R. K. DOUGLAS. THE REV. T. F. THISELTON DYER. THE REV. J. W. EBSWORTH, F.S.A. FRANCIS ESPINASSE. Louis FAG AN. C. H. FIRTH. F. J. FURNIVALL, PH.D. JAMES GAIRDNER. RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D. JOHN WESTBY-GIBSON, LL.D. J. T. GILBERT, F.S.A. A. G-T. . G. G. . . A. G. . . E. G. . . A. H. G. R. E. G. A. B. G. N. G. . . A. E. H. J. A. H. R. H. . . T. F. H. W. H-H. J. H. . '. R. H-T. . W. H. . . B. D. J. A. J. . . C. K. . . J. K. . . J. K. L. S. L. L. G. P. M. M. M. . W. D. M. C. T. M. J. M. . . A. M. . . C. M. . . N. M. . . , J. H. 0. J. F. P. , R. L. P. S. L.-P. . E. R. . . MRS. ANNE GILCHRIST. , . GORDON GOODWIN. . THE REV. ALEXANDER GORDON. . EDMUND GOSSE. . A. H. GRANT. . R. E. GRAVES. . THE REV. A. B. GROSART, LL.D. . NEWCOMEN GROVES. . A. EGMONT HAKE. . J. A. HAMILTON. . ROBERT HARRISON. . T. F. HENDERSON. . WALTER HEPWORTH. . Miss JENNETT HUMPHREYS. . ROBERT HUNT, F.R.S. . THE REV. WILLIAM HUNT. . B. D. JACKSON.* . THE REV. AUGUSTUS JESSOPP, D.D. . CHARLES KENT. . JOSEPH KNIGHT. . PROFESSOR J. K. LAUGHTON. . S. L. LEE. . G. P. MACDONELL. . -3SNEAS MACKAY. , . THE REV. W. D. MACRAY, F.S.A. . C. TRICE MARTIN. . JAMES MEW. . ARTHUR MILLER. . COSMO MONKHOUSK . NORMAN MOORE, M.D. . THE REV. CANON OVERTON. . J. F. PAYNE, M.D. . R. L. POOLE. . STANLEY LANEPOOLE. . ERNEST RADFORD. VI List of Writers. J. M. E. . . J. M. RIGG. C. J. R. . . THE REV. C. J. ROBINSON. J. H. R. . . J. H. ROUND. W. R WALTER RYE. E. S. S. . . E. S. SHUCKBURGH. B. C. S. . . . B. C. SKOTTOWE. G. B. S. . . G. BAENETT SMITH. W. B. S. . . W. BARCLAY SQUIRE. L. S LESLIE STEPHEN. H. M. S. . . H. MOESE STEPHENS. W. R. W. S. THE REV. CANON STEPHENS. C. W. S. . . C. W. BUTTON. E. M. T. . . E. MATJNDE THOMPSON. J. H. T. . . J. H. THORPE. T. F. T. . . PROFESSOR T. F. TOUT. W. H. T. . . W. H. TREGELLAS. E. V THE REV. CANON VENABLES. J. V JOHN VENN. F. W-T. . . . FRANCIS WATT. T. W-R. . . . THOMAS WHITTAKER. H. T. W. . . H. TRUEMAN WOOD. W. W. . . WARWICK WROTH. DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY Bicheno Bicheno BICHENO, JAMES EBENEZER (1785- 1851), colonial secretary in Van Diemen's Land, and a writer on economic and scientific subjects, was the son of the Rev. James Bicheno, a dissenting minister and school- master at Newbury, Berkshire, who died 9 April 1831, and was the author of ' Friendly Address to the Jews ' (1787) ; ' Signs of the Times ' (1 792-4) ; < A Word in Season ' (1795) ; and other politico-theological works. James Ebenezer was born in 1785. He spent the first part of his life at Newbury, and there wrote i An Inquiry into the Nature of Be- nevolence, chiefly with a view to elucidate the Principles of the Poor Laws ' (London, 1817 ; republished in an extended form, and under the title of ' An Inquiry into the Poor Laws/ London, 1824). This was an attack on the system of poor-law admini- stration then prevailing in England. The relief afforded by it, he said, ' multiplied in- stead of mitigating distress.' He gave an historical sketch of poor-law legislation, and argued in favour of a gradual change to a method of dealing with pauperism such as is now in force. He married a Miss Lloyd in 1821, but lost his wife within a year. He was called to the bar by the Middle Temple 17 May 1822. Whilst still a student he published a work on the ' Philosophy of Criminal Jurispru- dence ' (London, 1819), in which, after point- ing out that to defend society and improve the wretched are ' the only proper ends of punishment which reason and virtue sanction/ he urged that the penalties of the then cri- minal code were too severe. He proposed that the punishment of death should be re- stricted to a few cases, that whipping should be abolished, and that we should not ' burden the colonies with the refuse of our prisons.' Although Bicheno, after his call to the bar, VOL, v. joined the Oxford circuit, he did not engage seriously in the practice of his profession, but devoted himself to economic and scientific studies. He could the more easily do this, as his father was a man of some property, and he was his only surviving son and heir. He was a member of the chief English learned societies, and in 1824 he was appointed secretary to the Linnean Society. He con- tributed to their Transactions as well as to those of other societies, and assisted in the publication of several works, of which Jardine and Selby's ' Illustrations of Ornithology ' (Edinburgh, 1830 ?) may be mentioned. Bicheno engaged for some time in mining speculations in Wales, and the better to ma- nage them he resided at Tymaen, near Pyle, in Glamorganshire, and here he filled several local offices. He was obliged finally to with- draw, with some loss, from this undertaking. In 1829 he made, in company with Mr. Fre- derick Page, a deputy-lieutenant of Berkshire and bencher of the Middle Temple, a very extensive tour through Ireland. This re- sulted in the publication of ' Ireland and its Economy ' (London, 1830), in which he records his impressions of 'this land of strange anomalies/ as he calls it. The work is valu- able as a fair account of the state of Ireland at the time. In 1833 a commission, under the chairman- ship of Archbishop Whately, was appointed to investigate the condition of the poor in Ire- land. Bicheno was afterwards nominated a member, and he signed its second and third reports. To the last of these, presented in 1836, he appended some remarks of his own, in which he discussed the social condi- tion of Ireland at considerable length. In his opinion, after all that could be done for that country, ' her real improvement must spring from herself, her own inhabitants, and B Bickerstaff Bickerstaffe her own indigenous institutions, irrespective of legislation and of English interference/ In September 1842 he was appointed colo- nial secretary in Van Diemen's Land, and shortly after proceeded to that country, where j he fulfilled the duties of his office to the satis- faction alike of the colonists and of the home government. He was one of the founders, i a vice-president, and member of council of ; the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land, and a contributor to its papers. He died at Hobart Town, after a short illness, 25 Feb. i 1851. Bicheno's scientific writings took usually [ the form of papers contributed to the publi- cations of the various learned bodies with which he was connected. He was elected fellow of the Linnean Society 7 April 1812, and was secretary from 1825 to 1832. His herbarium is in the public museum at Swan- | sea. His papers were : ' Observations on the j Orchis militaris of Linnaeus' (Linn. Soc. Trans, xii., 1818) ; ' Observations on the Lin- nean Genus Juncus ' (Linn. Soc. Trans, xii., 1818) ; < On Systems and Methods in Natural j History ' (Linn. Soc. Trans, xv., 1827 ; ' Philo- sophical Mag.' iii., 1828) ; < On the Plant in- , tended by the Shamrock of Ireland ' (Royal \ Inst. Journ. i., 1831) ; ' On the Potato in : connexion with Distress in Ireland ' (Van Diemen's Land Royal Soc. Papers, i., 1851) ; and (to the same volume) ' On a Specimen of Pristis cirrhatus.' [G-ent. Mag. vol. xxxvi., new series ; Annual Re- gister for 1851 ; Nicholls's History of the Irish Poor Law (London, 1856) ; Report of the Royal | Society of Van Diemen's Land for 1851 (Hobart Town, 1852).] F. W-T. BICKERSTAFF, WILLIAM (1728- j 1789), antiquary, was born at Leicester j 17 July 1728, where he was appointed under- j master of the Lower Free Grammar School j 30 Jan. 1749-50. He took orders in December | 1770, being successively curate at most of J the churches at Leicester, and also at Great "Wigston and Ayleston, two villages in the neighbourhood. He died suddenly at his lodgings in Leicester on 26 Jan. 1789. He possessed good classical attainments, and had a wide knowledge of antiquarian and histori- cal subjects, being a frequent contributor to the ' Gentleman's Magazine.' From a corre- spondence published in that periodical after his death it appears that he was in straitened circumstances throughout the greater part of his career, receiving a salary of only 19/. 16s. for his services at the Leicester grammar school. At fifty-eight years of age he speaks of himself as ' a poor curate, unsupported by private property.' Among his antiquarian re- searches may be noticed several valuable com- munications, which Mr. Nichols embodied in his ' History of Leicester.' [Gent. Mag. 1789, lix. 181,203-5; Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, 1790, viii. 1371.] T. F. T. D. BICKERSTAFFE, ISAAC (d. 1812?), dramatic writer, was born in Ireland about 1735. At the age of eleven he was ap- pointed one of the pages to Lord Chester- field, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland. His earliest production was ' Leucothoe,' a tragic opera, printed in 1756, but never acted. In 1762 his comic opera, ( Love in a Village,' was acted with great applause at Covent Garden. For the plot the author was in- debted to Charles Johnson's l Village Opera,' Wycherley's ' Gentleman Dancing-Master,' and Marivaux's ' Jeu de 1' Amour et du Hazard.' The piece was printed in 1763, and has been included in Bell's * British Theatre ' and other collections. In 1765 was published the 1 Maid of the Mill,' founded on Richardson's '* Pamela.' It met with much success, and as an after-piece continued to be acted with applause for many years. Between 1760 and 1771 BickerstaiFe produced a score of pieces for the stage. Mrs. Inchbald con- sidered him second only to Gay as a farce writer. His songs are written with some gusto, and the dialogue is often sparkling. While he was engaged in writing for the stage, Bickerstaffe enjoyed the society of the most famous men of his time. On 16 Oct. 1769, as recorded by Boswell, he was one of a company that dined in Boswell's rooms in Old Bond Street. The others were Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Goldsmith, Garrick, and Murphy. From an honourable position he afterwards sank into the deepest ignominy. He had been an officer in the marines, but was dismissed from the service under discreditable circumstances. In 1772, being suspected of a capital crime, he fled abroad. For a time he was living at St. Malo under an assumed name ; and from that place he wrote in French a piteous letter to Garrick, dated 24 June 1772, in which he says : * Ayant perdu mes amis, mes esp6rances, tomb6, exile et livre au desespoir comme je suis, la vie est un fardeau presque insupportable; j'etois loin de soupconner que la derniere ibis que j'entrais dans votre librairie, serait la derniere fois quej'yentrerais de ma vie, et que je ne reverrais plus le maitre.' The letter is endorsed by Garrick, 'From that poor wretch Bickerstaffe. I could not answer it.' In 1805 the author of the ' Thespian Dictionary ' speaks of Bicker- staffe as then living abroad ; and in 1812, if Bickersteth Bickersteth the statement of Stephen Jones in the ' Bio- graphia Dramatica ' is to be trusted, he was still dragging out his life (after forty years' exile), ' poor and despised of all orders of people.' What became of him afterwards is ! unknown. In 1812 he was an old man of j seventy-seven years. Shortly after his flight j in 1772 the malignant Dr. Kenrick published ' anonymously a venomous satire, ' Love in | the Suds, a Town Eclogue ; being the lamen- I tation of Roscius for the loss of his Nyky/ fol., in which he did not scruple to -make the grossest charges against Garrick. Doubtless ! Garrick had rejected some play offered by Kenrick, and the latter avenged himself by penning his abominable libel. A full account of Bickerstaffe's dramatic productions is given j in 'Biographia Dramatica,' 1812. A copy, preserved in the British Museum, of a tract j entitled ' The Life and Strange Unparallel'd and Unheard-of Voyages and Adventures of j Ambrose Gwinet. . . . Written by Himself,' 8vo, 1770, has the following manuscript note by a former owner : ' Dr. Percy told me that he had heard that this pamphlet was a mere fiction, written by Mr. Bickerstaffe, the dra- matic poet.' [Thespian Dictionary, 1805 ; Biographia Dra- matica, ed. Stephen Jones, 1812; Private Cor- respondence of David Garrick, 1831, i. 266-7, 273-5, 277, 417-18 ; Preface to the Maid of the Mill, invol.viii. of Bell's British Theatre, 1797.] A. H. B. BICKERSTETH, EDWARD (1786- 1850), evangelical divine, was the fourth son of Henry Bickersteth, surgeon, of Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmoreland, author of * Medical Hints for the Use of Clergymen ' (London, 1829), and Elizabeth, daughter of John Batty. His third eldest brother was Henry, Lord Langdale [see BICKEKSTETH, HENKY], master of the rolls. After a few years at Kirkby Lonsdale grammar school he received at the age of fourteen an appointment in the General Post Office, and left his father's house to live in London. In 1803 he joined the Blooms- bury Volunteer Association. Becomingweary of the monotonous nature of his employment and the slender prospect of advancement, he j engaged himself in 1806 to work in a solicitor s office, after his regular work for the day was done. His employer, Mr. Bleasdale, was struck by his industry, and the next year took him j as an articled clerk on advantageous terms. [ In 1805 he was under strong religious impres- sions. He laid down exact rules for his con- | duct, and kept a weekly diary in which he I noted any failure in his observance of them. These impressions increased in strength, and in 1808 his correspondence was almost wholly on spiritual matters, and his diary was filled with religious meditations. At the same time he was diligent at the office, working from 9 a.m. till 9 p.m., and doing, his employer said, ' the work of three or four clerks.' With this work, however, he now combined an active part in the administration of the Widows' Friend and the Spitalfields Benevolent So- cieties. In 1812 he left Mr. Bleasdale's office, married Sarah, the daughter of Thomas Bignold, and entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, a solicitor at Norwich. During his residence at Norwich he took an active part in religious matters. At this time also he wrote his ' Help to Study- ing the Scriptures,' which passed through twenty-one editions. In 1815 he gave up the practice of law, was ordained deacon 10 Dec., and as he engaged himself to go out to Africa at once in the service of the Church Missionary Society, he received priest's orders 21 Dec. The object of his mission was to inspect and report on the work of the society in Africa, and on certain disputes between the missionaries. Leaving Portsmouth 24 Jan. 1816, he arrived at Sierra Leone on 7 March. He returned home by Barbadoes, and arrived in England 17 Aug. An account of his work in Africa will be found in the Church Mis- sionary Society's sixteenth annual report. Immediately on his return he was engaged as one of the society's secretaries. During the next fourteen years he constantly travelled from place to place as a Church Missionary Society's ' deputation,' and on the few Sun- days when he was at home acted as assistant minister of Wheler Episcopal Chapel, Spital- fields. Up to 1820 he lived in the Church Missionary Society's house in Salisbury Square, and in that year moved to another house belonging to the society in Barnsbury Park, Islington. In spite of his constant jour- neys he wrote several religious books which had a large sale. In 1827 he was sent to Basel to inspect the working of the missionary insti- tution there which was in connection with the English Church Missionary Society. Find- ing that his constant absence from home hindered him from paying sufficient atten- tion to his family, to the congregation of Wheler Chapel, and even to his committee work, he pressed the society not to give him more than six Sundays' travelling in the year. His request was refused ; he therefore gladly accepted the rectory of Watton, Hertford- shire, offered him by Mr. Abel Smith, and moved thither in November 1830. Although Bickersteth resigned his secre- taryship on accepting the living of Watton, he continued all through his life to travel for the Church Missionary Society. He also Bickersteth Bickersteth frequently acted as ' a deputation ' for the Society for the Conversion of the Jews, and for other religious associations. In 1832 he I was much engaged in editing the ' Christian's i Family Library,' a series of republications of } various theological works. He was a strong ] protestant and ' Millenarian.' He opposed j the action of the Bible Society in admitting j Unitarian ministers to a share in its manage- i ment. While, however, he upheld the Trini- i tarian Bible Society which was established at this crisis, he did not separate himself from the older association. About this time Bickersteth compiled his ' Christian Psalm- . ody,' a collection of over 700 hymns, to which ! he subsequently added about 200 more. This collection met with great popularity, and in ! about seven years after its first appearance j reached its fifty-ninth edition. It long con- ; tinued the most popular hymn-book of the j evangelical party, and forms the basis of a | collection compiled by Bickersteth's son, the Rev. E. H. Bickersteth, entitled the 'Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer.' i In order to counteract the tendency of the i ' Tracts for the Times,' Bickersteth, in 1836, | edited the ' Testimony of the Reformers/ j In the introduction to this work, afterwards ' republished in a separate form under the title of the ' Progress of Popery,' he made some \ strictures on the character of the publications j of the Society for the Propagation of Christian ! Knowledge, which led some of the evangelical party to withdraw their support from the society, and caused considerable discussion in the religious world. With the same object he took part in 1840 in the formation of the Parker Society for republishing the works of the English reformers. An attack of pa- ralysis in the next year incapacitated him for some months. He was active in promot- ing the ' Protest against Tractarianism ' of 1843, and in forwarding the formation of the ! Evangelical Alliance. In October 1845 he took a prominent part in the meeting held at Liverpool to settle the basis of the Alliance, and the next year answered the attack made on the meeting by the ' Christian Observer.' A severe accident befell him in February 1846. While on his way to an Alliance meeting, he was thrown out of his carriage and run over, the cart which passed over him, oddly enough, being engaged in hauling materials for the erection of a Roman catholic i church. For a while his life was despaired | of, and for two months he was unable to leave i his room. The Maynooth grant strongly ex- cited his indignation, and in 1847 he inte- rested himself in the 'Special Appeal for Ireland' which the next year led to the establishment of the Irish Church Missions Society. He took part in the foundation of this society, and visited Ireland in order to promote it. Early in 1850 Bickersteth again suffered from paralysis, and died on 28 Feb. He left one son, Rev. E. H. Bickersteth, at present (1885) vicar of Christ Church, Hamp- stead (the author of ' Yesterday, To-day, and Forever,' a poem, and other works), and five daughters, of whom the eldest married Rev. T. R. Birks [q. v.], the author, among other books, of the life of his father-in-law. Bicker- steth's works are numerous. A collective edition of the more important of them was published (London, 1853) in 16 vols. 8vo, including ' A Scripture Help,' 21st edition ; 'A Treatise on Prayer,' 18th edition; 'A Treatise on the Lord's Supper,' 13th edition ; ' The Christian Hearer/ 5th edition ; ' The Christian Student,' 2 vols., 5th edition; 'The Chief Concerns of Man/ a volume of sermons - r 1 A Guide to the Prophecies, embodying Prac- tical Remarks 011 Prophecy/ also published separately, 8th edition; 'Christian Truth/ 4th edition ; ' On Baptism/ 3rd edition ; ' Re- storation of the Jews/ 3rd edition ; ' Family Prayers/ 18th thousand ; ' The Promised Glory of the Church/ 3rd edition ; ' Divine Warning/ 5th edition; ' Family Expositions, 1 " 2nd edition ; ' Signs of the Times in the East/ 2nd edition. To these must be added the 'Christian Psalmody/ 1833 ; a 'Harmony of the Gospels/ 1833; 'Domestic Portraiture/ 1833; 'The Testimony of the Reformers/ including the ' Progress of Popery/ also pub- lished separately, 1836 ; ' Letters on Christian Union/ 1845 ; ' Destruction of Babylon/ &c., 1848 ; ' Defence of Baptismal Services/ 1850 ; together with much editorial work, prefaces, and introductions, as well as a large number of small publications, sermons, tracts, &c. [Birks's Memoir of Rev. E. Bickersteth, 2 vols. 8vo; Memoir by Sir C. E. Eardley, Bart., 16mo, reprinted from Evangelical Christendom ; Record newspaper, 1845-50; Christian Observer, 1846 T W.H. BICKERSTETH, HENRY, BAKON LANG- DALE (1783-1851), master of the rolls, was born at Kirkby Lonsdale on 18 June 1783, and was the third son of Henry Bicker- steth, and brother of Edward Bickersteth [q. v.] After receiving an education at the grammar school of his native place, he was; apprenticed to his father in 1797, and in the following year was sent up to London further to qualify himself for the medical profession under the guidance of his mater- nal uncle, Dr. Robert Batty [q. v.] By the advice of this uncle, in Octdbe'r 1801, he went to Edinburgh to pursue his medical studies, and in the following year was called home- Bickersteth Bickersteth to take his father's practice in his temporary absence. Disliking the idea of settling down in the country as a general practitioner, young Bickersteth determined to become a London physician. With a view to obtaining .a medical degree, on 22 June 1802 his name ! was entered in the books of Caius College, Cambridge, and, on 27 Oct. in the same year, he was elected a scholar on the Hewitt foundation. Owing to his intense applica- tion to work, his health broke down after his first term. A change of scene being deemed necessary to insure his recovery, he obtained, through Dr. Batty, the post of medical at- tendant to Edward, fifth earl of Oxford, who was then on a tour in Italy. After his return from the continent he continued with the Earl of Oxford until 1805, when he returned to Cambridge. At this time he had a great wish to enter the army, but gave it up in deference to his parents' disapproval. After three years of indefatigable industry he became the senior wrangler, and senior ' Smith's mathematical prizeman of his year (1808), Miles Bland, the mathematical writer, ' Blomfield, bishop of London, and Adam j Sedgwick, the geologist, being amongst his : most distinguished competitors. Having j taken his degree, he was immediately elected | -a fellow of his college, and thereupon made up his mind to enter the profession of the | law. On 8 April 1808 he was admitted to the Inner Temple as a student, and, in the beginning of 1810, became a pupil of John Bell [q. v.], an eminent chancery counsel. He was called to the bar on 22 Nov. 1811, and in the same year took his degree of M.A. At first his professional progress was so slow that he seems to have doubted whether he ought to have occasioned his father any further expense by continuing at the bar. In 1819 he was offered a seat in parliament, through the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, but this he refused, and he never sat in the House of Commons. His business and reputation so much advanced, however, that, in August 1824, he was examined before the commission appointed to inquire into the procedure of the court of chancery. His examination lasted four days, and the evidence which he gave showed the thorough grasp which he had of the subject, and the necessity of the reforms which he advocated. In May 1827 he was appointed a king's counsel, and thence- forth confined his practice wholly to the court of Sir John Leach, master of the rolls, where he shared the lead of the court with Mr. Pemberton Leigh for many years. He was called to the bench of his inn on 22 June 1827. In 1831 he declined the newly created office of chief judge in bankruptcy, in Febru- i ary 1834 that of baron of the exchequer, and in September of the same year the post of soli- citor-general. On 16 Jan. 1836 he was sworn a member of the privy council, and on the 19th of that month was appointed master of the rolls in the place of Pepys, who had been made lord chancellor. By letters patent, dated 23 Jan. 1836, he was created Baron Langdale of Langdale in the county of "Westmoreland. It was not without a con- siderable struggle that he consented to take a peerage, and at length only withdrew his objections on the conditions that he might have entire political independence and be allowed to devote himself to law reform. During the fifteen years that he held the post of master of the rolls his judicial cha- racter stood deservedly high. Eminently patient in listening to argument, and pains- taking in getting hold of the whole facts of the case, he has rarely been surpassed on the bench in impartiality, sound reasoning, or clearness of language. The appeals against his decisions were few and rarely successful. The reports of his more important judgments in the rolls court will be found in Beavan, vols. i. to xiii. The earliest of his decisions is the case of ' Tullett v. Armstrong,' so familiar to lawyers as a leading case on the law of married women's property, a subject about which he was always especially vigilant. By far the best known of his judgments, however, is that which he drew up and delivered in * Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter/ which came before the judicial committee of the privy council on appeal from the dean of arches. As keeper of the rolls he gained the name of the ' father of record reform.' It was through his unremitting perseverance that the go- vernment at last consented to provide an adequate repository for the national records. In the House of Lords he abstained from party controversy as being inconsistent with his judicial office, and devoted his time there to the prosecution of legal reforms. He con- ducted the act for the amendment of wills through the house, and was the principal author of the acts for abolishing the six clerks' office and for amending the law in relation to attorneys and solicitors. His speech on the second reading of the bill for the better administration of justice in the High Court of Chancery, which he delivered on 13 June 1836, was published as a pam- phlet. His labours, however, as a reformer of the court of chancery fell far short of his intentions, for his time was fully occupied by his judicial and other numerous duties. He also gave unremitting attention to his duties as trustee of the British Museum and as head of the registration and conveyancing commis- Bickersteth Bickerton sion which was issued 18 Feb. 1847. During the illness of Lord Cottenham in 1850 he undertook the duties of speaker of the House of Lords. Under the strain of this incessant labour his health gave way, and, in May 1850, when he was offered the post of lord chan- cellor by Lord John Russell, he felt obliged to decline it. He, however, consented to act as the head of a commission until a lord chancellor was appointed and the seal was delivered to him, Sir Lancelot Shadwell, the vice-chancellor of England, and Baron Rolfe, on 19 June 1850. This additional work over- taxed his failing health, and on 28 March 1851 he resigned the office of master of the rolls. Three weeks afterwards, on 18 April, he died at Tunbridge AVells, whither he had been ordered by the doctors, and on the 24th was buried in the Temple Church, close to the last resting-place of Sir William Follett. He was a man of most admirable character, both in private and public life, of high prin- ciple, great integrity, and of wonderful in- dustry. In politics he was throughout his life devoted to the cause of liberal opinions, and in his early life was the friend of Sir Francis Burdett and Jeremy Bentham, a circumstance which somewhat retarded his career at the bar. He married Lady Jane Elizabeth Harley, the eldest daughter of his friend and patron the Earl of Oxford, on 17 Aug. 1835, and by her had an only daughter, Jane Frances, who married Alex- ander, Count Teleki, and died on 3 May 1870. In default of male issue the barony became extinct on Lord Langdale's death. His wife survived him, and upon the death of her brother Alfred, the sixth and last earl of Oxford, resumed her maiden name as the heiress of the Oxford family. She died on 1 Sept. 1872. [Hardy's Memoirs of Lord Langdale (1852); Foss's Judges (1864), ix. 136-46 ; Annual Ee- gister, 1851, appendix, pp. 280-1; Gent. Mag. 1851, xxxv. N.S. 661-3; Law Magazine, xlv. O.S. 283-93 ; Law Eeview, xiv. 434-6 ; Legal Observer, xlii. 436-7 ; Law Times, xvii. 59, 60 ; Campbell's Lord Chancellors, viii. passim ; Edin- burgh Review, Ixxxv. 476-90 ; Quarterly Eeview, xci. 461-503.] G. F. E. B. BICKERSTETH,ROBERT(1816-1884), bishop of Ripon, the fourth son of the Rev. John Bickersteth, rector of Sapcote, Leices- tershire, and Henrietta, daughter of Mr. G. Lang, was born at Acton, Suffolk. His father was brother of Edward Bickersteth [q. v.l After some medical training, he entered Queens' College, Cambridge, and graduated as a junior optime in 1841. He was ordained the same year to the curacy of Sapcote, where he remained until 1843. The next year he was appointed curate of St. Giles's, Reading, and the year after of Holy Trinity, Clapham. In 1845 he was appointed to the incumbency of St. John's, Clapham, which he held for six years. During this period he attained conside- rable popularity as an evangelical preacher. In 1846 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. J. Garde of Cork. On the death of his uncle, the Rev. Edward Bickersteth of Wat- ton [q. v.], in 1850, he took up his work as an hon. secretary of the Irish Church Mis- sions. He left Clapham for the living of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, where he had a large congregation. In 1854 he was appointed canon residentiary and treasurer of the cathe- dral church of Salisbury. On the translation of Bishop Longley to the see of Durham in 1856 Bickersteth succeeded to the bishopric of Ripon, and was consecrated 18 June 1857. The bishop was a liberal in politics. He occa- sionally took part in the debates in the House of Lords. He opposed the disestablishment of the Irish church, and on 17 June 1869 spoke with considerable ability against the bill. He strongly advocated the legalisa- tion of marriage with a deceased wife's sis- ter. As long as his health allowed he was active in the discharge of his official duties. During his episcopate he consecrated 155 churches. The restoration of his cathedral church was begun in June 1862, and carried out at the cost of 40,0007. He preached con- stantly in different parts of his diocese, some- times as often as three times in a single Sun- day. Although he was not a total abstainer, he was zealous in promoting temperance. He was regarded as one of the leaders of the evangelical school, and was strongly opposed to the introduction of any ceremonies or doc- trines not strictly in accord with the opinions of his party. At the same time his long epi- scopate seems to have been free from all ac- tions at law on matters of ritual. During the last two years of his life he was disabled by sickness from active work, and some news- paper attacks were made on him for not re- signing his see. As, however, eminent phy- sicians assured him that he might hope to be restored to health, he did not see fit to resign. He died at his palace at Ripon 15 April 1884, leaving four sons and one daughter. Bishop Bickersteth published his speech on the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill, London, 1869, and several charges, sermons, lectures, tracts, and prefaces to books. [Record, 18 April 1884; Leeds Mercury, 16 April 1884; Guardian, May 1883; private information.] W. H. BICKERTOlSr, SIR RICHARD (1727- 1792), vice-admiral, son of a captain in the Bickerton Bickerton 4th dragoon guards, entered the navy in 1739, on the outbreak of the war with Spain. In the following year he was appointed to the Suffolk, of 70 guns, with Captain Davers, and sailed in her to the West Indies, to form part of the expedition against Cartagena in the spring of 1741. After more than two years in the Suffolk he was for a few months in the Stirling Castle in the Mediterranean; he was then appointed to the Channel station, with Sir Charles Hardy or Sir John Norris, in the St. George, Duke, and Victory. Fortu- nately for himself [see BALCHEN, Sir JOHN], he was early in 1744 appointed from the Vic- tory to the Cornwall, of 80 guns, bearing the flag of his old captain, now Vice-admiral Davers, who was going out as commander- in-chief to the West Indies. Admiral Davers promoted him to a lieutenancy on 8 Feb. 1745-6, and he continued on the same station, in the Worcester, till the peace of 1748. In 1759 he commanded the ^Etna fireship in the Mediterranean with Boscawen, by whom he was advanced to post rank on 21 Aug. after the destruction of M. de la Clue's squadron at Lagos. He was then ap- pointed to the Glasgow frigate in the West Indies, and in 1761 to the Lively in the Channel. In 1767 he commanded the Re- nown in the West Indies ; on the dispute about the Falkland Islands in 1770 he was ap- pointed to the Marlborough, which he com- manded for three years, and at the naval re- view, June 1773, steered the king's barge and received the honour of knighthood. For the next four years he commanded the Augusta yacht, and, when war with France was immi- nent in the spring of 1778, was appointed to the Terrible, of 74 guns, which he commanded in the battle of Ushant, 27 July. During the shameful summer of 1779, while the com- bined fleets of France and Spain swept the Channel, the Terrible was one of the fleet at Spit head under Sir Charles Hardy. In 1780 Bickerton commanded the Fortitude, of 74 guns, still in the Channel, under Admirals Geary and Darby, and assisted in the second relief of Gibraltar, April 1781. He was shortly afterwards appointed to the Gibraltar, 80, as commodore of the first class ; and with six other ships of the line and two frigates under his orders, he sailed for the East Indies on 6 Feb. 1782. The squadron did not j arrive on the station till the beginning of the following year, with many men sick of scurvy. They were, however, able to take part in the indecisive action oft' Cuddalore, 20 June 1783. Sir Richard returned to Eng- land in 1784, and in 1786 was appointed commander-in-chief at the Leeward Islands, with his broad pennant on board the Jupiter, from which he was superseded on his promo- tion to flag rank 24 Sept 1787. During the Spanish armament of 1790 he held a command in the fleet under Lord Howe, and hoisted his flag in the Impregnable, of 90 guns. He became a vice-admiral on 21 September, and the dispute with Spain being happily arranged, he was appointed port-admiral at Plymouth, with his flag in the St. George. He was still holding that office when he died, of an apoplectic fit, 25 Feb. 1792. He was created a baronet 29 May 1778, on the occasion of the king's visit to Ports- mouth. At the time of his death he was member of parliament for Rochester. He married, in 1758, Mary Anne, daughter of Thomas Hussey, Esq., of Wrexham, and had issue two sons and two daughters. [Charnock's Biog. Nav. vi. 349 ; Beatson's Naval and Military Memoirs (under date) ; Burke's Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies.] J. K. L. BICKERTON, SIK RICHARD HUS- SEY (1759-1832), admiral, son of Vice-admi- ral Sir Richard Bickerton [q. v.], entered the navy in December 1771, on board the Marl- borough, then commanded by his father. In the Marlborough, and afterwards in the Au- gusta yacht, he continued with his father till 1774, when he was appointed to the Med- way,of 60 guns, flagship in the Mediterranean. Two years later he was transferred to the En- terprise frigate, and afterwards to the Invin- cible with Captain Hyde Parker. On 16 Dec. 1777 he was made lieutenant in the Prince George, commanded by Captain Middleton, afterwards Lord Barham. He followed Mid- dleton to the Jupiter, of 50 guns, where he remained as first lieutenant with Captain Rey- nolds, who afterwards succeeded to the com- mand. On 20 Oct. 1778 the Jupiter, in com- pany with the Medea frigate, fell in with the French 64-gun ship Triton on the coast of Portugal. A brisk action followed (BEATSON, Nav. and Mil. Memoirs, iv. 441), in which both ships suffered severely ; and though no particular advantage was gained on either side, the odds against the Jupiter were con- sidered so great as to render her equal en- gagement equivalent to a victory. Her first lieutenant was accordingly promoted 20 March 1779, and appointed to the command of the Swallow sloop. After nearly two years' service in the Channel the Swallow was sent out to join Sir George Rodney in the West Indies ; and on 8 Feb. 1781 Bicker- ton was posted into the Gibraltar. In the action between Hood and De Grasse off Martinique, 29 April 1781, he commanded the Invincible, and was soon afterwards sent Bickerton 8 Bickley home in command of the Amazon frigate. From 1787 to 1790 he commanded the Sibylle frigate in the West Indies. By the death of i his father in 1792 he succeeded to the baro- netcy, and in 1793 commissioned the Ruby, 64, for service in the Channel. Towards the end of 1794 he was transferred to the Ramil- lies, in which he went to the West Indies and Newfoundland, returning in the end of 1795 to form part of the North Sea fleet, in 1796, under Admiral Duncan, and of the Channel fleet in 1797 under Lord Bridport. In 1798 he commanded the Terrible, still in | the Channel fleet, and attained the rank of j rear-admiral 14 Feb. 1799. In the autumn | of the same year he hoisted his flag at Ports- mouth as assistant to the port-admiral ; in May 1800 he was sent out to the Mediterra- nean, and, with his flag on board the Swift- sure, had the immediate command of the blockade of Cadiz until joined by Lord Keith in October. During the following year, with ' his flag in the Kent, he was employed on the coast of Egypt, conducting the blockade in the absence of the commander-in-chief, and afterwards superintending the embarkation of the French army. For his services at this time he was rewarded by the sultan with the order of the Crescent, \vith the insignia of which he was ceremoniously invested by the capitan pasha 8 Oct. 1801. During the short peace he remained in the Mediterranean as commander-in-chief, and, on the renewal of the war, as second in command under Lord Nelson, with whom he served, during 1804 and the early months of 1805, in the blockade of Toulon. In May, when Nelson sailed for the West Indies, Bickerton, with his flag in the Royal Sovereign, was left in command (Nelson Despatches, vi. 421), but was soon afterwards called home to take office at the admiralty, where he continued till 1812, when he was appointed commander- in-chief at Portsmouth. His active service ended shortly after the grand review in 1814, at which he commanded in the second post under the Duke of Clarence. He attained the rank of vice-admiral 9 Nov. 1805, of ad- miral 31 July 1810, was made K.C.B. 2 Jan. 1815, lieutenant-general of marines 5 Jan. 1818, and succeeded William IV as general of marines in June 1830. In 1823 he assumed, by royal permission, the name of Hussey before that of Bickerton. He married, in 1788, Anne, daughter of Dr. James Athill, of Antigua, but had no children, and on his death, 9 Feb. 1832, the baronetcy became extinct. [Marshall's Eoy. Nav. Biog. i. 125; Ealfe's Naval Biog. ii. 277 ; Gent. Mag. cii. i. 175.1 J. K. L. BICKHAM, GEORGE, the elder (d. 1769), writing-master and engraver, was born about the end of the seventeenth century. He was the most celebrated penman of his time, and published in 1743 a folio volume entitled ' The Universal Penman . . . ex- emplified in all the useful and ornamental branches of modern Penmanship, &c. ; the whole embellished with 200 beautiful decora- tions for the amusement of the curious.' He also practised engraving, but his productions in this department had little merit. He engraved Rubens's ' Peace and War ' and * Golden and Silver Ages ; ' ' Philosophy,' a large plate from his own design ; a few por- traits, including those of Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Blackall, Stephen Duck the poet, and George Shelly, John Clark, and Robert More, writing-masters ; the plates to ' British Mo- narchy, or a new ChorogTaphical Description of all the Dominions subject to the King of Great Britain,' 1748; and those to 'The Beauties of Stow,' 1753. Bickham was a member of "the Free Society of Artists, and exhibited with them from 1761 to 1765. His stock-in-trade, plates, &c., were sold by auc- tion in May 1767, and he died at Richmond in 1769. [Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting (Wornum), p. 969 ; Strutt's Biog. Diet, of Engravers (1785) ; Brian's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (ed. Graves), 1885 ; Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists (1878); MS. notes in British Museum.] L. R BICKHAM, GEORGE, the younger (d. 1758), engraver, son of George Bickham (d. 1769), [q. v.], was one of the earliest political caricaturists, and executed many of the hu- morous designs published by Messrs. Bowles. He engraved ' A View and Representation of the Battle of Zenta, fought 11 Sept. 1696,' and ' The Description of the Loss of his Majesty's Ship the Northumberland, taken by the French, 8 May 1744 ; ' also many head-pieces for songs, portraits of himself and his father, and that of Serjeant Thomas Barnardiston [q. v.] The younger Bickham was the author of ' An Introductive Essay on Drawing, with the Nature and Beauty of Light and Shadows,' &c., 1747. He died in 1758. [Strutt's Biog. Diet, of Engravers (1785); Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists (1878); MS. notes in British Museum.] L. F. BICKLEY, THOMAS,D.D. (1518-1596), bishop of Chichester, was born at Stow, in Buckinghamshire, and began his education as a chorister in the free school of Magdalen College, Oxford. He afterwards became demy, and in 1541 was elected a fellow of the Bickley Bicknell college. He acquired considerable reputa- tion as a reformer and preacher of reformed doctrine, and soon after the accession of Ed- ward VI was appointed one of the king's chaplains at Windsor. It is hard, however, to believe a story told by Fuller ( Worthies, j). 131), that, to show his contempt for the doctrine of transubstantiation, he on one oc- casion broke the Host in pieces in the col- lege chapel at evening prayers and trampled it under his feet. Anyhow, he was too notable a man to stay with safety in the country during the reign of Mary, and ac- cordingly he retired to France, where he spent most of his time in study at Paris and Orleans. Returning to England after the accession of Elizabeth, he enjoyed rapid pro- motion, being made, within ten years, chaplain to Archbishop Parker, rector of Biddenden in Kent, of Sutton Waldron in Dorsetshire, archdeacon of Stafford, chancellor in Lich- field Cathedral, and warden of Merton Col- lege, Oxford. He was made bishop of Chichester in 1585, consecrated at Lambeth on 30 Jan., and enthroned by proxy on 3 March. He was diligent in discharging the duties of his office, and was much respected and beloved in the diocese. Some of the returns to articles of inquiry made at his visitations have been preserved amongst the episcopal records, and supply curious information re- specting the condition of the church at that time. The altars had, as a rule, been moved out from the east end, and complaints are \ numerous that ' the floor was not paved where the altar had stode.' The walls of all ; churches were required to be ' whyted and beautyfied with sentences from Holy Scrip- ture.' A quarterly sermon from the parish parson was considered a sufficient allowance ; but even this was not always regularly given, | and in some parishes it is stated that there j had not been any sermon for a year or more. Bishop Bickley died in 1596, and was buried | in the cathedral on 26 May, when 'his body was accompanied to the earthe with dyverse woorshipfull persons' (note in Heralds' Office; KENNETT). He bequeathed 40/. to Magda- len College, to be expended on ceiling and paving the school, and 100/. to Merton for the purchase of land, the revenue of which was bestowed annually on one of the fellows who preached a sermon to the university on May day in the college chapel. A tablet to Bickley 's memory is attached to the north wall of the lady chapel in Chichester Cathedral. The inscription (in Latin) states that he administered his diocese * piously and religiously, with sobriety and sincerity, the highest justice and singular prudence.' The tablet is surmounted by a small kneeling effigy of the bishop, * which shows him,' says Wood, Ho have been a comely and handsome man.' If so, ideas of manly beauty must have changed very much since Wood's time. [Fuller's Worthies, p. 131 ; Wood's Athenae Oxon. ii. 839 ; Bickley's Eegister in Chichester Cathedral ; Lansd. MSS. 982, f. 238.1 W. R. W. S. BICKNELL, ALEXANDER (d. 1796), author, was an industrious litterateur of the last quarter of the eighteenth century, whose writings received their due meed of ridicule or faint praise in the ' Monthly Review,' and are now forgotten. He died 22 Aug. 1796 in St. Thomas's Hospital, London. He published the following books and pamphlets: 1. ' History of Edward Prince of Wales, commonly termed the Black Prince,' 8vo, 1777. 2. ' Life of Alfred the Great, King of the Anglo-Saxons,' 8vo, 1777. 3. ' The Putrid Soul, a Poetical Epistle to Joseph Priestley, LL.D.,' 4to, 1780. 4. < The Patriot King, or Alfred and Elvida, an Historical Tragedy,' 8vo, 1788. 5. < History of Lady Anne Neville.' 6. ( Isabella, or the Rewards of Good Nature.' 7. * The Benevolent Man, a Novel.' 8. * Prince Arthur, an Allegorical Romance.' 9. * Doncaster Races, or the His- tory of Miss Maitland, a True Tale, in a series of letters,' 2 vols. 12mo, 1790. 10. < A His- tory of England and the British Empire,' 12mo, 1791. 11. < The Grammatical Wreath, or a Complete System of English Grammar,' 12mo, 1790. 12. ' Instances of the Mutabi- lity of Fortune, selected from Ancient and Modern History,' 8vo, 1792. 13. ' Philoso- phical Disquisitions on the Christian Religion, addressed to Soame Jenyns, Esq., and Dr. Kenrick.' It is stated on the title-page of No. 9 that Bicknell edited Captain J. Car- ver's < Travels through the Interior Parts of North America,' 8vo, 1778, and Mrs. George Anne Bellamy's 'Apology for her Life,' 6 vols. 12mo, 1785. [Monthly Review, vols. Ivii. Iviii. Ixiii. Ixxviii., New Series, ii. iv. v. ix. ; Gent. Mag. ; Watt's Bibl. Brit.] C. W. S. BICKNELL, ELHANAN (1788-1861), patron of art, was born 21 Dec. 1788, in Blackman Street, London, being the son of William Bicknell, serge manufacturer there, and of Elizabeth Bicknell, previously a Miss Randall, of Sevenoaks, Kent. Elhanan Bick- nell's father had been partly educated at Wesley's school at Kingswood, Bristol, and always entertained John Wesley in Black- man Street when he came to preach at Snow's Bicknell 10 Bicknell Fields. Another divine among the most cherished friends of Elhanan's parents at this time, after whom he was named, was Elhanan Winchester, author of Universal Restora- tion ' ( Christian Reformer, xviii. 56) . William Bicknell bought the copyright of this work in the year of his son Elhanan s birth, and on finding that his bargain was profitable, he generously surrendered it to the author in 1789, with a characteristic letter (ibid.} Elhanan Bicknell was educated by his father, who, having established a school at Ponder's End in 1789, when Elhanan was an infant, removed it to Tooting Common in 1804 ; and there, among Elhanan's schoolfellows, was Thomas Wilde, afterwards Lord Chan- cellor Truro. In 1808 Elhanan was sent to Cause, near Shrewsbury, to learn farm^- ing ; but at the end of a year this project was abandoned. He returned to London and joined a firm at Newington Butts, engaged in the sperm whale fishery, into which, for over half a century, he threw all his active energies and financial aptitude. About 1835 he foresaw how the repeal of the navigation laws, then in agitation, would injure his indi- vidual trade, yet he magnanimously supported the movement, together with the abolition of all protection ; and when the inevitable crippling of his undertakings and his income came, he cheerfully accepted it. In 1838, having occupied his residence at Herne Hill, Surrey, since 1819, Bicknell commenced there his magnificent collection of pictures, all of the modern British school. In the course of twelve years, 1838-50, he be- came the possessor of masterpieces of Gains- borough, Turner, Roberts, Landseer, Stan- field, Webster, Collins, Etty, Callcott, &c. (WAAGEtf, Treasures of Art, ii. 359 ; Art Journal, 1862, p. 45) ; and, in default of a gallery, these splendid works, with many pieces of sculpture, such as Baily's ' Eve,' en- riched all the principal apartments of his house, and were always hospitably open to the inspection of art connoisseurs. Bicknell, moreover, became acquainted with artists themselves, as well as with their works ; he was munificent in his payments, and gene- rously entertained them. Bicknell had bought many of Turner's best works before Mr. Rus- kin's ad vocacy had made their beauties knoAvn. He had a strong desire to leave his collec- tion to the nation ; but for family reasons his pictures, which numbered 122 at his death, were eventually sold at Christie's auction rooms, realising a sum little short of 80,000/. (Times, 27 April 1863). The Marquis of Hertford bought about one-third for his own gallery. In politics and in theology Elhanan Bick- nell was an ardent and advanced liberal. He supported unitarianism consistently and warmly, was a principal contributor to the building of the Unitarian chapel at Brixton, and gave 1,000/. to the British and Foreign Unitarian Association (Inquirer, 7 Dec. 1861, p. 895). His remarkable business powers, which were recognised on all sides, led to his being invited to become a partner in the great firm of Maudslay, the eminent engineer, but this offer was declined. In 1859 his health began to fail, and he retired from business. He passed the rest of his time at Herne Hill, where he died 27 Nov. 1861, aged 72 (Inquirer, 30 Nov. 1861). He was buried at Norwood. In 1829 Bicknell married Lucinda Browne, a sister of Hablot Knight Browne (' Phiz '). He left a large family by this and a previous marriage, and several of his sons (one of whom married the only child of David Roberts, R.A.), in succeeding to his fortune, have made names for themselves in the various departments of art patronage, travel, and re- form, in which he himself took such constant delight. [Waagen's Treasures of Art in Great Britain, i. 36, ii. 349 ; Christian Eeformer. xviii. 55 et seq. ; Inquirer, 1861, p. 895; Art Journal, 1862, p. 45 ; Athenaeum, 7 Dec. 1861 ; Times, 27 April 1863 ; private information.] J. H. BICKNELL, HERMAN (1830-1875), author, orientalist, and traveller, third son of Elhanan Bicknell [q. v.], born at Herne Hill 2 April 1830, received his education at Paris, Hanover, University College, and St. Bartho- lomew's Hospital. After taking his degree at the College of Surgeons in 1854, and passing the military medical examination, he joined the 59th regiment at Hong Kong in 1855 as assistant surgeon, whence he was transferred, in 1856, to the 81st regiment at Mianmir, Lahore. Whilst serving four years in India, throughout the period of the great mutiny, he assiduously studied oriental dialects, at intervals exploring portions of Java, Thibet, and the Himalayas. On returning to Eng- land, by the Indus and Palestine, he ex- changed into the 84th regiment, and was soon placed on the staff at Aldershot, but speedily resigned his commission, that he might devote himself entirely to travel and languages. From this period he undertook many journeys of various duration and difficulty, extending from the Arctic regions to the Andes of Ecua- dor, and from America to the far East, more especially with the object of improving him- self in ethnology, botany, and general science. In 1862 he started from London in the as- sumed character of an English Mohammedan Bicknell Bicknor gentleman, and, without holding intercourse with Europeans, proceeded to Cairo, where he lived for a considerable period in the native quarter of the city. By this time so inti- mately acquainted had he become with the habits and manners of Islam, that in the spring of the same year he boldly joined the annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Moham- med at Mecca, and successfully accomplished a dangerous exploit which no. other English- man had achieved without disguise of person or of nationality. In 1868 he passed by Aleppo and the Euphrates to Shiraz, w r here he resided some months in 1869, employed in making him- self thoroughly acquainted with the scenes and life of Persia, in order to carry out more efficiently the great work of his life, a metri- cal and literal translation of the chief poems of Hafiz, which, during fifteen, years, had been under revision. But on 14 March 1875, before the manuscripts had received their final cor- rections, his life was abruptly terminated by disease, induced or hastened by the wear of constant change of climate, exposure in moun- tain exploration, and by an accident in an at- tempt to ascend the Matterhorn. He died in London, and was buried at Ramsgate. As a traveller he had great powers of endurance, he was a fair draughtsman, and as a linguist of unsurpassed ability ; his varied accomplish- ments being also united with the happiest power of lucidly explaining the most abstruse theories of metaphysics and etymology, which his extensive reading had mastered. Besides the translation of Hafiz (posthumously issued) he published a few pamphlets. [Bicknell's Hafiz of Shiraz, 4to, 1875 ; Times, 25 Aug. 1862; reviews in periodical literature, December 1875 to September 1876; private in- formation.] A. S. B-L. BICKNELL, M (1695 P-1723), actress, was sister of Mrs. Younger, an actress, who survived her some years. Mrs. Younger in- formed Mrs. Saunders, a well-known actress who had for some years quitted the stage, that her father and mother, James and Mar- garet Younger, were born in Scotland ; that the former rode in the third troop of the Guards, and served several years in Flanders under King "William, and that the latter was a Keith, ' nearly related to the late earl marshall.' The letter giving these facts is written from Watford to the author of the ' History of the English Stage,' obviously in response to a request for information, and is dated 22 June 1736. It does not appear whether the name of Bicknell, which is frequently written Bignell, was taken for the purpose of distinguishing the bearer from her sister, or whether it is that of a husband. On 7 Nov. 1706 we first hear of Mrs. Bick- nell playing, at the Haymarket, ' Edging, a Chambermaid,' in * The Careless Husband' of Gibber, her associates including Wilks, Gibber, Mrs. Oldfield, and Mrs. Barry. Subsequent years saw her appear as Miss Prue in Con- greve's ' Love for Love/ Miss Hoyden in the ' Relapse ' of Vanbrugh, Melantha (the great role of Mrs. Mountfort) in i Marriage a la Mode,' and other characters of which sauci- ness and coquetry are the chief features. Her name appears to a petition signed by Barton Booth and other actors of Drury Lane Theatre, presented apparently about 1710 to Queen Anne, complaining of the re- strictions upon the performances of the peti- tioners imposed by the lord chamberlain. She remained at Drury Lane from 1708 to 1721, on 14 Feb. of which year she ' created r the character of Lady Wrangle in Gibber's comedy, the ' Refusal.' Her last recorded ap- pearance was on 2 April 1723. The ' Daily Journal' of 25 May following announces her death from consumption. Steele had a high opinion of her. In the < Tatler ' for5 May 1709 he calls her pretty Mrs. Bignell, and in that for 16 April previous he says that in the l Country Wife ' she ' did her part very happily, and had a certain grace in her rusticity, which gave us hopes of seeing her a very skilful player, and in some parts supply our loss of Mrs. Verbruggen.' In the ' Spectator ' for Mon- day, 5 May 1712, he talks of her ' agreeable girlish person,' and her ' capacity of imita- tion,' and in the ' Guardian ' for 8 May 1713 he calls her his friend, and gives a singularly pleasant picture of her winning ways. Her signature to the petition mentioned above is M. Bicknell, suggesting that her name might be Margaret, like her mother. [Genest's English Stage ; History of the Eng- lish Stage (Curll), 1741 ; Davies's Dramatic Miscellanies; Chalmers's British Essayists, vols. i., xi., 16.] J. K. BICKNOR or BYKENORE, ALEX- ANDER (d. 1349), archbishop of Dublin, was prebendary of Maynooth and treasurer of Ire- land, when in 1310 he was elected to the arch- bishopric by the two cathedral chapters of Dublin on the resignation of Ferings. His election, however, was set aside by Edward II in favour of Lech. On the death of Lech in 1313 Walter Thombury was elected, but died before consecration ; and on 29 Jan. 1314 Bicknor received a letter from the king to Clement V asking that his election might be confirmed, and stating that he was well spoken of by Richard de Burgh, earl of Ulster, and other nobles of Ireland (Fcedera, ii. 468). Being employed on the king's Bicknor 12 Bidder business, he was for some time unable to j go to Rome ; nor was it until 22 July 1317 that he was consecrated by Nicolas of Prato, cardinal of Ostium. The next year he was made lord justice of Ireland, and, ' After receiving this appointment, visited Dublin and was enthroned. He received a summons to the English parliament, though by what right does not appear (First Report on the Peerage, 276) ; and on 24 Sept. of l the same year joined the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Winchester in publishing the excommunication of Robert l Bruce in a consistorial court held at St. Paul's (Ann. Paul. 283). That he had \ some care for the welfare of his province is evident from his foundation of a college in St. Patrick's church in 1320. This founda- j tion was confirmed by John XXII, but the scheme fell through for lack of students | (WAKE ; D' ALTON). About the same time he made the church of Inisboyne a prebend of St. Patrick's. In 1323 he was sent on an embassy to France, in company with Ed- mund, earl of Kent, the king's brother. Their mission was unsuccessful (Ypodigma Neustrice, 258). Again the next year he went with the earl to negotiate peace with France, and to treat for the marriage of the Prince of Wales with a daughter of the King of Aragon (Fcedera, iii. 45 ; Ann. Paul. 307). On his return the king accused him of causing the surrender of La Rozelle in Aquitaine. It was probably during his stay in France that he was persuaded to join the plan that was formed there for the overthrow of the Despensers, for in May 1325 the king wrote to Pope John setting forth his causes of complaint against him, declaring that he was an enemy of his minister, the younger Despenser, and that he had wasted the revenues of Ireland, and praying the pope to remove him (by trans- lation) from the kingdom (Fcedera, iii. 152). When Queen Isabella returned to England in 1326, Bicknor joined her party, and united with other prelates and barons in declaring the Prince of Wales guardian of the king- dom in an assembly held at Bristol in October. In January he took the oath administered in the Guildhall to maintain the cause of the queen. The next year the see of Dublin was in the king's hands, the revenues being seized probably in order to insure a settlement of the accounts of Bick- nor's financial administration. In 1330 the archbishop was appointed papal collector. About this time he sheltered certain persons who were prosecuted as heretics by Richard, bishop of Ossory. The bishop complained to the king ; but Edward, instead of taking his part, kept him in exile for nine years. During his absence, the archbishop, in 1335, held a visitation in Ossory, and seized the revenues of the see, until the pope suspended his metropolitical power over the diocese. On 13 July 1338 he was present at the consecration of Richard Brintworth to the see of London. He is said to have preached a sermon in Christ Church, Dublin, against the swarms of beggars who infested the city, which stirred up the mayor to take measures to put down the evil. He built the bishop's house at Taulaght. In 1348 he presided at a synod held at Dublin, in which several important decrees were made con- cerning ecclesiastical discipline and govern- ment. During the last years of his life he was engaged in a dispute with Ralph, arch- bishop of Armagh, concerning the right to the primacy of Ireland. He died in 1349. [D' Alton's Archbishops of Dublin ; Sir James Ware's Antiquities of Ireland ; Bymer's Fcedera, ed. 1704; Annales Paulini ap. Materials for the Hist, of Edw. I and Edw. H, ed. Stubbs (Rolls Ser.) ; Stubbs's Constitutional History, ii. 360.] W. H. BIDDER,, GEORGE PARKER (1806- 1878), the rapid calculator and engineer, was born at Moreton Hampstead, a village on the borders of Dartmoor, where his father was a stonemason. As a child he showed a most extraordinary power of mental calculation, a power in which he was equalled by few and perhaps surpassed by none who have ever lived. He was about six years of age when he first commenced the study of figures, by learning to count up to ten. His instructor was an elder brother, and the instruction ceased when he could count up to one hundred. The gradual steps by which he acquired his powers of calculation, and the system on which he worked, are fully given in a paper read by him in 1856 before the Institution of Civil Engineers. In this paper, without disclaiming for himself special powers, he went so far as to assert that mental arithmetic could be taught as easily as ordinary arithmetic, and that its practice required no extraordinary powers of memory. From the account he gave it appeared that his own powers were only limited by the power of registering the various steps of a calculation as he proceeded, but that this ability of registration was carried to a point very far beyond the limits of an ordinary mind. It may probably be assumed without much question that he possessed in a great degree the faculty of ' visualising ' numbers, first recognised by Mr. Francis Galton, and that this faculty gave him his wonderful Bidder Biddle command over figures. His son and his grandchildren possess this visualising power, and they also inherit considerable calculating | abilities. A study of Bidder's system, partly I natural and partly elaborated, cannot fail to j be of value to all who wish to improve their | calculating powers; but the power with which he used it will not readily be rivalled. The lad's peculiar talents, evinced by the rapidity with which he answered arithmetical questions requiring the performance of intri- j cate calculations, soon drew public attention to him, and his father found it more profitable to carry him about the country and exhibit him as the ' calculating phenomenon ' than to leave him at school. Fortunately for him his powers attracted the attention of several emv- iient men, by whom he was placed at school, first at Camberwell, and afterwards at Edin- burgh. His education was completed at the university of Edinburgh, where, in 1822, he . obtained the prize given for the study of the higher mathematics by the magistrates of ; Edinburgh. It is pleasant to note that many ! years afterwards, in 1846, Bidder founded a } bursary or scholarship for poor students of ', 401. a year, which he named the ' Jardine j Bursary/ in joint recognition of the univer- sity where he had obtained his education, and of the eminent man by whose influence he had been sent thither. After a brief employment in the Ordnance Survey and a still briefer trial of a clerkship in the office of a life assurance company, he took regularly to engineering. He was employed on several works of more or less importance, and became associated with Robert Stephenson in 1834m the London and Birmingham railway. A year or so later this brought him into parliamentary work, and here he soon found full scope for his mar- vellous powers of calculation. He could work out on the instant, and in his head, calcula- tions which would take most men a conside- rable time and require the use of paper and pencil. He was never disconcerted, and he was always minutely accurate. So great did his reputation soon become that on one oc- casion an opposing counsel asked that he should not be allowed to remain in the com- mittee-room, on the ground that ' nature had endowed him with qualities that did not place his opponents on a fair footing/ Nu- merous stories are still extant, attesting the skill with which he would detect a flaw in some elaborate set of calculations, thereby up- setting an opponent's case, or would support his own conclusions by an argument based on mathematical data, possibly only then put before him. Probably nowhere else could he have found so suitable a field for the exercise of his peculiar talents as in a parliamentary committee-room, nor is it easy to conceive a man better adapted to this special sort of work. But, besides his parliamentary practice, Bidder was also much employed in the actual practice of his profession, and as engineer constructed numerous railways and other works at home and abroad. The Victoria Docks (London) are considered one of his chief constructive works, and, after railway matters, hydraulic engineering principally en- gaged his attention. But he was more or less interested in a large proportion of the subjects coming within the wide range of engineering science. He was the originator of the railway swing bridge, the first of which was designed and erected by him at Reedham on the Nor- wich and Lowestoft Railway ; he was one of the founders of the Electric Telegraph Com- pany (the first company formed to provide telegraphic communication), and he was as- sociated, either as adviser or constructor, in many of the great engineering works carried out during the time covered by his professional career. He died at Dartmouth on 20 Sept. 1878, and was buried in the churchyard of Stoke Fleming, an adjacent village. [A very full life is given in the Proc. Inst. C.E. Ivii. 294 ; other interesting details will be found in the paper on Mental Calculation, ibid. xv. 251.] H. T. W. BIDDLE, JOHN (1615-1662), unita- rian, was son of a tailor of Wotton-under- ! Edge, Gloucestershire, where he was baptised on 14 Jan. 1615. He early showed himself . a youth of great promise. He was fortunate enough to come under the notice of George, j eighth Lord Berkeley, who allowed him, I with other scholars, an annual exhibition of ten pounds, though he was not yet ten years old. ' He was educated/ says Wood, ' in grammar-learning in the free school, by John Rugg and John Turner, successive | teachers.' Under the latter he ' outran his ! instructors, and became tutor to himself/ ! While still a schoolboy he ' english'd ' ' Virgil's Bucolics and the two first Satyrs of Juvenal/ These were printed in 1634, and dedicated to ' John Smith, Esq., of Nibley/ Gloucestershire, and the 'Mecsenas of the Wottonian muses/ He likewise 'compos'd and recited before a full auditory/ in the begin- | ning of 1634, ' an elaborate oration in Latin I for the funeral of an honourable school- i fellow/ He was a dutiful son to his mother i who was left a widow in straitened circum- I stances at this period. He proceeded in 1634 to Oxford, and was | entered a student of Magdalen Hall. ' And j for a time/ says Anthony a Wood, ' if I Biddle Biddle mistake not, was put under the tuition of John Oxenbridge, a person noted to be of no good principles.' In his college, an early biographer informs us, 'he did so philosophize, as it might be observed, he was determined more by reason than authority : however, in divine things he did not much dissent from the common doctrine, as may be col- lected from a little tract he wrote against dancing/ On 23 June 1638 he passed B.A., and then became an eminent tutor in his college. On 20 May 1641 he proceeded M.A. Before this date he had been ' invited to take upon him the care of teaching the school wherein he had been educated \Athence Oxon.) Soon after the magistrates of Gloucester, ' upon ample recom- mendations from the principal persons in the j university,' chose him ' master of the free school in the parish of St. Mary le Crypt in that j city.' He accepted this appointment, and i * he was much esteemed for his diligence in j his profession, serenity of manners, and sane- | tity of life/ < At length,' says Wood, < the nation being brought into confusion by the restless presbyterians, the said city garrison'd ; for the use of the parliament, and every one j vented his or their opinions as they pleased, he began to be free of his discourses of what j he studied there at leisure hours concerning I the Trinity, from the Holy Scriptures, having j not then, as he pretended, convers'd with i Socinian books. . . . But the presbyterian party, then prevalent, having notice of these | matters, and knowing well what mischief he might do among his disciples, the magistrate summon'd him to appear before him ; and after several interrogatories, a form of con- j fession under three heads was proposed to him. to make, which he accordingly did 2 May 1644, but not altogether in the words j proposed. Which matter giving them no satisfaction, he made another confession in ! the same month, more evident than the j former, to avoid the danger of imprisonment which was to follow if he did deny it/ The matter seemed to have blown over, and I Biddle quietly pursued his study in Holy | Scripture. His manuscript which ultimately he meant to print and publish containing a statement of his religious opinions, was trea- cherously obtained by a supposed friend. The parliamentary commissioners were then sitting in Gloucester, and were put in posses- sion of his manuscript on 2 Dec. 1645. The j commissioners read his ' Arguments,'and forth- with committed their author to the common gaol till opportunity should offer of bringing his case before the House of Commons. A local gentleman interposing on his behalf, and becoming bail for him, he was allowed out ' on condition of his appearing before parlia- ment when required, to answer any charges which might be brought against him/ In June 1646 Archbishop Ussher, passing- through Gloucester on his way to London, held a conference with the bailed prisoner of state, but could not convince him of his errors. The great prelate ' spoke to and used him with all fairness and pity, as well as strength of argument/ and it must be added with all respect ; ' for the truth is/ observes An- thony a Wood, ' except his opinions there was little or nothing blameworthy in him/ About six months after he had been libe- rated on bail, he was cited to Westminster to make his defence. The parliament ap- p^ointed a committee to examine him. He admitted that he did not believe in the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, and expressed his readiness to discuss the subject with any theologian whom they might appoint. There was delay, and Biddle desired Sir Henry Vane of the committee to see that his cause might be heard or he be set at liberty. Vane proposed this on the floor of the house, and otherwise showed a friendliness to Biddle which did not improve his prospects. Biddle therefore boldly published < Twelve Questions or Arguments drawn out of Scripture, where- in the commonly received Opinion touching the Deity of the Holy Spirit is clearly and fully refuted/ 1647. Prefixed is a letter to Vane, and at the end ' An Exposition of five principal Passages of the Scripture alledged by the Adversaries to prove the Deity of the Holy Ghost/ Called to the bar of the house, he owned the book, and was remanded to prison, and on 6 Sept. 1647 the * Twelve Arguments ' was ordered to be burnt by the hangman as being blasphemous. The ' Twelve Arguments ' attracted great attention, and was reprinted in the same year. It was answered by Matthew Poole in his 1 Plea for the Godhead of the Holy Ghost/ subsequently enlarged. The letter to Vane is able and dignified. Nicholas Estwick, B.D., and others, exposed mistakes of fact in the book, but Biddle, who read all, would not admit that he was confuted. On 2 May 1648 an ordinance was passed that inflicted the penalty of death upon those who denied the doctrine of the Trinity. None the less Biddle published in the same year his < Confession of Faith touching the Holy Trinity according to Scripture/ and in quick succession 'The Testimonies of Ire- naeus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Novatianus, Theophilus, Origen (who lived in the first two centuries after Christ was born or there- abouts), as also of Arnobius, Lactantius, &c,, concerning that One God and the Persons ot Biddle Biddle the Trinity, with observations on the same. Upon the publication of the * Testimonies ' the assembly of divines sitting at Westminster made their appeal to the parliament that he might suffer death. The divines had given him up as hopelessly unconvertible. Dr. Peter Gunning, indeed, visited him still, but with no success. But parliament did not confirm the divines' appeal. He never was brought to j trial, and at length personal friends united, : and one of their number once more procured j his liberation l by becoming surety for his appearance whenever he might be called upon.' He went down with a friend to \ Staffordshire, and not only became his chap- | lain, but also a preacher in a church there. Tidings of these things having been conveyed to the lord president Bradshaw, Biddle was once more apprehended and closely confined. Almost contemporaneously his Staffordshire benefactor died, and left him a small legacy. This was ' soon devoured by the payment of prison fees,' and he was left in utter indi- gence. His chief support, it is pathetically recorded, consisted of ' a draught of milk from the cow every morning and evening.' Relief came unexpectedly. A learned man, who knew his competency, recommended him as a corrector of the press to Roger Daniel, printer, who was about to publish an edition of the Septuagint. This and other like lite- rary employment enabled him, while it lasted, to procure a comfortable subsistence. Thomas Firmin dared to deliver also at this time to Cromwell a petition for his release from Newgate. Bishop Kennet thus reports the Protector's answer : * You curl-pate boy, do you think I'll show any favour to a man who denies his Saviour, and disturbs the govern- ment P ' (Register and Chronicle, p. 761). On 10 Feb. 1652, by the will of Oliver, the parliament passed a general act of ob- livion. This restored Biddle and many others to their full liberty. The first use which he made of his recovered freedom was l to meet each Lord's day those friends whom he had gained in London, and expound the Scriptures to them.' He is also alleged to have translated and published at home and in Holland a number of Socinian books. It is very uncertain which were really trans- lated by him. He further organised a con- venticle, and conducted public worship. In 1654 he again laid himself open to legal penalties. He published now 'A Two- fold Catechism, the one simply called A Scripture Catechism, the other A Brief Scripture Catechism for Children.' Com- plaint was made of these catechisms in parlia- ment. Early in December 1654 the author was placed at the bar of parliament and asked whether he wrote the books. He replied by asking whether it seemed reason- able that one brought before a judgment-seat as a criminal should accuse himself. After debate and resolutions, he was on 13 Dec. ' committed a close prisoner to the Gatehouse and forbidden the use of pen, ink, and paper, or the access of any visitant ; and all the copies of his books which could be found were ordered to be burnt.' This resolution was earned out on the following day, and a bill afterwards ordered to be brought in for punishing him. But after about six months' imprisonment he obtained his liberty at the court of the Upper or King's Bench, 28 May 1655. He was only out a month when he was entangled in a disputation with one John Griffin, pastor of a baptist church. Griffin was illiterate, and could not possibly have held his own against Biddle. But instead of mere disputation the law was invoked, an information was lodged against Biddle, and he was apprehended, and put first into the Poultry Compter and then into Newgate. At the next sessions he was indicted a't the Old Bailey under the obsolete and abrogated ordinance called the 'Draconick ordinance,' which had been passed on 2 May 1648, but had never acquired the force of law. At first the aid of counsel was denied him, but after a time, on putting in a bill of exceptions, his request was complied with, and the trial was fixed for the next day. But Cromwell interposed his authority and put a stop to the proceedings. A miserable tangle ensued. The upshot of the whole was that, as the lesser of two evils, he was ' banished to the Scilly Islands 5 Oct. 1655, to remain in close custody in the castle of St. Mary's during his life.' On the day previous (4 Oct.) there came out ' Two Letters of Mr. John Biddle, late Prisoner in Newgate, but now hurried away to some remote Island. One to the Lord Protector, the other to the Lord President LaAvrence, 1655.' He expressly separates himself from Socinus as to the per- sonality of the Holy Spirit. The Protector allowed him 100 crowns per annum. He remained in prison until 1658. In the interval many means were taken to obtain his release. "Calamy inter- ceded. Baptist ministers interceded. He himself wrote with pathos and power. At length, through the intercession of manv friends, he was conveyed from St. Marys Castle by habeas corpus to the Upper Bench at Westminster, and, no accuser appearing, he was discharged by Lord Chief Justice Glynn. Hereupon with alacrity he re-founded a 1 society on congregational principles, and Biddlecombe 16 Biddlecombe , it is believed, the lord chief was a prudent step, though he resumed his long suspended classes among his friends.' Thus he continued until Crom- well's death on 3 Sept. following. Before the parliament summoned by Richard Crom- well met, he was advised to retire into the country by justice. It was reluctant to assent. A committee was appointed by the house to examine into the state of religion, and one of its first acts was to institute an inquiry into his liberation. The matter subsided. He ventured back to London. But on 1 June 1662 he was seized in his lodging ' with a few of his friends who were assembled for divine worship, and carried before a justice of the peace, Sir Eichard Brown.' They were ' all sent to prison without bail.' The trial lingered. At last he was brought in guilty and fined ' one hundred pounds, and to lie in prison till paid ; and each of his hearers in the sum of twenty pounds.' In less than five weeks after the sentence, the closeness of his im- prisonment and the foulness of the air brought on a disease which terminated fatally. Sir Richard Brown refused any mitigation of the prison rules in his favour ; but the sheriff', whose name was Meynell, granted permission for him to be removed ' into a situation more favourable to his recovery.' The indulgence came too late. In less than two days he died l between the hours of five and six on the morning of 22 Sept. 1662, in the forty- seventh year of his age.' [Johannis Biddelii (Angli) Acad. Oxon. quon- dam A. M. celeb. Vita, 1682 ; Short Account of the Life of John Biddle, M.A., 1691 ; Wood's Ath. Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 593-603 ; Biog.Brit.; Toul- min's Review of the Life. Character, and Writ- ings, 1791 ; Edwards's Gangrsena, iii. 87 ; White- locke's Mem. pp. 270-1, 500, 591 ; Kushworth, vi. 259, 261 ; Crosby's Hist, of Baptists, i. 206- 16; Life of Thomas Firmin, 1698, p. 10; Wallace's Anti-Trinitarian Biography ; Biddle's Works.] A. B. G. BIDDLECOMBE, SIB GEORGE (1807- 1878), captain and author, born at Portsea on 5 Nov. 1807, was the son of Thomas Biddle- combe of Sheerness Dockyard, who died on 12 Sept. 1844. He was educated at a school kept by Dr. Neave at Portsea, and joined the ship Ocean of Whitby as a midshipman in 1823. After some years he left the mercan- tile marine, and, passing as a second master in the royal navy in May 1828, was soon after employed in surveying in the JEtna and the Blonde until 1833. He was in active service in various ships from this date until 1854, being specially noted for the great skill which he displayed in conducting naval surveys in many parts of the world. Whilst in the Ac- | tseon, in 1836, he surveyed a group of islands ! discovered by her in the Pacific. When at- tached to the Talbot, 1838-42, he surveyed numerous anchorages on the Ionian station, ! in the Archipelago, and up the Dardanelles i and Bosphorus ; examined the south shore of the Black Sea as far as Trebizond, as well as the port of Varna, and prepared a survey, published by the admiralty, of the bays and banks of Acre. He also displayed much skill and perseverance in surveying the Sherki shoals, where he discovered many unknown patches. A plan which he proposed for a ' hauling-up slip ' was approved of by the au- thorities, and money was voted for its con- struction. For his survey of Port Royal and Kingston he received the thanks of the common council of Kingston, and on 20 Aug. 1843, on the occurrence of a destructive fire- in that town, the services rendered by Biddle- combe at imminent risk to himself obtained for him a letter of acknowledgment from the merchants and other inhabitants. Few officers saw more active service. As master of the Baltic fleet, 14 March 1854, he reconnoitered the southern parts of the Aland islands, Hango Bay, Baro Sund, and the anchorage of Sweaborg, preparatory to taking the fleet to those places. He conducted the allied fleets to Cronstadt, and taking charge in Led Sund of the Prince steamer, with upwards of 2,000 French troops on board, he carried that ship to Bomarsund, and was afterwards present at the fall of that fortress. He was employed as assistant master attendant at Keyham Yard, Devonport, 1855-64, and from the latter date to January 1868 as master attendant of Woolwich Yard. He was made a C.B. 13 March 1867, but the highest rank he obtained in the navy was that of staff captain, 1 July in the same year. He was knighted by the queen at Windsor, 26 June 1873, and received a Greenwich Hospital pension soon afterwards. His death took place at Lewisham, 22 July 1878. He had been twice married, first in 1842 to Emma Louisa, third daughter of Thomas Kent, who died 13 Aug. 1865, and secondly, in the fol- lowing year, to Emma Sarah, daughter of William Middleton, who died 6 May 1878, ~\ Af\ * aged 49. Sir George Biddlecombe published the fol- lowing works : 1. * A Treatise on the Art of Rigging,' 1848. 2. ' Remarks on the English Channel,' 1850; sixth edition, 1863. 3. 'Naval Tactics and Trials of Sailing,' 1850. 4. < Steam Fleet Tactics,' 1857. This list does not in- clude the accounts of the surveys made by him in various parts of the world, and which were published by order of the admiralty. Biddulph Biddulph [The Autobiography of Sir George Buldle- j combe (1878) ; O'Byrne's Naval Biographical Dictionary (1861 edition), pp. 80-2.] G. C. B. BIDDULPH, SIR THOMAS MYDDLE- TON (1809-1878), general, born 29 July : 1809, was the second son of Robert Bid- ' dulph, Esq., of Ledbury; his mother was Charlotte, the daughter of Richard Myddle- ton, Esq., M.P., of Chirk Castle, of the old Welsh family of Myddleton of Gwaynenog. He became a cornet in the 1st life guards 7 Oct. 1826, lieutenant 23 Feb. 1829, captain 16 May 1834, and brevet-major 9 Nov. 1846. ( )n 31 Oct. 1851 he was major in the 7th light dragoons, and lieutenant-colonel unattached. He had been gazetted 16 July 1851 as master of her majesty's household, for which office he had been selected by Baron Stockmar (MARTIN, Life of the Prince Consort, ii. 382-3). On 16 July 1854 he was appointed an extra equerry to her majesty, and became colonel 28 Nov. 1854. Colonel Biddulph mar- ried, 16 Feb. 1857, Mary Frederica, only daughter of Mr. Frederick Charles "W. Sey- , mour, who was at one time maid of honour, and afterwards honorary bedchamber woman to the queen. He was created, 27 March 1863, a knight commander of the order of the Bath for his civil services, and was appointed, 3 March 1866, one of the joint keepers of her \ majesty's privy purse, in succession to the ! Hon. Sir C. B. Phipps, and in conjunction with General the Hon. Charles Grey. On Grey's appointment to be private secretary to her majesty, 30 April 1867, Sir Thomas Bid- dulph became sole keeper of the privy purse. He became major-general 31 May 1865, and lieutenant-general 29 Dec. 1873, and he was gazetted, 1 Oct. 1877, to the brevet rank of general, as one of a large number of officers who obtained promotion under the provisions of article 137 of the royal warrant of 13 Aug. 1877. Later in the same year he was sworn a member of the privy council. The official duties of Sir Thomas Biddulph involved a very close attendance upon the queen. He died at Abergeldie Mains, near Balmoral, after a short illness, during which he was daily visited by her majesty, 28 Sept. 1878, and was buried at Clewer. Sir Theodore Martin says of Sir Thomas Biddulph that ' he was the last survivor of the three very able men Sir Charles Phipps and General Grey being the other two who had been inti- mately associated with the prince from their position as leading members of her majesty's household,' and who always served the queen with generous devotion {Life of the Prince Consort, iv. 12). VOL. v. [Aberdeen Free Press, 30 Sept. 1878 ; Times, 30 Sept. and 3 and 8 Oct. 1878; Army List; London Gazette; Illustrated London News, 5 Oct. 1878; Martin's Life of the Prince Consort, 1875-80; Queen Victoria's More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands, 1884.] A. H. G. BIDDULPH, THOMAS TREGENNA (1763-1838), evangelical divine, was the only son of the Rev. Thomas Biddulph by his first wife, -Martha, daughter and coheir of Rev. John Tregenna, rector of Mawgan in Cornwall. He was born at Claines, Worcestershire, 5 July 1763, but his father became in 1770 the vicar of Padstow in Cornwall, and the younger Biddulph was educated at the grammar school of Truro in that county. In his eighteenth year he ma- triculated at Queen's College, Oxford (23 Nov. 1780), and took his degree of B.A. and M.A. in 1784 and 1787 respectively. He was or- dained deacon by Bishop Ross of Exeter, 26 Sept. 1785, being licensed to the curacy of Padstow, and preaching his first sermon in its church, and after holding many cura- cies became the incumbent of Bengeworth near Evesham in 1793. Though he retained this small benefice for ten years, he resided for the greater part of his time at Bristol, " and it was as the incumbent from 1799 to 1838 of St. James's, Bristol, that his reputa- tion as a preacher and a parish priest was acquired. His doctrines were at first un- popular among the citizens of Bristol, but in the course of years his services were rewarded by the respect and affection of his fellow- townsmen. He died at St. James's Square, Bristol, 19 May 1838, and was buried 29 May. His wife, Rachel, daughter of Zachariah Shrapnel, whom he married at Bradford, Wiltshire, 19 Feb. 1789, died at St. James's Square, Bristol, 10 Aug. 1828. Portraits by Opie of the Rev. Thomas Tregenna Bid- dulph and of his father and mother are in the possession of Mr. W. P. Punchard of Taun- ton. The catalogue of the writings of Mr. Biddulph occupies more than six pages of the '' Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.' All his works were of a theological character, and were written in support of evangelical doctrines. On their behalf he engaged in controversy with the Rev. John Hey, the Rev. Richard Warner, and the Rev. Richard (afterwards bishop) Mant. A periodical called at first 1 Zion's Trumpet,' but afterwards known for many years under the title of ' The Christian Guardian,' was established by him in 1798. [Gent. Mag. x. 331-34 (1838); Bibl. Cornub. i. and iii. ; May's Evesham, 148 ; Rogers's Opie, 74-5- Christian Guardian, 1838, pp. 257-63.] W. P. C. Bidgood 18 Bidwill BIDGOOD, JOHN, M.D. (1624-1690), the son of Humphrey Bidgood, an apothecary of Exeter, was born in that city 13 March 1623-4. His father was poisoned in 1641 by his ser- : vant, Peter Moore, a crime for which the offender was tried at the Exeter assizes, and executed on * the Magdalen gibbet belonging to the city,' his dying confession being printed and preserved in the British Museum. The son was sent to Exeter College about 1640, and admitted a Petreian fellow 1 July 1642. On 1 Feb. 1647-8 he became a bachelor of physic at Oxford, but in the following June was ejected from his fellowship by the parliamentarian visitors. After this loss of nis income he withdrew to Padua, then a noted school of medicine, and became M.D. . of that university. With this diploma he re- turned to England, and, after a few years' practice at Chard, settled in his native city, where he remained until his death. On the restoration in 1660, Bidgood resumed his fel- lowship, and in the same year (20 Sept. 1660) was incorporated M.D. at Oxford. Two years later he resigned his fellowship, possibly be- cause a kinsman, who had matriculated in 1661, was then qualified to hold it. His skill in medicine was shown by his admission, in December 1664, to the College of Physicians in London as honorary fellow an honour which he acknowledged by the gift of 100/. towards the erection of their new college in Warwick Lane and by his subsequent elec- tion in 1686 as an ordinary fellow. Some years before his death he retired to his coun- try house of Rockbeare. near Exeter, but he died in the Close, Exeter, 13 Jan. 1690-1, and was buried in the lady chapel in the cathedral. A flat stone, with an English in- scription, in the pavement indicated the place of his burial, and a marble monument with a Latin inscription to his memory was fixed in the wall of the same chapel by his nephew and heir. An extensive practice brought Dr. Bidgood a large fortune, but his good qualities were marred by a morose disposition and by a satirical vein of humour. He left the sum of 600J. to St. John's Hospital at Exeter. [Prince's Worthies; Munk's College of Phy- sicians (ed. 1878), i. 348 ; Boase's Exeter Coll. 67, 212, 229 ; Davidson's Bibliotheca Devon. 138 ; Izacke's Exeter (ed. 1731), p. 189; Eegister of Visitors of Oxford Univ. (Gamden Soc. 1881), pp. 13,60,93,138.] W. P. C. BIDLAKE, JOHN (1755-1814), divine and poet, was the son of a jeweller at Ply- mouth, and was born in that town in 1755. His education was begun at the grammar school of that town, and he proceeded thence to Christ Church, Oxford, being entered on its books as a servitor 10 March 1774, where he took his degree of B.A. in: 1778, and those of M.A. and D.D. in 1808. He was for many years master of the Plymouth grammar school, and minister of the chapel of ease at Stonehouse. Neither of these posts brought much gain to their holder, nor were his pe- cuniary troubles lightened by his obtaining the offices of chaplain to the prince regent and the Duke of Clarence. He was appointed Bampton lecturer in 1811, but during the de- livery of the third discourse he was attacked with cerebral affection, which terminated in blindness. In consequence of this crushing misfortune he was forced to resign his curacy at Stonehouse, and as he was totally without the means of support, an appeal to the chari- table was made on his behalf in June 1813. On 17 Feb. in the following year he died at Plymouth. Bidlake's works were very numerous, both in divinity and poetry. He published sepa- . rately at least seven sermons, in addition to | three volumes of collected discourses on ' various subjects (1795, 1799, and 1808). ! His earliest poem was an anonymous l Elegy written on the author's revisiting the place of his former residence' (1788). It was followed by < The Sea ' (1796), < The Country Parson' (1797), 'Summer's Eve' (1800), i ' Virginia or the Fall of the Decemvirs, a tragedy' (1800), < Youth' (1802), and < The Year ' (1813). Three volumes of his poeti- cal works were issued in 1794, 1804, and 1814 respectively. In 1799 he composed a moral tale entitled 'Eugenic, or the Precepts of Prudentius,' and in 1808 he is- sued an ' Introduction to the Study of Geo- graphy.' His Bampton lectures were entitled * The Truth and Consistency of Divine Reve- lation ' (1811). Three numbers of a periodi- cal called ' The Selector ' were published by him at Plymouth in 1809, but with the third number it expired. Bidlake was a man of varied talents and considerable acquirements, but his poetry was imitative, and the interest of his theological works was ephemeral. [Watt's Bibl. Brit,; Gent. Mag. 1813, pt. i. 560, 1814, pt. i. 410; Worth's Plymouth (2nded.) p. 322 ; Worth's Three Towns Bibliotheca (Trans. Plymouth Instit. vol. iv.] W. P. C. BIDWILL, JOHN CAENE (1815- 1853), botanist and traveller, was born in 1815 at Exeter, his father being a well- known citizen of that place. At an early age he went out to New South Wales, and entered into business as a merchant at Sydney. In February 1839 he started upon an exploring expedition in New Zealand. From Tawranga Biffin he made his way into hitherto unknown regions. So savage were the native tribes ,at that period that, shortly before the travel- : ler's arrival at Tawranga, a band from Koturoa had seized a number of people and cooked them absolutely in sight of the inhabitants of the surrounding villages. Bidwill ex- plored the shores of Lake Taupo ; amongst j other discoveries made, he found in the vici- j nity of Koturoa a species of eugenia, identi- fied as the Earina mucronata. In the moun- tains of the Arrohaw he met with the gigantic tree fern, the Mummuke. He next investigated the great plain of the Thames or Wai ho. Bidwill fell a victim to the spirit of inves- tigation. While engaged in marking out a new road he was accidentally separated from his party, and lost himself, without his com- pass, in the bush. He struggled to extricate ' himself, remaining on one occasion eight days without food. In cutting his way with .a pocket-hook through the scrub, he brought on internal inflammation, of which he even- tually died. Bidwill was an ardent botanist. He contributed to the ' Gardener's Chronicle ' | many interesting papers upon horticultural subjects, but more especially on hybridising, in which he was an adept. f To him,' says Professor Lindley, ' we owe the discovery of | the famous Bunya-Bunya tree, subsequently j named after him Araucaria Bidwilli, and of j the Nymphcea giyantea, that Australian rival ' of the Victoria. By his friends, of whom he had more than most men, his loss will be found to be irreparable, and the colony in which he died could ill afford to lose him.' Bidwill, who died at Tinana, Maryborough, in March 1853, was commissioner of crown lands and chairman of the bench of magis- trates for the district of Wide Bay, New South Wales. [Bidwill's Rambles in New Zealand, 1841 ; 'Gardener's Chronicle, March 1853 ; Gent. Mag. 1853.] G. B. S. BIFFIN or BEFFIN, SARAH (1784- 1850), miniature painter, was born at East >Quantoxhead, near Bridgwater, Somerset, in 1784. Her parents were apparently of very humble station. She was born without -arms, hands, or legs (Handbill in British Mu- seum, 1881 a 2, where her name is printed Benin). Her height never exceeded thirty- seven inches ; but by indomitable perseverance she contrived, by means of her mouth, to use the pen, the pencil, and paint-brush, and even the scissors and needle. Her first instructor was a Mr. Dukes (Gent. Mag. xxxiv. new series, 668), to whom she bound herself, and with whom she stayed sixteen years. In 1812 she was carried round the country to exhibit her powers and ingenuity, and was at Swaffham in October, the race week (Sandbilf). A commodious booth was hired there for her : the pit seats were Is., the gallery seats Qd. Miss Biffin wrote her auto- graph for her visitors, drew landscapes before them, and painted miniatures (the charge for which, on ivory, was three guineas) ; and her ' conductor^' probably Mr. Dukes, pro- mised to give a thousand guineas if she were not found to produce all he described. It is complained that Miss Biffin received only 51. per annum from Mr. Dukes (Gent. Mag.} The Earl of Morton, becoming acquainted with Miss Biffin's talents, had further in- struction given to her in painting by Mr. Craig, then popular for his portraits and 'Keepsake' illustrations (REDGRAVE, Dic- tionary of Artists). The poor little artist was patronised by the royal family, and she ma- naged to support herself by her art, receiving a medal from the Society of Artists in 1821. She finally retired to Liverpool. There age overtook her, exertions of her extraordinary kind grew very painful, and she fell into poverty, which was only lightened by the benevolence of Mr. Richard Rathbone, who organised a subscription for her benefit. She died 2 Oct. 1850, aged sixty-six years. [Chambers's Book of Days, vol. ii. p. 404 ; Redgrave's Diet of Artists of British School ; Handbill to the Nobility, Ladies, and Gentle- men, No. 1881 a 2, Brit. Mus. ; Gent. Mag. vol. xxxiv. new series, 1850, p. 668.] J. H. BIFIELD, NICHOLAS. [See BYFIELD.] BIGG, JOHN STANYAN (1828-1865), poet and journalist, was born at Ulverston 14 July 1828. He was educated at the old Town Bank School in that town, and at an early age began to exhibit strong literary predilections. It is said that the ' Arabian Nights' Entertainments ' first fired him with imaginative ardour. He would recite the oriental stories to his companions, and as the latter recompensed him for so doing, young Bigg was able to indulge the love of books, and became possessed of the works of the best English poets. At thirteen he was sent by his father to a boarding school in Warwickshire. On his return to his native town, he assisted his father in the conduct of his business. Soon afterwards the family re- moved to the beautiful vicinity of Penny Bridge. His poetical enthusiasm was here stirred into action, and he penned many attractive lyrics. Returning to Ulverston, he published in 1848 his first work, ' The Sea King,' a metri- c 2 Bigg 20 Bigland cal romance in six cantos, with very copious historical and illustrative notes. The ro- mance arose out of a study of Sharon Tur- ner's 'History of the Anglo-Saxons.' In conception it has something in common with Fouq ue's l Undine/ though Bigg states that book to have been unknown to him at the time of the composition of his own work. The * Sea King ' interested several men of letters, including Lord Lytton and James Mont- gomery. Bigg was now appointed editor of the ' Ulverston Advertiser/ a post which he occupied for several years. He subse- quently went to Ireland, and edited for some years the ' Downshire Protestant/ the pro- prietor of which was Mr. W. Johnston, of Ballykilbeg House, the author of ' Night- shade/ and other works. At Downpatrick Bigg married Miss R. A. H. Pridham. In 1859 the Burns centenary was celebrated, and his ode competing for the Crystal Palace prize was selected by the three judges as one of the six best. Previous to his Irish experiences, Bigg had written his most important poem, t Night and the Soul.' It appeared in 1854. Bigg belonged to that class of poets which acquired the name of the l Spasmodic School/ a school severely travestied by Professor Ay toun in his spasmodic tragedy of l Firmilian.' In 1860 Bigg left Ireland and returned to Ulverston, where he became both editor and proprietor of the f Advertiser/ which position he continued to occupy until his death. In ! 1860 he also published a novel in one volume, : entitled ' Alfred Staunton/ which met with a favourable reception. In 1862 appeared his last work, ( Shifting Scenes, and other Poems.' In the course of his brief career Bigg was a contributor to the ' Critic/ { Literary Ga- zette/ ' London Quarterly Review/ l Eclectic Review/ 'Church of England Review/ 'Scot- tish Quarterly Review/ ' Dublin University Magazine/ and ' Hogg's Instructor.' In all the private relations of life he was most estimable, and his premature death was widely lamented. He died 19 May 1865, in his thirty-seventh year. [Works of Bigg; Gent. Mag. 1865; Gilfillan's Literary Portraits ; Athenfeum, 1854 and 1862 ; Ulverston Advertiser, 25 May 1865.] a. B. S. BIGG, WILLIAM REDMORE (1755- 1828), painter, was a pupil of Edward Penny, R.A., and by choice of his subjects at least a faithful follower of his master. In 1778 he entered the Academy schools. Bigg de- lighted in depicting florid children. The first of many engaging works of this class was exhibited in 1778, 'Schoolboys giving Charity to a Blind Man.' It was followed a year later by one similar, ' A Lady and her Children relieving a Distressed Cot- tager.' Besides these his ' Palemon and Lavinia/ the ' Shipwrecked Sailor Boy/ and ' Youths relieving a Blind Man ' were highly popular works, and were all engraved. Two- good pictures from his easel are preserved in the Cottonian Museum at Plymouth. He had not the naive rusticity of Wheatley, nor the rough and ready naturalism of Morland, though by choice of subjects and general man- ner of treatment he would rightly be classed with those painters. He was highly popular in his day, and the best engravers were em- ployed upon his work. In 1787 he became A.R.A., and was elected academician in 1814. He sat to C. R. Leslie for the knight in ' Sir Roger de Coverley.' The younger painter spoke eloquently of his fine presence and ge- nial nature. He died in Great Russell Street on 6 Feb. 1828. [G-ent. Mag. vol. xcviii. pt. i. p. 376 ; Red- grave's Diet, of Artists of the Eng. School.] E. R. BIGLAND, JOHN (1750-1832), school- master and author, was born of poor parents at Skirlaugh, or Skirlaw, in Holderness in Yorkshire, and died, at the age of eighty- two, at Aldbrough (PouLSON, History of Hoi' derness, ii. 19) or, according to other authori- ties, at Finningley near Doncaster. He began life as a village schoolmaster. At the age- of fifty (1803) he published his first work, ' Reflections on the Resurrection and Ascen- sion of Christ/ occasioned, as he tells us him- self, by his religious scepticism. Having removed his own doubts, he ventured to place the reasons for his convictions in print. His work was a success, and the encourage- ment he received in consequence determined him to follow a literary career. He soon developed into a professional author, and pub- lished in rapid succession a series of popular books, chiefly connected with geography and history. Towards the end of his life he re- sided at Finningley, and used to spend a portion of his time in his garden rearing flowers and vegetables. His long scholastic life has given to the majority of his books a distinctly practical turn. He was the author of sundry articles in the magazines ; of a continuation to April 1808 of Lord Lyttletons 'History of Eng- land in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son ; ' and of an addition of the whole period of the third George to Dr. Goldsmith's ' History of England.' His other works are : 1. ' Reflections on the Resurrection and As- cension of Christ/ 1803. 2. ' Letters on the Study and Use of Ancient and Modern His- Bigland 21 Bigod tory,' 1804. 3. 'Letters on the Modern History and Political Aspect of Europe/ 1804. 4. ' Essays on Various Subjects/ 2 vols. 1805. 5. ' Letters on Natural History/ 1806. 6. 'A Geographical and Historical View of the World, exhibiting a complete Delineation of the Natural and Artificial Fea- tures of each Country/ &c., 5 vols. 1810. 7. 'A History of Spain from the Earliest Period to the close of the year 1809 ' (trans- lated and continued by Le Comte Mathieu Dumas to the epoch of the Restoration, 1814), 2 vols. 1810. 8. A Sketch of the History of Europe from the year 1783 to the Present Time/ in a later edition continued to 1814 {translated, and augmented in the military part, and continued to 1819 by J. MacCarthy, Paris, 1819), 2 vols. 1811. 9. /The Philo- sophical AVanderers, or the History of the Roman Tribune and the Priestess of Minerva, exhibiting the vicissitudes that diversify the fortunes of nations and individuals/ 1811. 10. 'Yorkshire/ being the 16th volume of the * Beauties of England and Wales,' 1812. 11. ' A History of England from the Earliest Period to the Close of the War, 1814,' 2 vols. 1815. 12. l A System of Geography for the Use of Schools and Private Students/ 1816. 13. ' An Historical Display of the Effects of Physical and Moral Causes on the Character and Circumstances of Nations, including a Comparison of the Ancients and Moderns in regard to their Intellectual and Social State/ 1816. 14. ' Letters on English History for the Use of Schools/ 1817. 15. 'Letters on French History for the Use of Schools/ 1818. 16. ' A Compendious History of the Jews/ 1820. [Watt's Bibl. Brit. ; Rhodes's Yorkshire Rce- nery ; Gent. Mag. 1832; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Poul- son's History of Holderness, ii. 19; Annual Bio- graphy.] J. M. BIGLAND, RALPH (1711-1784), Gar- ter king-of-arms, was born at Kendal in Westmoreland in 1711, his father being Richard Bigland, the descendant of an old family originally from Bigland in Lancashire. He was appointed head of the College of Arms in 1780, after passing through all the minor offices. He had been elected Bluemantle in 1757, Somerset and registrar 17(53, Norroy Idng-of-arms May 1773, Clarenceux August 1774 ; but he enjoyed his elevation as Garter Idng-of-arms only a few years, dying 27 March 1784 at the age of seventy-three", in St. James's Street , Bedford Row. He married at Frocester, 13 June 1737, Ann, daughter of John Wil- kins of that town, by whom he had one son, born on 3 April 1738 /and who died at the early age of twenty-two on 1 Dec. 1738. Bigland afterwards married Ann, daughter of Robert Weir ; this marriage also being of short du- ration, for she died 5 April 17, leaving no issue. The collections which he had made during his lifetime for a history of Glouces- tershire were intended to have been arranged and presented by him to the public. After his death they were partly published by his son, Richard Bigland of Frocester, Gloucester- shire, under the title of ' Historical, Monu- mental, and Genealogical Collections relative to the County of Gloucester' (fol. 1791-2)^ 1 - Among some of his other literary labours may be mentioned his 'Account of the Parish of Fairford, co. Gloucester, with a description of the celebrated windows and monuments.' In 1764 he also published a small work en- titled l Observations on Marriages, Baptisms, and Burials, as preserved in Parochial Regis- ters/ in which he pointed out the necessity of these documents being accurately kept '"for the benefit of society.' An interesting cor- respondence between him and Mr. G. Allan on various subjects was published in Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes.' [Noble's History of the College of Arms, 1804, 417-18; Lowndes's Bibliographers' Manual, 1864, i. 203 ; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, 1814, viii. 713-18 ; Gent. Mag. 1788, Iviii. 344 ; 1791, Ixi. 345, 725 ; 1793, Ixiii. 655.] T. F. T. D. BIGNELL, HENRY (1611-1660?), di-#/ vine, the son of Foulk Bignell of Souldern, * c< Oxfordshire, was born in the parish of St. ^ 3< Mary, Oxford, in July 1611. In 1629 he became a servitor of Brasenose College, and subsequently entered at St. Mary's IlalL After taking the degree of B.A. he was or- dAined and set up as a schoolmaster. In 1645 he was made rector of St. Peter-le- Bayly, Oxford, but was ejected from his benefice for scandalous conduct. Shortly before the Restoration he went out to the W T est Indies, where he seems to have died. According to Wood he published, in 1640, a book ' for the education of youth in know- ledge/ called ' The Son's Portion/ and was the author of some other ' trivial things not worth mentioning.' [Wood's Athense, iii. 406, and Fasti, i. 465.1 A. R. B. BIGNELL, MRS. [See BICKNELL, M .] BIGOD or BYGOD, SIR FRANCIS (1508-1537), rebel, of Settrington and Mul- grave Castle in Yorkshire, was descended from John, brother and heir of Roger Bigod, sixth earl of Norfolk. His grandfather, Sir Ralph Bigod, died in 1515, leaving Francis, then aged seven, his heir (Inq. p.m. 7 Hen. VIII, Bigod 22 Bigod Nos. 139, 144) ; for his father, John Bigod, had fallen in the Scotch wars. He had livery of lands by patent, 21 Dec. 1529 (Pat. 21 Hen. VIII, p. i., m. 28), and was soon afterwards knighted. He spent some time at Oxford, but took no degree, though his letters show that he was a scholar. In 1527 and the following years he was in the service of Cardinal Wolsey, and under Crom- well, Wolsey's successor in the favour of Henry VIII, was engaged in advancing in Yorkshire the king's reforms in church mat- ters. Nevertheless in 1536 we find him implicated (though unwillingly) in the Pil- grimage for Grace, an insurrection produced by these reforms. In January 1537 he headed an unsuccessful rising at Beverley, and for this was hanged at Tyburn on 2 June 1537. By his wife Katharine, daughter of William, Lord Conyers, he left a son, Ralph, who was restored in blood by act of parlia- ment, 3 Edward VI, but died without issue, and a daughter, Dorothy, through whom the estates passed to the family of KadclyiFe. Rastell (the chronicler) in a letter to Crom- well, 17 Aug. [1534] (Cal. of State Papers Hen. FZZJ, vol. vii. no. 1070), calls Bigod wise and well learned ; and Bale describes him as ' homo naturalium splendore nobilis ac doctus et evangelicse veritatis amator.' His letters to Cromwell, many of which are preserved in the Public Record Office, show him to have been deeply in debt, He wrote a trea- tise on ' Impropriations,' against the impro- priation of parsonages by the monasteries (London, by Tho. Godfray cum privileyio re- ffali, small 8vo). It appears to have been written after the birth of Elizabeth aud before Anne Boleyn's disgrace, i.e. betwe&n September 1533 and April 1536. Copies are in the British Museum and in Lambeth li- brary, and the preface is reprinted at the end of Sir Henry Spelman's ' Larger work of Tithes ' (1647 edition). Bigod also translated some Latin works, and, during the insurrec- tion, wrote against the royal supremacy. [Calendar of State Papers, Henry VIII, vols. iv. and onwards; Tanner's Bibliotheca ; Bale; Fuller's Worthies, ii. 209 ; Wood's Athen. Oxon. i. 101 ; Wriothesley's Chronicle, i. 64; Blome- field's Norfolk, v. 228.] E. H. B. BIGOD, HUGH, first EARL OF NORFOLK (d. 1176 or 1177), was the second son of Roger Bigod, the founder of the house in Eng- land after the Conquest. The origin of the name is quite uncertain. The French called the Normans ' bigoz e draschiers ' (Pom. de Ron, iii. 4780) in contempt. The second word is said to mean beer-drinkers ; the other has j been explained as a nickname derived from i the oath ' bi got ' commonly used by the early Normans. But whether the family name Bigod had any connection with this term or not, it is evident that in England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it was punned upon in words of profane swearing (WRIGHT'S Political Songs, pp. 67, 68 j HEM- IITGBTJRGH'S Chronicle, ii. 121). The first person who, bearing the name of Bigod or Bigot, appears in history is Robert le Bigod, a poor knight, who gained the favour of William, duke of Normandy, by discovering to him the intended treachery of William, count of Mortain. This Robert may have been the father of Roger, and one or the other, or both, may have been present at the battle of Hastings. In the ' Roman de Rou,' iii. 8571-82, the ancestor of Hugh Bigod (perhaps the above Robert) is named as holding lands at Malitot, Loges, and Chanon in Normandy, and as serving the duke in his household as one of his seneschals. He was small of body, but brave and bold, and as- saulted the English gallantly. Roger Bigod is not traced in English records before 1079, but by this time he may have been endowed with the forfeited estates of Ralph de Guader, earl of Norfolk, whose downfall took place in 1074. In Domesday he appears as hold- ing six lordships in Essex, and 117 in Suffolk. From Henry I he received the gift of Fram- lingham, which became the principal strong- hold of him and his descendants. He like- wise held the office of king's dapifer, or steward, under William Rufus and Henry I. He died in 1107, and was succeeded by his eldest son, William, who, however (26 Nov. 1120), was drowned in the wreck of the White Ship. Roger's second son, Hugh, thus entered into possession of the estates. At the time of his father's death, whom he survived some seventy years, Hugh must have been quite a young child. Little, is heard of him at first, no doubt on account of his youth, but he appears as king's dapifer in. 1123, and before that date he was constable of Norwich Castle and governor of the city down to 1122, when it obtained a charter from the crown. Passing the best years of his manhood in the distractions of the civil wars of Stephen and Matilda, when men's oaths of fealty sat lightly on their con- sciences, he appears to have surpassed his fellows in acts of desertion and treachery, and to have been never more in his element than when in rebellion. His first prominent action in history was on the death of Henry I in 1135, when he is said to have hastened to England, and to have sworn to Archbishop William Corbois that the dying king, on some quarrel with his daughter Matilda, had Bigod s disinherited her, and named Stephen of Blois his successor. Stephen's prompt arrival in England settled the matter, and the waver- ing prelate placed the crown on his head. Hugh's reward was the earldom of Norfolk. The new king's energy at first kept his fol- lowers together, but before Whitsuntide in the next year Stephen was stricken with sickness, a lethargy fastened on him, and the report of his death was quickly spread abroad/ A rising of the turbulent barons necessarily j followed, and Bigod was the first to take up j arms. He seized and held Norwich ; but j Stephen, quickly recovering, laid siege to the j city, and Hugh was compelled to surrender. I Acting with unusual clemency, Stephen | spared the traitor, who for a short time re- ! mained faithful. But in 1140 he is said to have declared for the empress, and to have j stood a siege in his castle of Bungay ; yet I in the next year he is in the ranks of Stephen's army which fought the disastrous battle of Lincoln. In the few years which j followed, while the war dragged on, and Stephen's time was fully occupied in subdu- ing the so-called adherents of the empress, who were really fighting for their own hand, the Earl of Norfolk probably remained within ! his own domains, consolidating his power, | and fortifying his castles, although in 1143-4 j he is reported to have been concerned in the j rising of Geoffrey de Mandeville. The quar- rel between the king and Archbishop Theo- bald in 1148 gave the next occasion for Hugh to come forward ; he this time sided with the archbishop, and received him in his castle of Framlingham, but joined with others in effecting a reconciliation. Five years later, in 1153, when Henry of Anjou j landed to assert his claim to the throne, Bi- god threw in his lot with the rising power, | and held out in Ipswich against Stephen's ' forces, while Henry, on the other side, laid siege to Stamford. Both places fell, but in ' the critical state of his fortunes Stephen was , in no position to punish the rebel. Nego- tiations were also going on between the two parties, and Hugh again escaped. On Henry's accession in December 1154, Bigod at once received a confirmation of his earldom and stewardship by charter issued apparently in January of the next year. The first years of the new reign were spent in restoring order to the shattered kingdom, and in breaking the power of the independent barons. It was scarcely to be expected that Hugh should rest quiet. He showed signs of resistance, but was at once put down. In 1 157 Henry marched into the eastern coun- ties and received the earl's submission. After this Hugh appears but little in the chronicles 5 Bigod for some time ; only in 1169 he is named among those who had been excommunicated by Becket. This, however, was in conse- quence of his retention of lands belonging to the monastery of Pentney in Norfolk. In 1173 the revolt of the young crowned prince Henry against his father, and the league of the English barons with the kings of France and Scotland in his favour, gave the Earl of Norfolk another opportunity for rebellion. He at once became a moving spirit in the' cause, eager to revive the feudal power which Henry had curtailed. The honour of Eye and the custody of Norwich Castle were promised by the young prince as his reward. But the king's energy and good fortune were equal to the occasion. While he held in check his rebel vassals in France, the loyal barons in England defeated his enemies here.' Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester (d. 1190) fq. v.], landing at Walton, in Suffolk, on 29 Sept. 1173, had marched to Framling- ham and joined forces with Hugh. Together they besieged and took, 13 Oct., the castle of Ha genet in Suffolk, held by Randal de Broc for the crown. But Leicester, setting out from Framlingham, was defeated and taken prisoner at Fornham St. Genevieve, near Bury, by the justiciar, Richard de Lucy, and other barons, who then turned their arms against Earl Hugh. Not strong enough to fight, he opened negotiations with his as- sailants, and, it is said, bought them off, at the same time securing for the Flemings in his service a safe passage home. In the next year, however, he was again in the field, with the aid of the troops of Philip of Flanders, and laid siege to Norwich, which he took by assault and burned. But Henry returned to England in the summer, and straightway marched into the eastern counties ; and when Hugh heard that the king had already de- stroyed his castle of Walton, and was ap- proachingFramlingham, he hastened to make his submission at Laleham on 25 July, sur- ! rendering his castles, which were afterwards ; dismantled, and paying a fine. After these ! events Hugh Bigod ceases to appear in his- 1 tory. His death is briefly recorded under the year 1177, and is generally mentioned as i occurring in the Holy Land, whither he had accompanied Philip of Flanders on a pil- grimage. It is to be observed, however, that on 1 March of that year his son Roger appealed to the king on a dispute with his i stepmother, Hugh being then dead, and that ' the date of his death is fixed ' ante caput ! jejunii,' i.e. before 9 March. If, then, he I died in Palestine, his death must have taken i place in the preceding year, 1176, to allow time for the arrival of the news in England. Bigod Bigod Henry took advantage of Roger's appeal to seize upon the late earl's treasure. Besides the vast estates which he inherited, Hugh Bigod was in receipt of the third penny levied in the county of Norfolk. He was twice married, his first wife being Juliana, sister of Alberic de Vere, earl of Oxford, by j whom he had a son, Roger, d. 1221 [q. v. J, j his successor ; and his second, Gundreda, who after his death was married to Roger de Glaiiville. [Chronicles of Henry of Huntingdon, Rog. de | Hoveden, Had. de Diceto, Benedict of Peter- j borough, Gervase of Canterbury (Rolls Series, j passim) ; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 132 ; Blom- tield's Hist, of Norfolk, iii. 24 seq. ; Stubbs's j Constitutional History and Early PJantagenets ; Eyton's Itinerary of Henry II ; Additional MS. 31939 (Eyton's Pedigrees), f. 129.] E. M. T. BIGOD, HUGH (d. 1266), the justiciar, i was the younger son of Hugh Bigod, third ! earl of Norfolk. Nothing is known of his ' early life. In 39 Henry III he was made chief ranger of Farndale Forest, Yorkshire, in consideration of a payment of 500 marks, ; and in the next year became governor of the ! castle of Pickering. In 1257 he accompanied Henry in his expedition into Wales. In 1258, on the formation of the government under the Provisions of Oxford, of which his brother, Roger, d. 1270 [q. v.], earl of Norfolk and mar- shal of England, was a member, Bigod was named chief justiciar, and in that capacity had the custody of the Tower of London. He was likewise made governor of Dover Castle, but resigned that place in 1261. He must at this period have been very wealthy, for he paid 3,000/. for the wardship of William de Kime, of Lincolnshire. His character as a judge has been placed high by Matthew Paris : t legum terrae peritum, qui officium justiciaries strenue peragens nullatenus permittat jus regni va- cillare.' In 1259-60 he went with two of the principal judges on a circuit to adminis- ter justice throughout the kingdom. Soon after he became governor of Scarborough, and about the end of 1260 he resigned his office of justiciar, probably from dissatisfaction with the conduct of the barons. He after- wards, in 1263, joined the royal party, and was present on the king's side at the "battle of Lewes on 14 May 1264, but fled from the field. He was afterwards reappointed to the government of Pickering Castle. He died about November 1266, leaving a son, Roger, who became in 1270 the fifth earl of Norfolk [q. v.] Bigod was twice married : first to Joanna, daughter of Robert Burnet : and secondly to Joanna, daughter of Nicholas de Stuteville and widow of Hugh Wake. [Chronicles of Matthew Paris and Gervase of Canterbury (Rolls Ser.) ; Dugdale's Baronage-, i. 135 ; Foss's Judges of England, ii. 239 ; Stubbs's Constitutional History.] E. M. T. BIGOD, ROGER (d. 1221), second EARL OF NORFOLK, was son of Hugh, first earl [q. v. ] On the death of his father in 1176, he and his stepmother, Gundreda, appealed to the king- on a dispute touching the inheritance, the countess pressing the claims of her own son. Henry thereupon seized the treasures of Earl Hugh into his own hands, and it seems that during the remainder of this reign Roger had small power, even if his succession was al- lowed. His position, however, was not en- tirely overlooked. He appears as a witness to Henry's award between the kings of Navarre and Castile on 16 March 1177, and in 1186 he did his feudal service as steward in the court held at Guildford. On Richard's succession to the throne, 3 Sept. 1189, Bigod was taken into favour. By charter of 27 Nov. the new king con- firmed him in all his honours, in the earldom of Norfolk, and in the stewardship of the royal household, as freely as Roger, his grandfather, and Hugh, his father, had held it. He was next appointed one of the ambas- sadors to Philip of France to arrange for the crusade, and during Richard's absence from England on that expedition he supported the king's authority against the designs of Prince John. On the pacification of the guarrel between the prince and the chancel- )r, William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, oil 28 July 1191, Bigod was put into possession of the castle of Hereford, one of the strong- holds surrendered by John, and was one of the chancellor's sureties in the agreement. In April 1193 he was summoned with cer- tain other barons and prelates to attend the chancellor into Germany, where negotiations were being carried on to effect Richard's re- lease from captivity ; and in 1194, after the surrender of Nottingham to the king, he was present in that city at the great council held on 30 March. At Richard's re-coronation, 17 April, he assisted in bearing the canopy. In July or August of the same year he ap- pears as one of the commissioners sent to York to settle a quarrel between the arch- bishop and the canons. After Richard's return home, Bigod's name is found on the records as a justiciar, fines being levied before him in the fifth year of that king's reign, and from the seventh on- wards. He also appears as a justice itinerant in Norfolk. After Richard's death, Bigod suc- ceeded in gaining John's favour, and in the first years of his reign continued to act as a judge. In October 1200 he was one of the Bigod Bigod envoys sent to summon William of Scotland to do homage at Lincoln, and was a witness .at the ceremony on '22 Nov. following ; but at a later period he appears to have fallen into disgrace, and was imprisoned in 1213. In the course of the same year, however, he j was released and apparently restored to fa- vour, as he accompanied the king to Poitou in February 1214, and about the same time compounded by a fine of 2,000 marks for the service of 120 knights and all arrears of scutages. Next year he joined the confede- rate barons in the movement which resulted in the grant of Magna Charta on 15 June 1215, and was one of the twenty-five execu- tors, or trustees, of its provisions. He was consequently included in the sentence of ex- communication which Innocent III soon afterwards declared against the king's oppo- nents, and his lands were cruelly harried by John's troops in their incursions into the eastern counties. After the accession of Henry III, Bigod returned to his allegiance, and his hereditary right to the stewardship of the royal house- hold was finally recognised at the council of Oxford on 1 May 1221. But before the fol- lowing August he died. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Hugh, as third earl, who, i liowever, survived him only four years. [Chronicles of K. de Hoveden, Boned, of Peter- borough, and Matthew Paris (Kolls Ser.); Dug- dale's Baronage, i. 132; Foss's Judges of England, ii. 40 ; Stubbs's Constitutional History ; Eyton's Itinerary of Henry II.] E. M. T. BIGOD, ROGER, fourth EARL OF NORFOLK (d. 1270), marshal of England, was grandson of Roger, second earl [q. v.], and son of Hugh, third earl, by his wife Matilda, daughter of William Marshal, earl of Pembroke. Being A minor at the time of his father's death, early in 1225, his wardship was granted to William de Longespee, earl of Salisbury, but was transferred to Alexander, king of Scot- land, on the marriage of Roger with Isabella, the king's sister. In 1233, when he probably came of age, he was knighted by Henry III at Gloucester, and in the same year received livery of the castle of Framlingham. He was head of the commission of justices itinerant into Essex and Hertfordshire, issued 1 Aug. 1234. In 1237 he greatly distinguished him- .self by his prowess at the tournament at Blythe, Nottinghamshire, in which the rival barons of the north and south had a serious encounter. A serious illness, as late as 1257, was attributed to the exertions he went through on that occasion. He took part in Henry's costly expedition to France in 1242, and displayed great bravery in the skirmish at Saintes, 22 July ; but soon after he and other nobles asked leave to retire and re- turned to England. In the parliament or assembly of the magnates in 1244 Roger Bigod was appointed one of the twelve re- presentatives of the two estates present, lay and clerical, to obtain measures of reform from the king in return for a money grant, and in the next year he was one of the envoys sent to the council of Lyons to protest against papal exactions. Redress was refused, and the embassy retired, threatening and pro- testing ; and in the parliament which met on 18 March 1246, Bigod took part in drawing up a list of grievances and addressing a letter of remonstrance to the pope. In 1246 also Roger Bigod was invested with the office of earl marshal in right of his mother, eldest daughter of William, earl of Pembroke, on whom it devolved on failure of the male line. Matthew Paris, the chroni- cler, has narrated two anecdotes of Roger which illustrate his resolute character. In 1249, when the Count of Guines was passing through England, Roger ordered his arrest, in retaliation for a road tax which he had been forced to pay when traversing the count's territories on his embassy to Lyons. And in 1255, when, by speaking in favour of Robert de Ros who was in disgrace, he in- curred the king's anger, he openly defied Henry, and did not hesitate to give him the lie when the latter called him traitor. In 1253 Roger was present at the solemn confirmation of the charters, when sentence of excommunication was formally passed against all who violated them. He was with the king in France in the same year ; but in January 1254 was sent to England to obtain money from parliament. Soon after he with othe/nobles retired in disgust from the army in Gascony. In 1257 he was member of an abortive embassy to France to demand certain rights. The next year he played an important part in the reforms introduced under the title of the Provisions of Oxford, being one of the twelve chosen to represent the barons, and subsequently being also a member of the council formed to advise the king. In 1258 he was one of the ambassadors to attend the conference at Cambray between the repre- ! sentatives of England, France, and Germany. The dissensions which sprang up among the ! barons in the course of 1 259 eventually sent ; Roger Bigod, together with others, over to the king's side in opposition to Simon de Montfort. It is in reference to the events of this period that he is invoked in the political poem preserved by liishanger (WRIGHT'S Polit. Sonys, 121):" Bigod Bigod O tu comes le Bigot, pactum serva sanum ; Cum sis miles strenuus, nunc exerce manum. But the award of the French king, who was appealed to to arbitrate, and who now set aside the Provisions of Oxford, probably ranged Bigod again on the popular side. After the decisive battle of Lewes he is found holding the castle of Oxford for De Mont- fort's party, and he was one of the five earls who were summoned to the parliament of 1265. Nothing further is known of him to the time of his death in 1270. He was buried at Thetford, and, dying without issue, was succeeded in his honours by his nephew Roger [q. v.l He had put away his wife Isabella of Scotland on the pretext of con- sanguinity, but took her again in 1253. [Matthew Paris (Rolls Ser.) ; Dugdale's Ba- ronage, i. 133 ; Foss's Judges of England, ii. 241 ; Htubbs's Constitutional History.] E. M. T. BIGOD, KOGER, fifth EAEL OF NOKFOLK (1245-1306), marshal of England, was born in 1245, and was the son of Hugh Bigod [q. v.], the justiciar, and nephew of Roger, fourth earl [q. v.], whom he succeeded in 1270. The period of his life as a baron being nearly synchronous with the reign of Edward I, his career is closely identified with the constitu- tional struggle with the crown in which the baronage played so large a part. He was present in the Welsh campaign of 1282, and had the custody of the castles of Bristol and Nottingham, which, however, he afterwards surrendered. In 1288 he was found prepar- ing to levy private war, but was repressed by Edmund of Cornwall, regent during the king's absence in Gascony. Edward's reforms had alarmed the barons, who foresaw the curtailment of their power under a strong and well-ordered government. In 1289 the spirit of opposition was manifested in the refusal of a subsidy. Then the wars with France, Wales, and Scotland, which are the principal events in the history of 1294-6, forced Edward to resort to measures of arbitrary taxation ; and when, on 24 Feb. 1297, he summoned the baronage to meet at Salisbury with the view of making an effort for the invasion of France, the barons re- belled. Roger Bigod and Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford, were at the head of the opposition. When Edward called upon them to serve in Gascony while he took command in Flanders, they refused to go, on the plea that their tenure obliged them only to serve beyond seas in company with the king. Turning to Bigod Edward tried persuasion. ' With you, king,' Bigod answered, l I will gladly go ; as belongs to me by hereditary- right, I will go in the front of the host before your face.' ,' But without me,' Edward urged, 1 you will go with the rest.' ' Without you, king/ was the answer, ' I am not bound to go, and go I will not.' Edward lost. his temper, ' By God, earl, you shall either go or hang.' 'By God/ said Roger, London Medical Gazette ' (1840, xxvi. 64), and also in his ' Practical Observations 011 Diseases of the Lungs and Heart,' a work much less successful than the ' Principles of Medicine.' In all Billing's writings his avowed aim was to base medicine on patho- logy ; their most striking feature is clearness of thought, and a striving after logical accu- racy which sometimes appears overstrained. Beginning as an innovator, he came in the end to be conservative, and was much op- posed to what he regarded as the teachings of the German school.' He took great in- terest in art, was himself a fair amateur artist, and a keen connoisseur in engraved gems, coins, and similar objects. On this subject he published an elaborate text-book, illustrated with photographs, which has reached a second edition. Billing was a man of great physical as well as mental activity, and was perhaps the last London physician who occasionally visited his patients on horseback. No portrait of him appears to have been published, except a very poor woodcut in the ' Medical Circular,' 1852. He wrote (all published at London in 8vo): 1. 'First Principles of Medicine,' 1st ed. 1831 ; 6th ed. 1868. 2. < On the Treatment of Asiatic Cholera,' 1st ed. 1848. 3. ' Prac- tical Observations on Diseases of the Lungs and Heart,' 1852. 4. ' The Science of Gems, Jewels, Coins, and Medals, Ancient and Modern,' 1867. Also ' Clinical Lectures,' published in the ' Lancet,' 1831, and several papers, &c., in the medical journals. [Medical Circular, 1852, i. 243; Medical Times and Gazette, 1881, ii. 373 ; Proceedings Royal Med. and Chirurg. Soc. 1882, ix. 129; Medical Directory, 1881 ; Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, iii. 203 ; Calendar of London Hospital.] J. F. P. BILLING, SIB THOMAS (d. 1481 ?), chief justice, is said by Fuller ( Worthies, ii. 166) to have been a native of Northampton- shire, where two villages near Northampton bear his name, and to have afterwards lived in state at Ash well in that county. Lord Camp- bell (Lives of the Chief Justices, i. 145) says he was an attorney's clerk ; but this seems doubtful. He was, at any rate, a member of Gray's Inn. Writing to one Ledam, Billing says : ' I would ye should do well, because ye 'are a fellow of Gray's Inn, where I was fellow ' (Paston Letters, i. 43, 53), and, ac- cording to a Gray's Inn manuscript, he was a reader there. His social position was suffi- cient to enable him to be on terms of intimacv with the families of Paston and of Lord Grey de Ruthin. In 1448 he was member of par- liament for London, and was recorder in 1451. Along with seven others he received the coif as serjeant-at-law 2 Jan. 1453-4, and in the Hilary term of that year is first mentioned as arguing at the bar. "Thenceforward his name is frequent in the reports. Lord-chancellor j Waynflete appointed him king's Serjeant I 21 April 1458, and Lord Campbell, citing I an otherwise unknown pamphlet of Billing in favour of the Lancastrian cause, says that with the attorney-general and solicitor-gene- ral he argued the cause of King Henry VI at the bar of the House of Lords. The entry in the Parliamentary Rolls, however (v. 376), indicates that the judges and king's Serjeants excused themselves from giving an opinion in the matter. About the same time Billing appears to have been knighted, and on the ac- ! cession of Edward IV his patent of king's Serjeant was renewed, and in the first parlia- ment of this reign he was named, along with Serjeants Lyttelton and Laken, a referee in a cause between the Bishop of Winchester and some of his tenants. He is said by Lord Campbell to have exerted himself actively against King Henry, Queen Margaret, and the Lancastrians, and to have helped to frame the act of attainder of Sir John Fortescue, chief i justice of the king's bench, for being engaged in the battle of Towton, and to have advised the grant of a pardon, on condition that the opinions of the treatise * De Laudibus ' should be retracted (see Eot. Parl vi. 2629). At any rate, in 1464 (9 Aug.), Billing was added | to the three judges of the king's bench, but I by the king's writ only : and the question be- ing thereupon raised, it was decided that a i commission in addition to the writ was re- quired for the appointment of a justice of as- size. Baker in his l Chronology,' and Hale ! in his * Pleas of the Crown,' says that on the : trial of Walter Walker for treason in 1460, for | having said to his son, ' Tom, if thou behavest thyself well, I will make thee heir to the Crown ' i.e. of the Crown Inn, of which he was landlord Billing ruled a conviction, and Lord Campbell accepts the story. But it would seem from the report of the judgment of Chief-justice Bromley in the trial of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, 17 April 1554, that I the judge at that trial was John Markham [q.v.], afterwards chief justice next before Billing, and that he directed an acquittal 1 (see STOW, 415; FABYAN, 633). Billing succeeded Markham as chief justice | of the king's bench 23 Jan. 1468-9 (DuGDALE Billingham Billings and Foss, arts. ' Billing 1 ' and ' Markham ') , hav- ing precedence over Yelverton and Bingham, justices of the king's bench ; and this office he retained in spite of political changes. For when Henry VI for a few months regained the throne new patents were at once issued, 9 Oct. 1470; and when Edward IV overthrew him, 17 June 1471 (DUGDALE, wrongly, 1472, and so CAMPBELL), he, along with almost all the other judges, was confirmed in his seat. It is suggested that he may have owed this less to his legal talents than to the support of the Earl of Warwick. In 1477 (not as Campbell, 1470 ; see HUME, iii. 261) Billing tried Burdet of Arrow, in Warwickshire, a dependent of the Duke of Clarence, for trea- son, committed in 1474, in saying of a stag, ' I wish that the buck, horns and all, were in the king's belly,' for which he was executed (1 State Trials, 275). Billing is also said to have been concerned in the trial of the Duke of Clarence himself (Hot. Parl vi. 193). He continued to sit in court until 5 May 1481 (1482, CAMPBELL), when he died and was buried in Bittlesden Abbey. His tombstone is now in Wappenham Church, Northamp- tonshire. His successor was Sir JohnHussey or Husee. He was twice married, first to Katerina, who died 8 March 1479, second to Mary, daughter and heir of Robert Wesenham of Conington in Huntingdonshire, who had previously been married to Thomas Lang, and then to William Cotton of Redware, Stafford- shire. She died in 1499, and was buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster, which she and Sir Thomas Billing had rebuilt. By his first wife he had issue four daughters and five sons, one of whom, Thomas, his heir, died in 1500 without male issue, and was buried with his father and mother. [Foss's Lives of the Judges ; Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chief Justices ; Dugclale's Origines Juridiciales ; Coke's Institutes, preface; Graird- ner's Paston Letters, i. 302 ; Close Roll, 13 Edw. IV, m. 5.1 J. A. H. BILLINGHAM or BULLINGHAM RICHARD (fi. 1350), a schoolman, whose name appears on the rolls of Merton College, Oxford, between 1344 and 1356 (TANNEK, Bibl Brit. p. 100), is mentioned by Wood (Antiquities of Oxford, i. 447 seqq.) as having been concerned in a riot arising about an election to the chancellorship of the univer- sity in 1349. Tanner states that he became a priest of Sion, but as that religious house was not founded until 1414 we must suppose that he has confounded two different persons. Billingham's works, all of a theological and scholastic character, are enumerated by Bale, 'Script. Brit. Cat.'vi. 8. Among the nume- rous ways in which the name is spelled, the only one that calls for special notice is Gil- lingham, and this is easily accounted for as a paliBOgraphical blunder. [Authorities cited above.] R. L. P. BILLINGS, JOSEPH (.1758 ?), explorer, j captain in the Russian navy, in 1776 entered on board the Discovery, one of the two shipa | that sailed under the command of Captain Gook on his last fatal voyage. He was rated as A.B., and in September 1779, after Cook's death, was transferred with the same rating' to the Resolution. He is described in the pay-book of the Resolution as a native of Turnham Green, and at that time aged twenty- one. Some time after the return of the ex- pedition to England Billings being at St. Petersburg, whither he had probably gone as mate of a merchant ship, was induced to enter into the Russian navy with the rank of lieutenant ; and when, in 1784, the empress determined to send out an expedition to ex- plore the extreme north-eastern parts of Asia, Billings, known by repute as the ' com- panion ' of Cook, was judged a fitting man to command it. He was definitely appointed in August 1785, the objects of the expedition, as laid down in his instructions, being ' the exact determination of the latitude and lon- gitude of the mouth of the river Kovima, and the situation of the great promontory of the Tchukchees as far as the East Cape ; the forming an exact chart of the islands in the Eastern Ocean extending to the coast of America ; and, in short, the bringing to per- fection the knowledge of the seas lying be- tween the continent of Siberia and the oppo- site coast of America.' He received at the same time the rank of captain-lieutenant, and was instructed, on arriving at certain definite points, to take the further rank of captain of the second class and captain of the first class. Early in September an officer, with a competent staff, was sent on to Ochotsk to make arrangements for construct- ing two ships ; and the expedition, in several detachments, proceeded to Irkutsk, where it assembled in February 1786. A very full account of the expedition was published by the secretary, Mr. Sauer. In the course of nine years it carried out the objects prescribed for it with such exact- ness as was then attainable. Of Billings personally we have no information beyond what is contained in Mr. Sauer's book. Mr. Sauer did not love his captain, and im- plies that he was greedy, selfish, ignorant, and tyrannical, but makes no definite charge. We can only say that Billings successfully commanded the expedition during the whole Billings 33 Billingsley time, and that by it were made many large additions to our knowledge of the geography of those inclement regions. Of his further life, or the date and manner of his death, we know nothing. [An Account of a Geographical and Astrono- mical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Eussia . . . performed ... by Commodore Joseph Billings in the years 1785-1794, narrated from the original papers by Martin Sauer, Secre- tary to the Expedition, 1802, 4to; Beloe's Sexa- genarian, ii. 10.] J. K. L. BILLINGS, EGBERT WILLIAM (1813-1874), architect and author, was born in London in 1813, and became, at the age of thirteen, a pupil of John Britton, the emi- nent topographical draughtsman. During the seven years of his articles Billings imbibed a taste for similar pursuits, which he after- wards exemplified in a series of beautiful works, published at brief intervals for the space of fifteen years. In 1837 he was em- ployed in illustrating, for Mr. George God- win, a ' History and Description of St. Paul's Cathedral,' and two years later, with Frede- rick Mackenzie, the ' Churches of London,' in two volumes, of which the plates were chiefly engraved by John le Keux. He also assisted Sir Jeffery Wyatville on drawings of Windsor Castle, and prepared numerous views of the ruins of the old Houses of Par- liament after the disastrous fire. Among the works he undertook on his own account may be mentioned ' Illustrations of the Temple Church, London,' 1838 ; l Gothic Panelling in Brancepeth Church, Durham,' 1841 ; ' Kettering Church, Northampton- shire,' 1843. Still greater efforts were the important works on Carlisle and Durham Cathedrals, published in 1840 and 1843, as also an excellent work of the Britton school, called ' Illustrations of the Architectural Antiquities of the County of Durham,' which appeared in 1846. But his greatest achievement in this style, and the one with which his name is chiefly associated, was the ' Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland,' 4 vols. 1845-52, a noble collection of 240 illustrations, with ample explanatory letterpress. His other works deal almost ex- | clusively with the technicalities of his art, j and are : ' An Attempt to define the Geo- ! metric Proportions of Gothic Architecture, as illustrated by the Cathedrals of Carlisle and Worcester,' 1840 ; ' Illustrations of Geo- Powerof Form applied to Geometric Tracery,' VOL. v. After giving up authorship, Billings de- voted himself entirely to his practice, which soon grew very considerable. He was em- ployed upon the restoration of the chapel of Edinburgh Castle (a government commis- sion), the Douglas Room in Stirling Castle, Gosford House, Haddingtonshire, for the Earl of Wemyss ; the restoration of Han- bury Hall, Worcestershire ; Crosby-upon- Eden Church, Cumberland ; Kemble House, Wiltshire ; and additions to Castle Wemyss, Renfrewshire, for Mr. John Burns, upon which he was engaged at the time of his death, having built the castle itself many years before. After 1865 Billings lived at Putney, where he purchased an old English residence, the Moulinere, which had once been occupied by the famous Duchess of Marlborough. He died there 14 Nov. 1874. \ During the latter years of his life, at intervals S of leisure, he had again occupied himself upon one of his old and favourite themes a view from the dome of the interior of St. i Paul's Cathedral. In this drawing his en- deavour was to modify the rendering of out- lying portions according to strict rules, so as I to bring them within the range of possible and undistorted vision. The drawing, which is on a very large scale, and was unfortu- nately left unfinished, has been lately (1884) deposited in the library of the dean and : chapter. [Information from Mr. J. Drayton Wyatt ; Builder for 1874, xxxii. 982, 1035.] G. G. BILLINGSLEY, SIB HENRY (d. 16QO), lord mayor of London, and first translator of Euclid into English, was the son of Roger Billingsley of Canterbury. He was admitted a Lad v Margaret scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1551. He is said to have also studied for several years at Oxford, although he never took a degree at either university. At Oxford he developed, according to Wood, a taste for mathematics under the tuition of 'an eminent mathematician called Whyte- head/ at one time ' a fryar of the order of St. Augustine.' Billingsley was afterwards ap- prenticed to a London haberdasher, and ra- pidly became a wealthy merchant. He was chosen sheriff of London in 1584, and alder- man of Tower ward on 16 Nov. 1585. He removed to Candlewick ward in 1592, and on 31 Dec. 1596 was elected lord mayor on the death, during his year of office, of Sir Thomas Skinner. He was apparently knighted during 1597. In 1594 he had been appointed presi- dent of St. Thomas's Hospital, and was from 1589 one of the queen's four ' customers/ or farmers of the customs, at the port of London. He sat as member for London in the parlia- D Billingsley 34 Billingsley ment that met on 19 March 1603-4. He died i Queen Anne in 1613 at his house at Listen, 92 Nov 1606, and was buried in the church Gloucestershire, which his father had pur- - 1 ' ' * 1598 ~ of St. Catharine Coleman. To the poor of that parish he bequeathed 200J. In 1591 he had already founded three scholarships at St. John's College, Cambridge, for poor stu- dents, and had given to the college for their maintenance two messuages and tenements in Tower Street and in Mark Lane, Allhal- lows Barking (BAKER, St. John's College, ed. Mayor, i. 434). Billingsley published in 1570 the first translation of Euclid's ' Elements of Geome- try ' that had appeared in English. His ori- chased in 1598 (NICHOLS, Progresses of James I, i. 192, ii. 647, 666). [Cooper's Athense Cantab, ii. 442; Wood's Athen. Oxon., ed. Bliss, i. 762 ; Chalmers's Biog. Diet, : Cal. Dom. State Papers from 1 590 to 1 606.1 S. L. L. BILLINGSLEY, JOHN, the elder (1625-1684), divine, was born at Chatham, Kent, on 14 Sept. 1625. Wood says 'he Avas educated mostly in St. John's College, Cambridge, but, coming with the rout to ginal was the Latin version attributed to Cam- Oxon to obtain preferment on the visita- panus, which had been first printed in 1482, tion made by the parliament in 1648, he was and again in 1509. A lengthy essay on ma- fortunate to be supplied with a Kentish thematical science from the pen of Dr. John j fellowship of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Dee prefaced the volume, and De Morgan has (as having been born in that county).' In suggested that Dee, and not Billingsley, was I i Mag< lxiv> 671 > ] XX n i ii. 69 ; Georgian fession, her last appearance being announced . Era (1832), iv. 291 ; Egerton MRS. 2159, if. 57, at her brother's benefit concert on 3 May 1811. She appeared, however, once more at White- Earl of Mount, Edgcumbe's Musical Re- miniscences (2nd ed. 1827), vi. ; Busby's Con- hall Chapel in 1814, at a concert in aid of the cert Room Anecdotes, i. 151, 212, 217, ii. 4; sufferers by the German war. After her re- Eaton's Musical Criticism (1872), 172 ; Seward's tirement she lived in princely style at a villa Letters (1811), i. 153 ; Harmonicon for 1830, 93 ; at Fulham, where she was rejoined in 1817 by Public Characters (1802-3), 394 ; H. Bromley's M.Felissent, who induced her to return with Cat. of Engraved Portraits, 431; Memoirs of him to St. Artien in the following year. Here Mrs. Bilhngton (1792); An Answer to the Me i T T ^~ i -i m n . Tnoirs of Mrs Kimnfrton (17921! (rrovft s Diet she died on 25 Aug. 1818, owing, it is some- times said, to the effects of a blow she received from her worthless husband. Her child by her first husband had died in infancy ; but it was believed that an adopted child, whom she had placed in a convent at Brussels, was her own daughter. Contemporary opinions as to the merits of Mrs. Billington as a singer differ to a singular degree. It was always her misfortune to be moirs of Mrs. Billington (1792) ; Grove's Diet, of Music, i. 242a; Cat. of Library of Sacred Harmonic Society; Musical "World, viii. 109; Parke's Musical Memoirs (1830); Fetis's Bio- graphie des Musiciens, ii. 195 ; Thos. Billington's at. George and the Dragon ; Quarterly Musical Magazine, i. 175; Registers of Lambeth; Thes- pian Dictionary (1805).] W. B. S. BILLINGTON, THOMAS (d. 1832), a __ _, j native of Exeter, was a well-known harpsi- forced into a position of rivalry with some j chord and singing master towards the close other great artist, and thus partisanship often of the eighteenth century. On 6 April 1777 guided the judgments of her critics. As to he was elected a member of the Royal Society the perfect finish of her singing all are ! of Musicians. His brother James (the hus- agreed. The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe says , band of Mrs. Billington [q. v.]) was elected that her voice was sweet and flexible, her ; a member of the same society on 6 Jan. 1782. execution neat and precise, her embellish- ( A third brother, Horace, was an artist, and Billington Bilney died at Glasshouse Street on 17 Nov. 1812. Billington was an industrious composer and compiler. His most remarkable productions are his settings of poems like Gray's * Elegy, Pope's ' Eloisa,' and parts of Young's ' Night Thoughts' to heterogeneous collections of his own and other composers' music. In one ; of these curious compilations he arranged Handel's Dead March in ' Saul ' as a four- part glee, while Jomelli's ' Chaconne ' figures as a song. Besides these works, Billington published several sets of instrumental trios, quartetts, and sonatas ; and canzonets and ballads for one and more voices. During the greater part, of his life he lived at 24 Char- lotte Street, but towards 1825 he removed to Sunbury, Middlesex. He died at Tunis in 1832. [Brit. Mus. Cat. ; Kecords of Royal Society of Musicians; Gent. Mag. Ixxxii. pt. ii. 501, cii. 382.] W. B. S. BILLINGTON, WILLIAM (1827- 1884), dialect writer, was born at the Yew Trees, Samlesbury, near Blackburn and was one of the three sons of a contractor for road- making. The father died when the boy was between seven and eight years of age, and in consequence he had little or no schooling, but as soon as possible entered upon factory life as a 'doffer.' In 1839 the family re- moved to Blackburn, and Billington passed through various stages of employment in the cotton mills, from ' doffer ' to weaver and * taper.' He was also for some time a publi- can. His intimate knowledge of the ways of thought and speech of Lancashire work- ing people was turned to account in the period of the Lancashire cotton famine, when his homelv rhymes were circulated in thou- sands of broadsides. Of the ballad of * Th' Shurat Weyvur' 14,000 copies were sold in that time of distress. Another popular rhyme, ' Th' Tay and Rum Ditty,' usually attributed to him, was written by l Adam Chester,' the pseudonym of Charles Rothwell. The most important of his sketches, in prose and verse, have been collected in two works, 'Sheen and Shade,' which appeared in 1861, and t Lancashire Poems with other Sketches,' pub- lished in 1883, some copies of which have a photographic portrait. High literary merit cannot be claimed for Billington, but he is a faithful painter of the life of the district, and a certain philological value attaches to his representation of the East Lancashire dia- . lect. He was twice married, and died on .1 Jan. 1884. [Sutton's List of Lancashire Authors ; Biblio- . graphical List published by the English Dialect Society; private information.] W. E. A. A. BILNEY or BYLNEY, THOMAS (d. 1531), martyr, was a member of a Norfolk family which took its name from the villages of the same designation in that county. Local historians (BLOMEFIELD'S Norfolk, iii. 199, ix. 461) assert that he was born either at East Bilney or Norwich ; but these state- ments seem to rest on probability rather than definite evidence. The date of his ordination as priest makes it impossible for him to have been bom before 1495, and as both his parents were alive at his death, it is improbable that he was born much earlier. When still very young he went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. His ardent religious temperament drew him from legal studies towards an active clerical life. In the summer of 1519 he was ordained priest by Bishop West, at Ely, on the title of the Priory of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield (MS. Cole, xxvi. 151, from West's Register ; MS. Add. 5827). The absence of any refer- ence to his status in Bishop West's Register proves that he did not take his degree of LL.B. or become a fellow of his college until some subsequent time. The earlier period of Bilney's manhood seems to have been passed in a series of spiritual struggles analogous to those of Luther. He sought for relief in those mechanical theories of ' good works ' which the reigning scholas- ticism inculcated. But fastings and watch- ings, penances and masses were powerless to relieve the sense of sin that weighed so heavily on his sensitive temperament. At last the fame of the great scholar's Latinity attracted Bilney to the edition of the New Testament which Erasmus had published in 1516. That Erasmus's Latin, rather than the Greek text, should have allured Bilney, suggests that he, whose early studies had been in the civil and canon laws, had little or no knowledge of the latter language. Like Luther, Bilney found in the teaching of St. Paul what he had so long sought for in vain in the arid tenets of the schoolmen. i Immediately I felt,' he exclaims, * a mar- vellous comfort and quietness, insomuch as my bruised bones leapt for joy.' Hencefor- ward the scriptures were his chief study. A bible which once belonged to Bilney is still preserved in the library of Corpus College, Cambridge. Its frequent annotations and interlineations show how diligent he had been in its study. The doctrines of justifi- cation by faith, of the nothingness of human efforts without Christ, of the vanity of a merely external religion of rites and cere- monies, became for Bilney, as for so many others of his generation, the starting points of a new and. brighter existence. Other young Cambridge men were groping on the same Bilney Bilney path, and these earliest English protestants | formed a sort of society, of which Bilney ! became one of the leaders. Barnes and Lam- bert ascribed their conversion to his influ- ence. Matthew Parker, who, in 1521, had come up from Norwich to Corpus College, soon \ acquired an enthusiastic affection for one who was perhaps his fellow-toAviisman. In 1524 , Hugh Latimer, then as ardent a conservative i as he afterwards became a strenuous reformer, ! read for his B.D. thesis a violent philippic against Melanchthon. Bilney, who had per- , haps studied Lutheran books in secret, and j who had been present at the recital of the | dissertation, visited Latimer the next day, and reasoned with him with such convincing subtlety that Latimer ended by completely accepting his position. From that day began a lifelong friendship between Bilney and Latimer. Henceforth they were constantly in each other's society, and in their daily walks on ' Heretic's Hill,' as the people calle*d their favourite place of exercise, Bilney quite won over his new friend. ' By his confession,' said Latimer, ' I learned more than in twenty years before.' Their position had this in common, that with a burning ze&l for righteousness and spiritual religion their unspeculative intellects were never seriously troubled with mere doctrinal and theological difficulties. To the last Bilney remained orthodox, after mediaeval standards on the power of the pope, the sacrifice of the mass, the doctrine of transubstantiatiori and the powers of the church. Foxe is quite pitiful on his blindness and grossness on these points. Bilney remained where Luther started, and died too early to be influenced, like Lati- mer, by external changes of a later date. The little band of Cambridge reformers were zealous in preaching and in works of cha- rity, however opposed they were to the formal * good works ' of the schoolmen. Bilney and Latimer constantly visited together the foul lazar-house and equally foul prison of Cam- bridge. On one occasion they discovered a woman in- gaol who had been unjustlx sentenced to death for child-murder, ana Latimer's influence with the king procured ( her pardon. This must have been at the very end of Bilney's career. Though a zealous opponent of the cere- monial fastings of the church, Bilney set in his own life a rare example of abstinence and self-denial. He allowed himself little sleep. He generally contented himself with one meal a day, and distributed the rest of his commons to the prisoners and the poor. * He could abide,' says Foxe, ' neither sing- ing nor swearing.' The < dainty singing ' of the greater churches was to him mere ' mock- ing against God ; ' and whenever Thirlby, the future bishop, who had rooms beneath him, played upon his recorder, Bilney ' would resort straight to his prayer.' Latimer is always en- thusiastic upon the simplicity, the unworld- liness, and the transparent honesty of ' little Bilney,' as he affectionately calls him. He was 'meek and charitable, a simple good soul not fit for this world.' In the propagation of his teaching, Bilney gave his small and spare frame no rest. Cam- bridge and London were not enough for him. The election of Stephen Gardiner to the mastership of Trinity Hall in 1 525 may have made his college a less pleasant place of abode to him. On 23 July 1525 he obtained from Bishop West a license to preach throughout the whole diocese of Ely (Cole MS. as above, xxvi. 116). He also preached frequently in Norfolk and Suffolk, but his admission into so many churches almost proves that his general teaching seemed orthodox in cha- racter. But his denunciations of saint and relic worship, and of pilgrimages to Wal- singham and Canterbury, his rejection of the mediation of saints, and of many other cherished portions of the popular religion, drew the attention of Wolsey to his case, who, as legate a latere, then exercised a jurisdic- tion that transcended both the diocesan and metropolitical authorities. Wolsey had been accused of remissness in dealing with heresy. He began to take a severer line. About 1526 he seems to have had Bilney before him and to have dismissed him on taking an oath that he did not hold, and would not dissemi- nate, the doctrines of Luther (FoxE, iv. 622). But next year (1527) Bilney, in conjunction with his Cambridge friend Arthur, fell into more serious trouble. About Whitsuntide he preached a series of sermons in and near London. At St .Magnus's, near London Bridge, he exclaimed: 'Pray you only to God, and to noo saynts, rehersing the Litany, and when he came to Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis, he said Stay there.' He also said that ' Chris- ten men ought to worship God only and not Saynts.' At Willesden, in Middlesex, he taught the same doctrines in the same Whit- sun week, and declared that but for the ido- latry of the Christians the Jews would long- ago have been converted to the Christian faith. At Newington, in Surrey, which was also in the diocese of London, he again denounced prayer to saints. A sermon at Christ Church, Ipswich, on 28 May, and a disputation in that town with Friar Brasiard against image worship, together with a previous ' most ghostly sermon' on 7 March, had excited general suspicion. Tunstal, who had ob- tained evidence of his Ipswich proceedings Bilney 4 (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. iv. I pt. 2, No. 4396, Denham's confession), caused Bilney and Arthur to be arrested. They were j confined in the Tower, where the society of ! a fellow-sufferer for his religion somewhat j consoled Bilney. On 27 Nov. 1527 Wolsey, ! after solemn mass and sermon in the abbey, ! held a great court in the chapter house at > Westminster. The Archbishop of Canterbury, yielding precedence to the legate a later e, the bishops of London, Norwich, and several other bishops, with a large number of theologians and jurists, were present. Bilney and Arthur were brought before them. Bilney was asked by the cardinal whether he had not, con- j trary to his oath, again taught the doctrines of Luther. He replied l not wittingly,' and j willingly swore to answer plainly the articles \ brought against him. In the afternoon wit- nesses were heard. Next day (28 Nov.) the court met at the house of Richard Nix, bishop of Norwich, who, with the bishops of London, Ely, and Rochester, heard the case as the legate's deputies. On 2 Dec. another meeting was held at the same place, and elaborate articles and interrogatories were laid before the two prisoners. In his answers Bilney, while assenting altogether to the majority of the articles, while admitting that Luther was ' a wicked and detestable heretic,' and accepting power of the pope, expressed a desire that at least some part of the scriptures should be in the vulgar tongue, and that pardons should be restrained, and, by his qualified and elaborate answers to other points, seemed not to be fully in agreement with his interrogators. Accord- ingly, when on 4 Dec. the court met again in the chapter house of Westminster, Tun- stal, who had now taken the chief place in it, exhorted Bilney to recant and abjure. He replied, 'Fiat justitia et judicium in nomine Domini.' Then the bishop solemnly declared him convicted of heresy, but deferred sen- tence to the next day. Tunstal seems to have acted with much moderation and forbearance to Bilney, if, indeed, the very unsubstantial character of his heresies did not almost re- quire his acquittal. On 5 Dec. Bilney was again brought up, and again refused to re- cant. Tunstal exhorted him to retire again and consult with his friends ; but in the after- noon Bilney returned with a request that his witnesses might be heard, and said that if they could prove that he was guilty he would willingly yield himself. But the bishops resolved that it was irregular for him to renew the trial, and again pressed his abjura- tion. He refused point-blank, though peti- tioning again for more time. After some reluctance Tunstal gave him two days more, i Bilney which he employed in consulting with his friends Farmer and Dancaster. On Saturday, 7 Dec., the court met finally, and in answer to the stereotyped request to abjure, Bilney said that by Dancaster's advice he was re- solved to abjure, and trusted they would deal lightly with him. He then formally read and subscribed his abjuration, and the bishop, after absolving him, imposed as penance that he should the next day (Sunday) go before the procession at St. Paul's bareheaded with a faggot on his shoulder, that he should stand before the preacher at Paul's Cross all sermon time, and that he should remain in a prison appointed by the cardinal as long as the latter thought fit. Bilney seems to have been kept in the Tower for more than a year. In 1529 he was re- leased, and went back to Cambridge. Per- haps the influence of Latimer, which had been actively used to help him all through the proceedings, may have led to his release. But freedom brought no relief to Bilney. His sensitive temperament and scrupulous conscience were tormented with remorse for his apostasy. His friends did their best to console him, but to no purpose. ' The comfortable places of scripture,' says Latimer, l to bring them unto him, it was as though a man should run him through the heart with a sword, for he thought the whole scriptures sounded to his condemnation/ Into such despondency did he fall, that his friends were afraid to leave him day or night. He endured this life of misery for more than two years. At last he resolved to go out again and preach the truth which he had denied. Late one night he took leave of his friends in Trinity Hall, and said 'that he would go to Jerusalem/ Forthwith he set out for Norfolk. At first he taught privately, but growing bolder he preached publicly in the fields, for, his license to preach having been withdrawn, the churches were no longer open to him. Ultimately he went to Norwich, where he gave ' the anchoress of Norwich y u copy of Tyndale's Testament. Soon after he was apprehended by the officers of the bishop. Convocation was now assembled in Lon- don, and on 3 March it drew up articles against Bilney, Latimer, and Crome. Court | favour made it easier for the latter two to I escape, but Bilney 's case as a relapsed heretic ! was now desperate. He seems to have taken up a bolder line in the last short period of j field preaching in Norfolk, and even Latimer . disavowed any sympathy with hirn if he were a heretic (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII r v. 607). Arraigned before Dr. Pellis, chan- [ cellor of the. bishop, Bilney was degraded Bilney 43 Bilson from his orders, and handed over to the se- cular arm for execution. With great cheer- fulness and fortitude he prepared for his end. He wrote a letter of farewell, that still sur- vives (NASMITH, Cat. MSS. in C. C. C. Cam- bridge, p. 355), to his father and mother, and drew up two discourses (printed in TOWNS- EXD'S Foxe, vol. iv. ap. v. ) that are almost wholly devotional in their character. He was constantly assailed by the arguments and entreaties of the chiefs of the four orders of friars who had houses in Norwich ; and Dr. Pellis also pressed him to recant. Bilney's gentle and simple soul could hardly be un- moved by these efforts. Differing so little as he did from the church, it was doubtless a great consolation to him to hear mass, to con- fess, to receive the eucharist and absolution. The clergy and the Norwich townsmen were glad to see him so penitent. On the morn- ing of his execution (19 Aug. 1531) he heard mass in the chapel of the Guildhall where he was imprisoned, and was exhorted to make a thorough recantation before the people at his execution. He was led through the Bishopsgate into a low valley called the Lol- lard's Pit under St. Leonard's Hill, which was thronged with the crowd assembled to witness his martyrdom. He spoke to the crowd, admitted his error in preaching against fasting, exculpated the anchoress and even the friars, but exhorted the people to believe in the church and eulogised chastity. Dr. Pellis then produced a bill, saying, ' Thomas, here is a bill ; ye know it well enough.' 'Ye say truly, Mr. Doctor/ answered Bilnev/ He then read the bill, but apparently either to himself or in an inaudible voice, so/that none knew what the tenor of the document was (Appendices to FOXE ; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. v. No. 372-3, but cf. 522 and 560. Foxe's account seems the less trust- worthy). The flames were then lighted, and Bilney soon perished. A controversy as to the pre- ! cise nature of his last utterances sprang up ! between Read the mayor and an alderman Curatt, and their contradictory depositions j still remain. Sir Thomas More, relying upon Curatt, asserted in the preface to his pamphlet \ against Tyndale that Bilney recanted all his ! heresies. This the protestants denied. Foxe j argues with much violence against More, but More had seen the depositions of which Foxe was ignorant, and Foxe's main argument is the denial of Matthew Parker, who was present at his old teacher's execution. The truth seems to be that Bilney was so little of a heretic, that a mere statement of his ; views would have borne the appearance of a ; recantation to those who, like More, regarded , him as a thorough Lutheran. Had Bilney's over-scrupulous conscience allowed him to stay quietly at Cambridge a year or two more, he would have found all and more than he contended for accepted by the very men who hounded him on to death. The execution of a man so gentle and harmless as Bilney was peculiarly disgraceful to the government, even if, as most people then admitted, it was right to burn heretics and sacramentaries. [Our main authority for Bilney's life is Foxe's Acts and Monuments, vol. iv. in Townsend's edi- tion, which also gives valuable appendices of docu- ments and state papers, all of which, with the other documents bearing on the subject, are sum- marised in Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII, vol. v., edited by Mr. Gairdner; Foxe's account can be verified and checked by comparison with the extracts from the register of Tunstal, MS. Baker xxi., and by Cole's tran- scripts from the register of West, MS. Cole xxvi. ; Latimer's Sermons ; Blomefield's Norfolk ; Tan- ner's Bibliographia Britannica; an excellent modern summary is in Cooper's Athenae Canta- brigienses, i. 42, a longer one in Dean Hook's Ecclesiastical Biography.] T. F. T. BILSON, THOMAS (1546-7-1616), bishop of Winchester, was eldest son of Herman Bilson, grandson of Arnold Bilson, whose wife is said to have been a daughter of the Duke of Bavaria, ' natural or legitimate/ says Anthony a Wood, ' I know not.' He was by6rn in the city of Winchester in 1546-7, and ^ent to the school there . Thence he proceeded /to Oxford and entered New College, where he passed B.A., 10 Oct. 1566 ; M.A., 25 April 1570 ; B.D., 24 June 1579 ; and D.D., 24 Jan. 1 580-1 . He became ' a most noted preacher ' on taking holy orders, in l these parts and else- where,' says Wood. He is also stated by some (adds the Athena)iQ have been a schoolmaster. He was installed a prebendary of Winchester on 12 Jan. 1576, and warden of the college there. He was consecrated bishop of Wor- cester on 13 June- 1596, and translated to Winchester on 13 May 1597. 'He was/ continues Anthony a Wood, 'as reverend and learned a prelate as England ever afforded, a deep and profound scholar, exactly read in ecclesiastical authors and with Dr. Richard Field of Oxon (as Whitaker of Cambridge) a principal maintainer of the church of Eng- land, while Jo. Rainolds and Thomas Sparke were upholders of puritanism and noncon- formity. ... In his younger years he was in- finitely studious and industrious in poetry, philosophy, and physics,' and also in eccle- siastical divinity. To the last, 'his geny chiefly inciting him, he became,' says the same authority, ' so complete in it, so well skill'd in languages, so read in the fathers Bilson 44 Binckes and schoolmen, so judicious in making use of his readings, that at length he was found to be no longer a soldier but a commander- in-chief of the spiritual warfare, especially when he became a bishop and carried prela- ture in his very aspect.' His ' True Dif- ference between Christian Subjection and Unchristian Rebellion, where the Princes lawful power to command and bear the sword are defended against the Pope's cen- sure and Jesuits' sophisms in their Apology and Defence of English Catholics; also a Demonstration that the Things reformed in the Church of England by the Laws of the Realm are truly Catholic against the Catho- lic Rhemish Testament ' (Oxford, 1585), is a powerful answer to Dr. William Allen's ( De- fence of English Catholics/ but otherwise shows want of judgment. Elizabeth had given him the task in view of her intended aid to protestant Holland; and, as was swiftly perceived by nonconformists, Bilson (in Wood's words) ' gave strange liberty in many cases, especially concerning religion, for subjects to cast off their obedience.' His- torically, it is unquestionable that whilst this ( True Difference ' served the queen's pre- sent purpose, it contributed more than any other to the humiliation, ruin, and death of Charles I. The weapons forged to beat back the king 'of Spain were used against the Stuart. His ' Perpetual Government of Christ his Church ' (1593), and his ' Effect of certain Sermons concerning the Full Redemption of Mankind by the Death and Blood of Christ Jesus ' (1599), are superfluously learned and unattractive. His magnum opus was also assigned him by Elizabeth, who commanded him to answer Henry Jacob. It is entitled < Survey of Christ's Sufferings and Descent into Hell,' and is, like Bilson's other works, halting in its logic and commonplace in its proofs. ' At length,' concludes Wood, ' after he had gone through many employments and had lived in continual drudgery as 'twere, for the public good, he surrendered up his pious soul, 18 June 1616,' and on the same date he was interred in Westminster Abbey. Curiously enough, John Dunbar (a Scottish poet) furnishes the only contemporary praise of him in an epigram Avhich the Oxford his- torian deigns to allow might have been in- scribed for his epitaph. It runs thus : Ad Thomam Bilsonum, episcopum Vintoniensem. Castaliclum commune decus, dignissime prsesul Bilsone seternis commemorande moclis : Quam valide adversus Christi inperterritus hostes Bella geras, libri sunt monumenta tui. His Hydne ficlei quotquot capita alta resurgunt, Tu novus Alcides tot resecare soles. I Anthony u Wood possessed various manu- I scripts of his Orationes, Carmina Yaria, j c., c. Besides 'occasional' sermons, there is among the Lambeth MSS. Bilson's l Letter on the Election of Warden of Winchester and New College ' (943, f. 149). There is also a j ' Letter to the Lord Treasurer soliciting his I Interest for the Bishoprick of Worcester ' in 1 Strype's 'Annals of the Reformation,' iv. 227, and there are letters of Bishop Bilson at Hatfield. Letters of administration were ! granted to his relict Anne on 25 June 1616. j The baptism of a grandson on 5 Dec. 1616 is entered in Westminster Abbey Registers. [Wood's Athenae Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 169-71 ; Chester's Westminster Abbey Reg. 113; Bodleian Wood MSS.; Lambeth MSS.; Hatfield MSS.; Bilson's books.] A. B. G. BINCKES, WILLIAM (d. 1712), dean of Lichfield, was educated at St. John's College, | Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1674, i was elected to a fellowship at Peterhouse, and I took the degree of M.A. in 1678. He was I instituted to the prebend of Nassington, in | the church of Lincoln, 2 May 1683, and to I that of Basset Parva, in the church of Lich- ! field, 15 July 1697. In 1699 he took the I degree of D.D. .On 30 Jan. 1701, being then proctor of the diocese of Lichfield, he preached before the lower house of convocation a ser- mon on the martyrdom of Charles I, in which he drew a parallel between it and the cruci- fixion of Jesus Christ, maintaining that having ; regard to the superior dignity of a king of England in actual possession of his crown as ; compared with one who was merely an un- crowned king of the Jews, and moreover dis- I claimed temporal sovereignty, the execution at | Whitehall was an act of greater enormity than was committed at Calvary. The sermon having been printed was brought to the notice of the House of Lords, and a suggestion was made that it should be publicly burned. The peers, however, contented themselves with resolving that it contained * several expressions that give just scandal and offence to all Christian people.' In 1703 he was installed dean of Lichfield (19 June). In 1705 he Avas ap- pointed prolocutor to convocation. He died 19 June 1712, and was buried at Learning-ton, of which place he had been vicar. Dean Binckes built the existing deanery at Lich- field. He published his sermons between 1702 and 1710. [Grad. Cantab.; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), i. 564, 600, ii. 193 ; Allibone'sDict. of British and American Authors ; Parl. Hist. vi. 22, 23 ; Har- wood's Lichfield, 186; Shaw's Staffordshire i 289.] J. M. R. Bindley 45 Bindley BINDLEY, CHARLES, better known as HARRY HIEOVER (1795-1859), sporting- writer, was born in 1795. His favourite topics were limiting and stable management. His first work of any importance was * Stable Talk and Table Talk, or Spectacles for Young Sportsmen,' '2 vols. 8vo, the first published in 1845 and the second in 1846. His auto- graph was prefixed to the book under a life- like portrait of him which formed its frontis- piece. A rollicking ' Hunting Song,' and ' The Doctor, a true Tale,' comically rhymed, helped to enliven his animated prose. His second venture was ' The Pocket and the Stud, or Practical Hints for the Management of the Stable,' 1848, 16mo, pp. 215, the frontispiece being here again a portrait of Harry Hieover ' on his favourite horse Harlequin.' His next book was ' The Stud for Practical Purposes and Practical Men,' 1849, 16mo, pp. 205. Two admirable illustrations in the volume, each engraved 'from a painting by the author,' represented respectively a well-shaped road- ster, 'A pretty good sort for most pur- poses,' and a wicked-looking, unsightly hack, ' Rayther a bad sort for any purpose.' Another book from the same hand, similarly illus- trated, was ' Practical Horsemanship,' 1850, 16mo, pp. 213, the engravings, again from paintings by the author, portraying the one k Going like workmen,' and the other ' Going like muffs.' In the same year (1850) Harry Hieover brought out another book called 'The Hunting Field,' 16mo, pp. 221, with pictures of ' The Right Sort ' and ' The Wrong Sort.' In 1852 Harry Hieover produced a new edition, carefully revised and corrected by him, of Delabere Elaine's e Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports, or complete account, His- torical, Practical, and Descriptive, of Hunt- ing, Shooting-, Fishing. Racing, &c.,' 8vo, pp. 1246. His next works were: 'Bipeds and Quadrupeds,' 1853, 16mo, pp. 174 ; ' Sporting Facts and Sporting Fancies/ 1853, 8vo, pp. 452 ; l The World : How to square it,' 1854, 8vo, pp. 290; and 'Hints to Horse- men: Shewing how to make Money by Horses,' 1856, 8vo, pp. 214. Harry Hieover had long been writing in several of the most important of the sporting periodicals. Essays from the ' Field ' on such subjects as ' Bridles,' 'Martingals/ 'Buck-jumpers,' 'Kicking in Harness/ c., were in 1857 reprinted under the title of ' Precept and Practice/ 8vo, pp. 267. Another collection from the ' Sport- ing Magazine' upon 'Red Coats and Silk Jackets/ ' Nobs and Snobs/ ' Hints on Coachmanship/ 'Imperturbable Jack/ and ' Dare-devils,' appeared in 1857, entitled ' The Sportsman's Friend in a Frost/ 8vo, pp. 416. In 1858 appeared 'The Sporting World/ 8vo, pp. 261, and in 1859 'Things worth knowing about Horses/ 8vo, pp. 266. His health had been seriously declining, and in November 1858, in hopes of improving it r he left London for Brighton, where he be- came the guest of his friend, Sir Thomas Barrett-Lennard, Bart., and died in his friend's house on 10 Feb. 1859, aged 63. In the number for that very month of the ' Sporting Review 'and the 'Sportsman' appeared his last contribution to the magazine, ' Riding to Hounds, by Harry Hieover.' He was a I sporting writer of the old school, and seemed to write under the same exhilaration of spirits as he might have felt when going across country. [Times, 15 Feb. 1859 ; Field. 19 Feb. 1859. p. ! 137; Era, 20 Feb. 1859, p. 3; Sporting Re- ! view, March 1859, xli. 155.] C. K. BINDLEY, JAMES (1737-1818), book i collect or, second son of John Bindley, distiller, I of St. John Street, Smithfield, was born in ! London on 16 Jan. 1737. He was educated at the Charterhouse under Dr. Crusius, and then proceeded to Peterhouse, Cambridge r where he was elected to a fellowship (B.A. ! 1759, M.A. 1762). In 1765 he succeeded his 1 elder brother John as one of the commission- ! ers of the stamp duties, and in that capacity | he served the public for upwards of fifty-three years. He was the senior commissioner from 1781 until his death, which occurred at his house in Somerset Place on 11 Sept. 1818. A fine monument to his memory was erected in the church of St. Mary-le-Strand. At the time of his decease he was the ' father ' of the Society of Antiquaries, having been elected a. | fellow in 1765. Bindley devoted his leisure to literary pursuits, and formed a valuable ! collection of rare books, engravings, and medals, which were sold by auction after his | death. He read every proof-sheet of Nichols's j ' Literary Anecdotes/ which are dedicated to I him, and of the subsequent ' Illustrations of I the Literary History of the Eighteenth Cen- j tury/ frequently suggesting useful emenda- ! tions or adding explanatory notes. A similar ; service he rendered nearly at the close of his ! life to his friend Mr. Bray, in the publication ! of Evelyn's ' Diary.' The only work he him- i self published was ' A Collection of the Sta- I tutes now in force relating to the Stamp ! Duties/ London, 1775, 4to. His portrait is i prefixed to the fourth volume of Nichols's I ' Illustrations ' (1822), and that volume is dedicated to his memory. [Evans's Catalogue of Engraved Portraits, 12842 ; Gent. Mag. Lxxxviii. (ii.) 280, 293, 631, Ixxxix. (i.) 579 ; New Monthly Mag. x. 374 ; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ; Nichols's Illustrations of Bindon 4 6 Binghatn Literature ; Biog. Diet, of Living Authors, 27 ; Marvin's Legal Bibliography, 119; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit.Mus. ; Addit. MSS. 15951 if. 3, 5, 12 ; 20081 ff. 19, 26 ; 22,308 ff. 11, 31; 27952 f. 115; Cat. of Dawson Turner's Manu- script Library, 52, 53, 382.] T. C. BINDON, FRANCIS (d. 1765), painter .and architect, was born of a respectable family of Limerick, towards the close of the seventeenth century. He travelled on the continent, and acquired reputation in Ireland both as an architect and a painter. Bindon was more than once employed by the Duke of Dorset, lord lieutenant of Ireland, in 1734 to paint his portrait, and entries of the pay- ments made to him appear in an unpublished account-book of that viceroy. In 1735 Bindon painted a portrait of Swift, who sat for it at [ the request of Lord Howth. This picture is \ of full length, and in it Wood, the patentee for j the noted halfpence, is represented as writhing in agony at the feet of the dean. In 1738 Bindon painted for the chapter of St. Patrick's j Cathedral, Dublin, another full-length por- , trait of Swift, The chapter paid 36/. 16s. for ; this picture, which is preserved at the Deanery House, St. Patrick's, Dublin. A contempo- j fary mezzotinto of large size was published j of it, and it was also engraved by Edward I Scriven in 1818. In connection with this | portrait an epistle, in Latin verse, was ad- j dressed to Bindon by William Dunkin, A.M., 4 Epistola ad Franciscum Bindonum.' Of this | An English poetical version was published in 1740, ' An Epistle to Mr. Bindon, occasioned > by his painting a picture of the Rev. Dr. Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's/ From Swift's correspondence it appears that Bindon also I painted a portrait of him for Mr. Nugent, sub- j :sequently Lord Clare. In a letter from Bath, | in 1740, Nugent writes to Mrs. Whiteway : | * I must beg that you will let Mr. Bindon j know I would have the picture no more j than a head, upon a three-quarter cloth, to | match one which I now have of Mr. Pope.' A bust-portrait of Swift, ascribed to Bindon, and formerly in the possession of the Rev. Edward Berwick, editor of the ' Rawdon I Papers,' 1819, is now in the National Gal- lery, Dublin. Bindon executed a full-length j portrait of Richard Baldwin [q. v.], pro- j vost of Trinity College, Dublin. Among the portraits by Bindon, of which con- temporary engravings appeared, were those of the following- : Hugh Boulter, primate of Ireland, 1742 ; Charles Cobbe, archbishop of Dublin, 1746 ; General Richard St. George, ! 1755 ; Henry Singleton, chief justice, Ire- land ; and Hercules L. Rowley. Bindon's chief architectural works were three mansions j one erected in the county of Wicklow for the Earl of Milltown, and two in Kilkenny for Lord Bessborough and Sir William Fownes respectively. Bindon was granted an annual pension of 100/. on the Irish establishment in 1750, about which time he retired from his profession, owing to age and failure of sight. He died on 2 June 1765, ' suddenly, as he was taking the air in his chariot,' In Sir Walter Scott's edition of Swift's works Bindon's Christian name is erroneously given as Samuel. [MSS. of Lionel Cranfield, Duke of Dorset ; Establishments Ireland 1750, MS. ; Dublin Journal, 1765 ; Mason's History of St. Patrick's, Dublin, 1820; Redgrave's Diet, of Artists.l J. T. J G. BINGHA.M, GEORGE (1715-1800), di- vine and antiquary, the sixth son of Richard Bingham, and Philadelphia, daughter and heir of John Potinger, by Philadelphia, daughter of Sir John Ernie, knight, chan- cellor of the exchequer, was born on 7 Nov. 1715 at Melcombe, Dorsetshire, where the family had resided for several centuries. He was brought up under the care of his maternal grandfather, Mr. Potinger. At twelve years of age he was sent to West- minster School, and in 1732 he was elected from the foundation to a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, but entered as a com- moner at Christ Church, Oxford. After taking his B.A. degree he was elected a fel- low of All Souls, and there graduated M.A. in 1739 and B.D. in 1748. At All Souls he formed lasting friendships with Sir William Blackstone and Dr. Benjamin Buckler, whom he assisted in drawing up the ' Stemmata Chicheliana.' In 1745-6, during the rebel- lion, he served the office of proctor in the university, and acted with great spirit. On the death of the Rev. Christopher Pitt, the translator of the ' JEneid,' Bingham was in- stituted, on 23 May 1748, to the rectory of Pimperne, Dorsetshire. He resigned his fel- lowship on his marriage ; but his wife, by whom he had a daughter and two sons, died in 1756 at the age of thirty-five. He had just been presented by Sir Gerard Napier to the living of More Critchell (1755), to which that of Long Critchell was annexed in 1774. He was elected proctor for the diocese of Salisbury in the convocations of 1761, 1768, 1774, and 1780. His eldest son, the senior scholar at Winchester, was acci- dentally drowned while bathing in the river Itchin in 1768. In 1781 Bishop Bagot offered him the Warburtonian lecture, but he de- clined to preach it, because he held that the church of Rome, though corrupt, was not chargeable, as Warburton meant to prove, Bingham 47 Bingham with apostasy. He died at Pimperne on 11. Oct. 1800, aged 85, and was buried in the chancel of the church, where a marble monu- ment, with a long inscription in Latin, was erected to his memory. Bingham enjoyed a considerable reputa- tion for great abilities and profound learning ; he was a good Hebrew scholar and an eminent divine. The only works he published in his lifetime are : 1. An anonymous essay on the Millennium, entitled was engaged in repressing the revolt of Sir Bryan O'Rourke, of Leitrim, who was captured, sent to England, and hanged at , Tyburn on 28 Oct. 1591. Bingham's account j of his proceedings against Rourke is printed in the < Egerton Papers ' (Camden Soc., pp. 144-57). In the following year Perrot formally complained to the queen of Bing- ham's habitual severity and insubordination, and in September 1596 Bingham, fearful that his adversaries would do him serious injury, hurriedly came to England to appeal (as he said) for justice. He left Ireland without leave, and on arriving in London was sent to the Fleet prison. On 2 Oct. 1596 he ad- dressed a piteous letter to Burghley, praying for release. This petition was apparently granted soon afterwards, but Bingham was suspended from his office. The outbreak of O'Neill's rebellion in 1598 induced the au- thorities to reinstate him. His knowledge of Irish affairs was judged to be without parallel in England, and when the Cecils first sug- gested that Essex should command the expe- dition against the Irish rebels Bacon strongly urged Essex to take Bingham's advice (SPED- DISTG'S Bacon, ii. 95-6). In September 1598 Bingham left England with five thousand men to assume the office of marshal of Ire- land, vacated by the death in battle at Black- water of Sir Henry Bagnall. But Bingham had scarcely entered on his new duties when he died at Dublin on 19 Jan. 1598-9. A cenotaph was erected to 'his memory in the south aisle of the choir of AVestminster j Abbey by Sir John Bingley, at one time j Bingham's servant. On it was inscribed a I highly laudatory account of his military achievements. 'Sir Henry Docwra, after- wards commander of the forces in Ireland, \ drew up a * relation ' of Bingham's early ser- vices in Connaught, which was published for the first time by the Celtic Society in 1849. The manuscript is in the library of Trinity \ College, Dublin. Bingham was described by j Sir Nicholas Lestrange as * a man eminent hoth for spiritt and martiall knowledge, but of a very small stature ' (THOM'S Anecdotes and Traditions (Camden Society), p. 18). Sir Richard was aided in his Irish admi- nistration by two younger brothers, George and John. Both were assistant commis- sioners in Connaught. John distinguished himself in the battle with the Highlanders by the Moy, and was granted by his brother Edmund Burke's castle of Castlebarry, near Castlebar. George \vas for many years sheriff of Sligo, took a leading part in' the massacre of the Spaniards in 1588, and was killed by Ulrick O Bourke in 1595. Bingham's memory was long execrated by the native Irish, but Sir Francis Walsingham and Sir Henry Wallop always held him in high esteem. Sir Richard married Sarah, daughter of John Heigham, of Gifford's Hall, Wickham- brook, Suffolk (by banns), 11 Jan. 1587-8. Lady Bingham survived her husband, and married after his death Edward W aide- grave, of Lawford, Essex. She died at Law- ford, and w r as buried in the church there 9 Sept. 1034, aged 69. Sir Richard left no male issue, and he w r as succeeded in his Dorsetshire estates by Henry, the eldest son of his brother George, who had been killed in 1595. Henry was created a Nova .Scotian baronet in 1634. Sir John Bingham, the fifth in descent from George, was governor of county Mayo, and contributed to William Ill's success in Ireland by deserting from James II at the battle of Aughrim (1691). He married a grand-niece of Patrick Sarsfield, earl of Lucan, and died in 1749. His second son Charles was created baron Lucan of Cas- tlebar 24 July 1776, and earl of Lucan 6 Oct. 1795 [see BINGHAM, MARGARET]. [Froude's History, x. xi. xii. ; Chamberlain's Letters, temp. Eliz. (Camel. Soc.), pp. 14, 18, 34 ; Spedding's Bacon, ii. 95-6, 100; Hutchins's Dorset, iv. 203 ; Cal. State Papers (Irish series), 1509-73, 1574-85, 1586-8; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. iii. 156; Celtic Soc. Miscellany (1849), ed. O'Donovan, 187-229 ; O'Flaherty's Corogra- phical Description of Ireland, ed. Hardiman (1846), p. 394; Annals of the Four Masters, ed. Donovan, vol. vi. ; Cal. State Papers (Dom.), 1581-90, 1591-4, 1595-7. Several of Bingham's letters to Burghley and to Sir Robert Cecil are at Hatfield.] S. L. L. BINGHAM, RICHARD, the elder (1765- 1858), divine, was born 1 April 1765. He was son of the Rev. Isaac Moody Bingham, rector of Birchanger and Runwell, Essex, and great-grandson of Joseph Bingham, author of the ' Origines Ecclesiasticse.' He was edu- cated successively at Winchester, where he was on the foundation, and at New College, Oxford, where he took the degrees respec- tively of B.A. 19 Oct. 1787 and B.C.L. 18 July 1801 (Oaford Graduates). He was married at Bristol to Lydia Mary Anne, eldest daughter of Rear-admiral Sir Charles Douglas, bart., 10 Nov. 1788, at which time he was a fellow of his college and in holy orders (Gent. Mag. November 1788). In Bingham 54 Bingham 1790, or more probably in 1788 or 1789 (Preface to Proceedings, &c. 8vo, London, 1814, p. vi, and Proceedings, &c., p. 174 &c.), he was appointed to the perpetual curacy of Trinity Church, Gosport ; in 1796 he became vicar of Great Hale, near Sleaford, Lincoln- shire, and was appointed, 22 July 1807, in succession to his father, to the prebendal stall of Bargham in Chichester Cathedral. In 1813, being then a magistrate for Hamp- shire of twelve years' standing, he was con- victed at the Winchester summer assizes of having illegally obtained a license for a public-house, when no such public-house was in existence, and of having stated, in the con- veyance of such house, a false consideration of the same, with intent to defraud the revenue by evading an additional stamp duty of IOL (Annual Register, 1813). On 10 Nov. 1813 a motion was made in the King's Bench for a new trial on behalf of the defendant. He was brought up for judgment on the 26th of the same month, and in spite of many affi- davits to his character was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in the county gaol at | Winchester. In an appeal to public opinion dated 23 Dec. 1813, Bingham asserted his innocence with the most vehement depreca- tions. The appeal is embodied in the Preface to l Proceedings in a Trial, The King, on the Prosecution of James Cooper, against the Rev. Richard Bingham, and on a Motion for a new Trial, and on the Defendant's being brought up for Judgment. Taken in short- hand by Mr. Gurney. With explanatory Preface and Notes and an Appendix,' 8vo, London, 1814. In 1829 Mr. Bingham pub- lished, by subscription, the third edition of the ' Origines Ecclesiastics ' of his ancestor. He reprinted all the contents of the old octavo and folio editions, introducing into the notes some further references from the author's manuscript annotations in a private copy of his own book, and adding for the first time an impression of the author's three ' Trinity Sermons,' besides prefixing a * Life of the Author, by his Great-grandson.' The bankruptcy of the printer while the work was passing through the press caused much delay in its distribution (Prolegomena, &c. i. p. x). Bingham died at his residence of New- house on the beach at Gosport, on Sunday, 18 July 1858, and was buried on Tuesday, the 27th of the same month, in the vaults of Trinity Church, in the presence of a very large number of his friends and parishioners. [Gradual! Cantabrigienses, 4to, Cambridge, 1787 ; Gent. Mag. March 1807, April 1847, and September 1858 ; Le Neve's Fasti ; Proceedings, &c. London, 1814; Annual Register, 1813: Origines Ecclesiastics, London. 1829; Miss Bingham's Short Poems, Bolton, 1848 ; Hamp- shire Telegraph, 24 and 31 July 1858.] BINGHAM, RICHARD, the younger (1798-1872), divine, was the eldest son of Richard Bingham the elder [q. v.] He was born in 1798, and was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he became B.A. 1821, M.A. 1827. He was ordained deacon in 1821, and priest in 1822, and became curate to his father in his incumbency of Holy Trinity Church, Gosport. Here he remained for over twenty-two years. He married, 4 May 1824 r ' Frances Campbell, daughter of the late J. Barton, Esq., of Mount Pleasant, Jamaica ' ( Gent. May. June 1824), and took pupils. He published by subscription two small volumes of sermons in 1826 and 1827, and in 1829 < The Warning Voice, or an awakening Ques- tion for all British Protestants in general, and Members of the Church of England in particular, at the present Juncture/ He seceded from the British and Foreign Bible Society, on account of its readiness to co- operate with Socinians, in 1831, and soon after published an account of the circum- stances. He issued by subscription a volume of ' Sermons' in 1835, and in 1843 l Imma- nuel, or God with us, a Series of Lectures on the Divinity and Humanity of our Lord,' 8vo , London, 1843. The preface mentions his desire to bring out a new edition of his an- cestor's book. Twelve years afterwards Bing- ham produced, at the expense of the delegates of the Oxford University Press, the standard edition of ' The Works of the Rev. Joseph I Bingham, M.A.,' 10 vols. 8vo, Oxford, 1855. j In 1844 he was presented by the trustees to the perpetual curacy of Christ Church, Har- wood, Bolton-le-Moors, during his incum- bency of which he lost (28 Feb. 1847) his eldest daughter, aged 21, and his youngest j son. Miss Bingham had early published ! ' Hubert, or the Orphans of St. Madelaine, a I Legend of the persecuted Vaudois/ London, 1845, and at the time of her death left a I considerable number of pieces, which were published by her father in 1848 as 'Short i Poems, religious and sentimental/ and passed ; through two editions. Bingham became in ; 1853 curate at St. Mary's, Marylebone, the \ rector of which was John Hampden Gurney 7 ; to whom he afterwards dedicated a volume of ' Sermons ' in 1858. In 1856 he be- came vicar of Queenborough in the isle of Sheppey. He vacated this preferment in 1870, and took up his residence at Sutton, ' Surrey, where he died on Monday, 22 Jan. i 1872, at the age of seventy-four. Bingham i was a fervid advocate of liturgical revision, and a member of the council of the Praver Bingley 55 Bingley Book Revision Society. In 1860 he pub- lished ' Liturgia Recusa, or Suggestions for revising and reconstructing the daily and occasional Services of the United Church of England and Ireland.' He supplemented this volume by an elaborate model of a liturgy, which he dedicated to Lord Ebury, ' Liturgire Recusre Exemplar. The Prayer Book as it might be, or Formularies old, re- vised, and new, suggesting a reconstructed and amplified Liturgy,' 1863. Bingham also , published ; The Gospel according to Isaiah, I in a Course of Lectures/ &c. in 1870 ; and | ' Hymnologia Christiana Latina, or a Century j of Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs, by various Authors, from Luther to Heber j and Keble, translated into Latin Verse, either | metrical or accentuated Rhyme,' 1871. [Catalogue of all the Graduates in the Uni- versity of Oxford, Oxford, 1857; Gent. Mag. June, 1824; Crockford's Clerical Directory, : 1360-1872 ; Clergy List, 1841-1872 ; Guardian, j 31 Jan. 1872; and various prefaces and intro- j ductions.] A. H. G. BINGLEY, LORD. [See BENSON, Ro- ! BERT, 1676-1731.] BINGLEY, WILLIAM (1774-1823), ; miscellaneous writer, was born at Doncas- ter in 1774, and left an orphan at a very early age. His friends designed him for the law, but his own inclinations were for the church. In 1795 he was entered at St. Peter's College, Cambridge, and took the degree of B.A. in 1799, and of M.A. in 1803. Whilst an undergraduate he travelled in Wales, and 'A Tour round North Wales' was the subject of his first publication. For many years after his ordination he served the curacy of Christ Church in Hampshire, but in 1816 he was the minister of the pro- prietary chapel in London known as Fitzroy Chapel, Charlotte Street, and he was engaged in its ministry at the time of his death. He died in Charlotte Street, 11 March t !823. and was buried in a vault under the middle aisle of Bloomsbury Church. His life was devoid of incident ; his days were passed in compilation. He was a prolific writer, and several of his works enjoyed great popu- larity. His ' Tour round North Wales/ the result of his college vacation of 1798, was published in 1800 in two volumes. He visited the same district in 1801, and in 1804 issued 'North Wales . . . delineated from two excursions.' A second edition appeared in 1814, and a third, with corrections and additions by his son, W. R. Bingley, in 1839. As a companion to these works there ap- peared a volume entitled ' Sixty of the most admired Welsh Airs, collected by W. Bing- ley,' arranged for the pianoforte by W. Rus- sell, junior, in 1803, and again in 1810. One of the most popular of his compilations was ' Animal Biography ' (1802), which was written with the object of creating a taste for natural history. The sixth edition ap- peared in 1824, and the work was translated into several European languages. A cognate volume from his pen, ' Memoirs of British Quadrupeds,' appeared in 1809. Mr. Bingley was a learned botanist and a fellow of the Linnean Society. His ' Practical Introduc- tion to Botany ' was published in 1817, and republished after the author's death in 1827. In 1814 he drew up a volume on ' Animated Nature,' and two years later he compiled a work 011 ' Useful Knowledge, an account of the various~"productions"of nature, mineral , vegetable, and animal.' The last of these volumes was frequently reissued, the seventh edition appearing so recently as 1852. One set of his works was composed of ' biographi- cal conversatiqns ' on eminent characters. In this manner he narrated the lives of British characters,' ' eminent Toyagers,^ celebrated travellers/laid t Roman cnaracters7"Another consisted of condensed accounts ^from modern writers' of the various continents of the world : Africa, South America, North America, South Europe, North Europe, and Asia were consecutively described by him, the six volumes appearing separately between_18J^ and 1 822, and "being reproduced with a gene- raT title-page of ; Modern Travels.' His dictionary of { Musical Biography' appeared anonymously in 1814 ; it was reissued with his name on the title-page, but without any other alteration, in 1834. Whilst at Christ Church he published (1805), from the origi- nals in the possession of a Wiltshire lady, three volumes of ' Correspondence between Frances, Countess of Hereford, and the Coun- tess of Pomfret, 1738-41.' Most of the copies of the second edition were destroyed by fire, but a few were saved. He was long engaged on a history of Hampshire, and in 1817, when the manuscripts amounted to 6,000 pages, explained in an address to his subscri- bers the causes which retarded and finally prevented its completion. Thirty copies of a small portion of it, however, entitled ' The Topographical Account of the Hundred of Bosmere,' were printed for private circula- tion. In addition to these works, Bingley was the author of a sermon, the f Economy of a Christian Life ' (1822), and a handbook to the Leverian museum. [Gent, Mag. 1823 ; Biog. Dictionary of 1816 ; Memoir prefixed to his 'Roman Characters' (1824).] W. P. C. Binham Binney BINHAM or BYNHAM, SIMON (/*. 1335), chronicler, a monk of the priory of Binham, Norfolk, one of the cells belonging to the abbey of St. Albans, upheld his prior, William Somerton, in resisting the unjust exactions of Hugh, abbot of St. Albans (1308-1326). The cause of the Binham monks was taken up by the gentry of the neighbourhood, and Sir Robert Walkefare, the patron of the cell, prevailed on Thomas, earl of Lancaster, to uphold them. Embol- dened by this support, the prior and his monks refused to admit the visitation of the abbot, and the gentlemen of their party gar- risoned the priory against him. The abbot, however, appealed to the king, Edward II, who ordered the prior's supporters to return to their homes. Simon and the other rebel- lious monks were brought to St. Albans and imprisoned. After a while they were released and admitted into the brotherhood, but as a mark of disgrace were sentenced to walk in fetters in all processipns of the con- vent. Simon lived to become an influential member of the house, for in the time of Abbot Michael (1335-13-49) he was chosen by the chapter as one of the three receivers or trea- surers of the collections made for the sup- port of scholars and needy brethren. In a notice of the historians of St. Albans, he is said to have written after Henry Blankfrount or Blaneforde [q.v.], and before Richard Savage. The works of Binham and Savage are lost, or at least are unidentified. It has, however, been suggested that Binham may have written some of the fragments pub- lished in the Rolls edition of the * Chronicle of Rishanger.' [Gesta Abbatum Mon. S. Albani, ii. 131, 305, Kolls ser. ; Job. Amundesham Ann. Introd. Ixvi, 303, Eolls ser. ; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 144."] W. H. BINHAM or BYNHAM, WILLIAM (fl. 1370), theologian, was a native of Bin- ham in Norfolk, where there was a Benedic- tine priory dependent on the abbey of St. Albans. Doubtless through this connection he entered the monastic profession at the abbey, and became ultimately prior of Wal- lingford, which was also a cell belonging to St. Albans. He had been a student at Ox- ford, of which university he is described as doctor of divinity, and had there come into close intimacy with John Wycliffe. Binham, however, remained true to the traditions of the church, and after a while separated him- self from his friend, with whom at length he engaged in controversy, and proved, as the catholic Leland confesses, no match for his antagonist. His only recorded work was Avritten on this occasion, ' Contra Positiones Wiclevi.' It is not known to be extant, but Wyclif 's reply (' Contra Willelmum Vynham monachum S. Albani Determinatio ') is pre- served in a Paris manuscript, Lat. 3184, if. 49-52 (SHIKLEY, Catal. of the original Works of Wyclif, p. 20). The last notice of Bin- ham's life occurs in 1396, when he, as prior of Wallingford, was detained by illness from attending the election of an abbot of St. Albans on 9 Oct. (Gesta Abbatum Monasterii S. Albani, iii. 426, ed. H. T. Riley, 1869). [Leland's Comm. de Script. Brit, dcxxviii. p. 381; Bale's Script. Brit. Cat. vi. 5, p. 456; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 101.] R. L. P. BINNEMAN, HENRY. [See BYNNE- MAN, HENRY.] BINNEY, EDWARD WILLIAM (1812-1881), geologist, was born at Morton in Nottinghamshire in 1812. Little is known of his early education ; he appears, however, to have acquired strong scientific tastes, which continually betrayed themselves during his apprenticeship to a' solicitor. He became a resident in Manchester in 1836 ; his legal knowledge and strong common sense soon gained for him many clients, and his practice as a lawyer was favourably established in that city. The interesting coal-field of Lancashire soon claimed his attention, and he directed most of his leisure to the study of the geological phenomena of the district around Manchester. Similar tastes soon drew to- gether a circle of students, many of whom had been trained in experimental science by John Dalton, and others in mechanical and physical research by William Fairbairn. Out of these, principally by Binney's influence, a small select band was formed, and in October 1838 they founded the Manchester Geological Society, Lord Francis Egerton being the first president, and J. F. Bateman and Binney the first honorary secretaries. The second article in the i Transactions ' of this society, after the president's address, was a l Sketch of the Geology of Manchester and its Vicinity,' illustrated by coloured sections, contributed by Binney. The first volume of the ' Transactions' affords evidence of his industry, four papers connected with the geology of the Lancashire and Cheshire coal-field having been contributed by him. Binney was president of the Manchester Geological Society in 1857-9, and again in 1865-7. In 1853 he was elected a member of the Geological Society of London, and in 1856 a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1858 Binney communicated to the local geological society a paper ' On Sigillaria and Binney 57 Binney its Roots/ which was his first contribution towards the solution of a problem of con- siderable interest, .connected with the forma- tion of our coal-beds. It had already been noticed by Sir William Logan that every seam of coal rests on a bed of rock usually known as ( seat-stone and 'underclay;' that this was devoid of stratification, and fre- quently full of filaments, running in all direc- tions, having a root-like appearance. These vegetable fibres were called l stigmaria.' Binney discovered, in a railway cutting near St. Helen's in Lancashire, a number of trunks of trees standing erect as they grew, with the roots still attached to them, these being the so-called * stigmaria.' M. Ad. Brongniart was disposed to regard these plants as gigan- tic tree ferns, but Dr. (now Sir J. D.) Hooker believed that those Sigillaria, as they were named, were cryptogamous, though more highly developed than any flowering plants now living. In May 1861 another paper bear- ing the above title was communicated by the author to the Manchester Geological Society, and we find in the sixth volume of the ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London ' a memoir by him entitled ' Re- marks on Sigillaria and some Spores found imbedded in the inside of its roots.' Thus Binney completed the proof that all coal seams rest on old soils which are constituted entirely of vegetable matter; this was the seat-stone of a seam of coal. The roots (Stigmaria) show that those soils supported a luxuriant vegetation (Sigillaria), which, growing rapidly in vast swamps, under a moist atmosphere of high temperature, formed by decomposition the fossil fuel, to which we owe the extent of our manufacturing indus- tries. At this time Binney was actively engaged in investigating the fossil shells of the lower coal measures. In April 1860 he read a paper on the results of his inquiry, asserting that two groups of the mollusca were occa- sionally found together in the same coal-bed ; | but some geologists venture to differ from ! one whom they call ' a keen-eyed observer,' | expressing their belief that the specimens, j thought to be obtained from the same bed, i were derived from two closely adjoining : layers. Binney studied with much diligence the coal measure, Calamites, which he was led | to consider as divisible into two perfectly ; distinct but outwardly similar types ; one of these, Calamodendron, being a gvmno- i spermous exogen, allied to our fir trees, while the true calamite is regarded as equiseta- ceous. In 1866 he read a paper * On the .' Upper Coal Measures of England and Scot- i land,' and in 1871 one, being a ' Descrip- tion and Specimens of Bituminous Shale from New South Wales.' These are imme- ! diately due to his connection with Mr. James I Young, whose name is associated with the paraffin industry of Scotland. Binney's geo- i logical experience helped Mr. Young to the ! discovery of the Torbane Hill mineral, or | Boghead cannel, a bituminous shale from | which have resulted the enormous paraffin | works at Bathgate. Between the years 1839 and 1872, Binney contributed thirty-three papers to the Manchester Geological Society, and some others to the Geological Society of London. He was also a zealous supporter of the Philosophical Society of Manchester, and rendered important aid to the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, by furnishing the surveyors with the results of his long ex- perience over the coal-fields of Lancashire and Cheshire. On 25 October 1881 Binney presided at the council meeting of the Manchester Geological Society for the last time. He died in Man- chester on 19 Dec. in the same year, especially regretted by his associates, who found that in him they had lost the man who possessed the most exact knowledge of the coal-fields of Lancashire and Cheshire, and of the geology | of the whole district. [Transactions of the Geological Society of Man- chester ; Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London ; Ormerod's Classified Index of Transactions, &c. ; Coal, its History and Use, edited by Professor Thorpe ; Ly ell's Principles of G eology ; personal knowledge.] R. H-T. BINNEY, THOMAS, D.D.,LL.D. (1798- 1874), a distinguished nonconformist divine, was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the year 1798. After a period of tuition in an ordi- nary day school, he was apprenticed for seven years to a bookseller. In giving an account of his early life Binney stated that his hours with the Newcastle bookseller were for two years from seven in the morning until eight in the evening, and for five years from seven to seven. He was, however, sometimes engaged from six a.m. until ten p.m. Not- withstanding this pressure he found opportu- nities, especially from his fourteenth to his twentieth year/ for considerable reading and much original composition. The elements of Latin and Greek he acquired by studying on two evenings in the week with a presbyterian clergyman. The elder Binney. who was of Scotch extraction, was an elder of the jpres- byterian congregation in the Wall Knoll, and the son took an active part in connection \vith a religious and intellectual institution attached to this church. It is not known. Binney i how he came to sever himself from the pres- byterians and to connect himself with the congregationalists. He was recommended, however, to the theological seminary at Wy- mondley, Hertfordshire, an institution which was afterwards merged in New College, a well-known training establishment for con- gregational ministers. He remained here for three years, and while tradition states that he was not a very severe student, it appears that he excited no ordinary expectations. After leaving college Binney was for about twelve months minister of the New Meeting, Bedford, of which John Howard was one of the founders. In August 1824 he accepted the pastorate of St. James's Street Chapel, Newport, Isle of Wight. Here he became acquainted with Samuel Wilberforce. Binney's first work, a ' Memoir of Stephen Morrell,' was published during his residence at Newport. He also prepared for the press a volume of sermons on ' The Practical Power of Faith.' In 1829 he removed to London, to take charge of the church assembling at Weigh House. In a short time he acquired a high reputation as a pulpit orator. Binney was a strong controversialist, and he attacked the church of England with much vehemence. A furious paper war took place over a phrase which occurred in an ad- dress delivered by him at the laying of the foundation-stone of the new Weigh House Chapel on 16 Oct. 1833. He was affirmed to have said that ' the church of England damned more souls than she saved.' Several bishops, a great number of the clergy, and the entire religious press mingled in the fierce discussion which ensued. The actual words used by Binney were these : * It is with me a matter of deep serious religious convic- tion that the established church is a great national evil ; that it is an obstacle to the progress of truth and godliness in the land ; that it destroys more souls than it saves ; and therefore its end is devoutly to be wished by every lover of God and man. Right or wrong, this is my belief.' Binney was a voluminous writer on polemical subjects. He published a number of letters under the signature of ' Fiat Justitia,' which quickly went through six editions, and in 1834 he published ' The Ultimate Object of the Evan- gelical Dissenters,' a sermon preached in the Weigh House Chapel on the occasion of pe- titions to parliament for the removal of dis- senters' grievances. In the following year he replied, by a discourse entitled ' Dissent not Schism,' to a charge by the Bishop of London which had been pronounced intole- rant in many quarters. In 1841 a Mr. Wil- liam Baines was imprisoned in Leicester Gaol 5 Binney for non-payment of church rates, and Bin- ney, under the pseudonym, of ' A. Balance, Esq., of the Middle Temple,' wrote a severe pamphlet dealing with the case and entitled ' Leicester Gaol.' In 1850 he wrote a series of papers on the ' Aspects of Baptismal Rege- neration as taught in the Established Church,' suggested by the famous Gorham case. In 1853 he published a work for young men en- titled 'Is it possible to make the Best of both Worlds ? ' The question was answered warmly in the negative by several writers, but its original propounder defended his pro- positions with considerable dialectical skill. This work was Binney's most successful venture as an author. For the first twelve months after its publication it sold at the rate of one hundred copies per day. In 1857 Binney visited Australia. The Bishop of Adelaide having addressed to him a letter on the relations of the episcopal church in the colonies to nonconforming churches, and the possibility of an inter- change of ministerial services, a correspon- dence followed. A memorial was addressed to the bishop by a number of episcopalian laymen, including the governor of the colony and the ministers of the state, requesting that Binney should be invited to preach in the cathedral. In the end, however, the bishop decided that he was not at liberty to comply with the request. The visitor then delivered an address from the presidential chair of the Tasmanian Congregational Union on ' The Church of the Future/ an address which was afterwards incorporated in a volume entitled ' Lights and Shadows of Australian Life,' published in 1862. The year just named being the year of the bicen- tenary commemoration of the ejection of the two thousand clergymen, Binney, who had some time before returned to England, preached and published two sermons entitled ' Farewell Sunday ' and ' St. Bartholomew's Day.' In 1863 he published a pamphlet with the title ' Breakers on both Sides : Thoughts on Creeds, Subscriptions, Trust Deeds, &c., in relation to Protestantism and Dissent.' The rapid spread of the ritualistic movement in the church of England also led him to write and publish in 1867 a volume entitled ' Micah, the Priest Maker,' an enlargement of a course of lectures delivered at the Weigh House Chapel. Binney edited and pub- lished an American work on liturgies by the Rev. Charles' W. Baird, D.D., of New York, being ' Historical Sketches of the Liturgical Forms of the Reformed Churches.' The editor prefixed an introduction and added an ap- pendix on the question, 'Are Dissenters to have a Liturgy ? ' expressing a conviction Binning 59 Binning that something more was demanded in non- conformist services than had yet been wit- nessed. He was himself one of the first ministers to introduce into nonconformist churches the chanting of the rhythmical psalms of the Old Testament according to the authorised version, and he gave a great impetus to the movement for improved ser- vices, which afterwards spread through the nonconformist churches. For many years before he died Binney was regarded as the Nestor of the denomina- tion to which he belonged, and his influence spread to the other side of the Atlantic and also to the colonies. In 1852 he received the degree of LL.D. from the university of Aber- deen, and an American university subse- quently conferred upon him the degree of D.D. He was twice elected chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, and he preached a great number of special sermons before that body. In 1869 he re- tired from the pastorate at Weigh House Chapel after a ministry of forty years in that place. He subsequently undertook some pro- fessorial duties in connection with New Col- lege, and occasionally preached in London pulpits, his last sermon being delivered in Westminster Chapel in November 1873. The closing months of his life saw him afflicted by a depressing and insidious disease. Dr. Allon states that he fell into a condition of great despondency, but it was a failure of the body rather than of the mind. Before the end the cloud lifted, and he died on 24 Feb. 1874. Dean Stanley was amongst the divines who took part in the funeral ser- vice at Abney Park Cemetery. Binney was a voluminous writer of verse, chiefly of a religious character. His poetry, however, was distinguished rather for its devotional element than for any imagina- tive qualities. One of his hymns, * Eternal Light ! Eternal Light ! ' is widely known. [Sermons preached in the King's "Weigh House Chapel, London, 1829-69, by T. Binney, LL.D., 1st and 2nd series, edited, with a Biographical and Critical Sketch, by Henry Allon, D.D. ; Thomas Binney, a Memorial, by the Eev. J. Stoughton, D.D. ; Thomas Binney, his Mind, Life, and Opinions, by the Eev. E. Paxton Hood ; Annual Register, 1874, and the journals of the time ; the works of Dr. Binney.] G. B. S. BINNING, LOED. [See HAMILTON, CHAELES.] BINNING, HUGH (1627-1653), Scotch divine, was son of John Binning of Dalvenan, Ayrshire, by Margaret M'Kell, daughter of Matthew M'Kell (or M'Kail), the parish clergyman of Both-well, Lanarkshire, and sister to Hugh M'Kail, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and uncle to one of the youth- [ ful martyrs of Scotland Hugh M'Kail, who j was hanged at Edinburgh on 22 Dec. 1666, for his alleged participation in the rising at Pentland. Binning was born at Dalvenan in 1627. His father had a considerable in- herited landed estate, and Hugh was given a liberal education. He easily outstripped his schoolfellows of twice and thrice his years, and in his thirteenth and fourteenth years his i gravity and piety were recognised with a kind | of awe by all. Before his fourteenth year he I proceeded to the university of Glasgow, en- I tering himself for philosophy. The profes- sors were startled by his premature learning ! and philosophical capacity. He took his de- gree of M.A. 'with much applause.' He I then commenced the study of divinity, ' with ; a view to serve God in the holy ministry.' James Dalrymple (afterwards Lord Stair), who had been his professor of philosophy, having resigned in 1647, Binning was induced to become a candidate for the chair. All members of the universities in the kingdom who had ' a mind to the profession of philoso- phy ' were invited to * sist ' themselves before the Senatusand 'compete for the preferment.' The principal of the university (Dr. Strang) had his candidate, and strenuous efforts were put forth to carry him, mainly on the ground that the candidate was a 'citizen's son,' and subsidiarily ' of competent learning,' and of ' more years.' An extempore disputation , between the two candidates was suggested ; l thereupon Binning's rival withdrew, and left , him to be unanimously elected before he was I nineteen years of age. He delivered at once a brilliant course of lectures, and tried to j rescue philosophy in Scotland from the ' bar- | barous terms and unintelligible jargon of the i schoolmen.' He held the post with increas- | ing influence for about three years. At the I same time he pursued his theological studies, ! and having obtained license as a minister of the Gospel, he received a call to the parish of Govan near Glasgow on 25 Oct. 1649. On 8 Jan. following he was ordained at Govan, and resigned his professorship in the follow- ing year. Soon after he married Mary (some- times erroneously given as Barbara), daughter of the Rev. James Simpson, parish minister of Airth (Stirlingshire), who has been wrongly described as an Irish minister. He still car- ried on his philosophical and other studies, but was duly attentive to his sermons and pastoral duties. Wherever he was announced as a preacher, vast crowds assembled. When in 1651 the unhappy division took place in the church into resolutioners and protesters, he sided with the latter. He then wrote and Binning Binns published his ' Treatise on Christian Love' as an Eirenicon. He played a prominent part in the historical dispute before Cromwell at Glasgow (April 1651) between the indepen- | dents and presbyterians. His learning, theo- logical knowledge, and eloquent fervour bore down all opposition. The Protector was astonished, and, finding his party (of the in- j dependents) nonplussed, is said to have asked J the name ' of that learned and bold young man,' and, when told it was Mr. Hugh Bin- j ning, to have replied, ' He hath bound well | indeed, but' (putting his hand on his sword) i 1 this will loose all again.' Subsequently he still more publicly vindicated the church's j rights as against the invasion of the state, from Deuteronomy xxxii. 45. He died of consumption in September 1653, when only in his twenty-seventh year. Patrick Gillespie no common judge pronounced him'philo- logus, philosophus, et theologus eximius.' James Durham said < There was 110 speaking after Mr. Binning.' The following are his chief books : 1. ' The common Principles of the Christian Religion clearly proved and singularly improved, or a Practical Cate- chism wherein some of the most concerning Foundations of our Faith are solidly laid down, and that Doctrine which is accord- ing to Godliness is sweetly yet pungently pressed home and most satisfyingly handled,' Glasgow, 1659. 2. ' The Sinner's Sanctuary, being xl. Sermons upon the Eighth Chapter of Romans from the first verse to the six- teenth,' Edinburgh, 1670. 3. 'Fellowship with God, being xxviii. Sermons on the First Epistle of John c. i. and ii. vv. 1, 2, 3,' Edin- burgh, 1671. 4. 'Heart Humiliation, or Miscellany Sermons, preached upon choice Texts at several Solemn Occasions,' Edin- burgh, 1671. 5. ' An Useful Case of Con- science . . . 1693.' 6. ' A Treatise of Chris- tian Love on John xiii. 35,' 1651, but only 1743 ed. (Glasgow) now known. 7. * Several Sermons upon the most important Subjects of Practical Religion,' Glasgow, 1760. The best collective edition of the works is that by Dr. Leishman, a successor at Govan, in one large volume (imperial 8vo), 3rd ed. 1851. Various of these books were translated into Dutch. Binning's widow was afterwards married to the Rev. James Gordon, presbyterian minister of Comber, co. Down, Ireland. She died at Paisley in 1694. Binning's only son John inherited the family estate of Dalvenan on the death of his grandfather ; but having been engaged in the affair of Bothwell Bridge in 1679, he was attainted and his pro- perty forfeited. But in 1690 forfeiture and fines and attainder were rescinded by parlia- ment, with little advantage nevertheless to him, through the roguery of one Mackenzie, who claimed to have advanced money on the estate far beyond its value. There are pa- thetic glimpses of the younger Binning in the ' proceedings ' of the assembly of the church of Scotland in 1704, when he sued for the as- sembly's approval of an edition of his father's works. The assembly recommended ' every minister within the kingdom to take a double of the same book, or to subscribe for the same.' The last application he made for procuring aid was in 1717. [Scott's Fasti, ii. 67-8 ; Minutes Univ. Glasg. ; Wodrow's Analecta; Reid's Presbyterianism of Ireland, i. ; Edin. Christian Instructor, xxii.; Acts of Assembly; New Statistical Account, vi. ; Chalmers's Biogi-. Diet. ; Scots Worthies, i. 205- 10, ed. Macgavin, 1837.] A. B. G. BINNS, JOHN (1772-1860), journalist and politician, was the son of an ironmonger in Dublin, and was born on 22 Dec. 1772. In his second year he lost his father, who left behind him a considerable property. After receiving a good education, first at a common school, and afterwards at a classi- cal academy, he was in 1786 apprenticed to a soapboiler. At the request of his elder brother, who inherited the estate of his father, he accompanied him in 1794 to Lon- don, where for some months he acted as his assistant in the plumbing business. Shortly after his arrival in London he became a member of the London Corresponding Com- pany, which was afterwards an influential political association. In 1797 he hired a large room in the Strand for political debates, a charge of one shilling being made for ad- mission. On account of his connection with the schemes of the United Irishmen, the grand jury of the county of Warwick found ! a true bill against him, but after trial he was 1 acquitted. On 21 Feb. 1798 he left London for France, but was arrested at Margate, and after an examination by the privy council he was committed to the Tower. At Maidstone he was tried, along with Arthur O'Connor, i for high treason, but acquitted. Shortly afterwards he was arrested and confined in ! Clerkenwell Prison, whence he was trans- ferred to Gloucester, where he remained till i March 1801. In July following he embarked j for America. Proceeding to Northumber- land, Pennsylvania, he in March 1802 began | there a newspaper, 'The Republican Argus,' ! by which he acquired great influence among ; the republican party, not only in Northum- berland but in the neighbouring counties. In March 1807 he removed to Philadelphia ( to edit the ' Democratic Press,' which soon Binyon 61 Biondi became the leading paper in the state. In December 1822 he was chosen alderman of the city of Philadelphia, an office which he held till 1844. He died at Philadelphia on 16 June 1860. [Recollections of John Binns Twenty-nine years in Europe and Fifty-three in the United States written by himself, Philadelphia, 1854.1 T. F. H. BINYON, EDWARD (1830 P-1876), landscape painter, born about the year 1830, was a member of the Society of Friends. He painted both in oil and in water-colours, and his works show much power of colouring ; one of them, ' The Bay of Mentone,' has fre- quently been reproduced. He contributed from 1857 to 1876 to the exhibitions of the Dudley Gallery and the Royal Academy, among the pictures which he sent to the latter being, in 1859, < The Arch of Titus ; ' in 1860 < Capri ; ' in 1873 ' Marina di Lacco, Ischia ; ' in 1875 ' Coral Boat at dawn, Bay of Naples ; ' and in 1876 ' Hidden Fires, Ve- suvius from Capodimonte.' He lived many years in the island of Capri, where he died in 1876, from the effects of bathing while overheated. [Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and En- gravers, eel. Graves, 1884 ; Royal Academy Ex- hibition Catalogues, 1859-76.] R. E. G. BIONDI, SIR GIOVANNI FRAN- CESCO (1572-1644), historian and romance writer, was born in 1572 at Lesina, an island in the Gulf of Venice off Dalmatia. Entering the service of the Venetian republic, he was appointed secretary to Senator So- ranzo, the Venetian ambassador at Paris ; but he soon afterwards returned to Venice, and at the suggestion of Sir Henry Wotton, the English ambassador there, came to England to seek his fortunes. Arriving in 1609 (Cat. Dom. State Papers, 1629-31, p. 347), with an introduction to James I, he was at first employed in negotiating with the Duke of Savoy marriages between his children and Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth, but the scheme never reached maturity. He was settled in London in the latter half of 1612, when Prince Henry's death ended ' all hope of a Savoyan match,' and was well received by the king, who granted him a pension. Fifteen interesting Italian letters, written between 9 Oct. 1612 and 24 Nov. 1613, by Biondi in London to Carleton, who was then the English ambassador at Venice, are extant among the i State Papers.' ' In one of them, dated 28 Oct. 1613, Biondi promises to follow Carleton's advice, and remain permanently in London j and in the latest of them he an- nounces his intention of going to Paris with Sir Henry Wotton, should Wotton be appointed to the English legation there. He had been in early life converted to the protestant faith ; but Archbishop Abbot informed Carle- ton (30 Nov. 1613) that, although he knew nothing to Biondi's disadvantage, he was as suspicious of him as of all ' Italian conver- , titos.' In 1615 Biondi proceeded to the ! general Calvinist assembly held at Grenoble as James I's representative, and he assured the assembly of the English king's protection and favour (MARSOLLIER, Histoire de Henri, due de Bouillon, 1719, livre vii. p. 27). On 6 Sept. 1622 Biondi was knighted by James I ' at Windsor, and married about the same time ; Mary, the sister of the king's physician, Sir Theodore Mayerne, 'a very great lump or great piece of flesh,' as Chamberlain describes I her (NICHOLS, Progresses, iii. 777 ; Cal. Dom. \ State Papers, 1619-23, p. 495). Soon after- | wards Biondi became a gentleman of the i king's privy chamber. On 22 Feb. 1625-0 he resigned two small pensions which he had previously held, and received in behalf of himself and his wife, during their lives, a | new pension of 200/. On 13 June 1628 an exemption from all taxation was granted I him. On 25 Sept. 1630 he sent to Carleton, j who had now become Viscount Dorchester and secretary of state, a statement of his affairs, and desired it to be laid before the king. After giving an account of his early life, and of the loss which he had sustained in the death, in 1628, of his patron, William Cavendish, earl of Devonshire, he complained that his pension had been rarely paid, and prayed for its increase by 100/. and its regular payment. The justices of the peace for Middlesex re- ported (11 May 1636) that Biondi, with other l persons of quality' residing in Clerken- well, had refused to contribute 'to the relief of the infected' of the district.. There is extant at the Record Office a certificate of payment of Biondi's pension on 7 May 1638. Two years later he left England for the house of his brother-in-law, Mayerne, at Aubonne, near Lausanne, Switzerland. He died there in 1644, and the epitaph on his tomb in the neighbouring church was legible in 1737. An admirable portrait of Biondi is given in ' Le Glorie de gli Incogniti,' p. 240, This book, published at Venice in 1647, is an account of deceased members of the Venetian ' Ac- cademia de' Signori Incogniti/ to which Biondi belonged. Biondi was the author of three tedious chivalric romances, which tell a continuous story, and of a work on English history. They were all written in Italian, but became very popular in this country in English Birch Birch translations. They are entitled : 1. * L'Ero- mena divisa in sei libri,' published at Venice in 1624, and again in 1628. It was trans- lated into English as ' Eromena, or Love and Revenge ' (fol., 1631), by James Hay- ward, and dedicated to the Duke of Rich- mond and Lennox. A German translation appeared in parts at Nuremberg between 1656 and 1659, and was republished in 1667. 2. ' La Donzella desterrada,' published at Venice in 1627 and at Bologna in 1637, and dedicated to the Duke of Savoy. The dedi- cation is dated from London, 4 July 1626, and in it Biondi mentions a former promise to undertake for the duke a translation of Sidney's l Arcadia.' James Hayward trans- lated the book into English, under the title of ' Donzella desterrada, or the Banish'd Virgin' (fol.), in 1635. 3. 'II Coralbo; segue la Donzella desterrada' (Venice, 1635). It was translated into English by A. G. in 1655, with a dedication to the (second) Earl of Strafford. The translator states that Coralbo was re- garded by Biondi as the most perfect of his romances. 4. * L' istoria delle guerre civili d'Inghilterra tra le due case di Lancastre e di lore,' published in three quarto volumes at Venice between 1637 and 1644, with a dedication to Charles I. It was translated into English, apparently while still in manu- script, by Henry Gary, earl of Monmouth, and published in two volumes in London in 1641, under the title of ' An History of the Civil Warres of England between the two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke.' It is a laborious but useless compilation. [Le Gloriede gli Incogniti (1647), pp. 241-3; Niceron's Memoires pour servir, xxxvii. 3914; Cal. Dom. Slate Papers for 1612, 1613, 1622, 1624, 1626, 1628, 1630, 1636, 1638; Granger's Biographical History, ii. 36 ; Brit. Mus. Cat.] S. L. L. BIRCH, JAMES (ft. 1759-1795), here- siarch, was born in Wales, but the date is un- known. He became a watch-motion maker in London, living in Brewer's Yard, Golden Lane, Old Street Road, afterwards in Little Moorfields. He was converted to the Mug- gletonians, his name first appearing in their records 1 July 1759 ; that of Mrs. Birch is mentioned 22 July 1759. He wrote in 1771 a rhythmical account of his conversion ('Travels from the sixth to the ninth hour'), fifteen stanzas of eight lines each, dated 5 Dec. (unprinted). In 1772 he rejected two points of Muggletonian ortho- doxy : viz. the doctrine that believers have present assurance of salvation (this, Birch thought, was often withheld till death) ; and the doctrine that God exercises no immediate oversight in human affairs, and affords 110 | present inspiration (on these points Birch j reverted to the original views of John Reeve, the founder, along with Lodowicke Mug- gleton, of the sect). So far he only led a ' party within the Muggletonian body, which has always been liable to eruptions of Reevite heresy. But in 1778 Birch began to claim personal inspiration ; this lost him ten fol- lowers, headed by Martha, wife of Henry Collier. The Collierites were regarded by Mug- gletonians as mistaken friends ; the Birch- ites were known as the Anti-church. Birch was maintained in independence by his fol- lowers, his right-hand man being William Matthews, of Bristol. In 1786 there were some thirty Birchites in London, and a larger number in Pembrokeshire. In 1809 they are alluded to in a * divine song ' by James Frost as ' anti-followers ; ' at this time and subsequently they had a place of meet- ing in the Barbican. Whether Birch him- self was living in 1809 is not known ; the last occurrence of his name in the Muggle- tonian archives is in 1795 ; two of his Lon- don followers were surviving in 1871 in old age. Birch published, about the end of last century, ' The Book of Cherubical Reason, with its Law and Nature ; or of the Law and Priesthood of Reason,' &c. ; and ' The Book upon the Gospel and Regeneration,' <&c. They bear no date, but were sold by T. Herald, 60 Portpool Lane, Gray's Inn Lane. Very incoherent, they are scarcely intelligible even to the initiated in the small controversies from which they sprang. One of Birch's opinions is curious : * Not one of the seed of Faith dies in childhood' (Cher. Reas. p. 46). [MS. Records of the Muggletonian Church ; Birch's Works (Brit. Mus. 1114 i. 3, 1 and 2); paper Ancient and Mod. Muggletonians, Trans. Liverpool Lit. and Phil. Soc. 1870.] A. G-. BIRCH, JOHN (1616-1691), presby- terian colonel during the civil war, belonged to a younger branch of the Birches of Birch, and was the eldest son of Samuel Birch of Ardwick, Lancashire, by Mary, daughter of Ralph Smith of Doblane House, Lancashire (DFGDALE'S Visit, of Lancas. 1664 in Chet. Soc. Pub. Ixxxiv. (1872), p. 34). He was born 7 April 1616, not 1626, the date now in- scribed on his tombstone (WooD, ed. Bliss, Life, cxviii). It was the general custom of his political opponents to refer to him as of ignoble origin, and the coarseness of his manners gave a colour of probability to the insinuation. - In f A more exact and neces- sary Catalogue of Pensioners than is yet ex- tant' (SOMEKS'S Tracts, vii. p. 60), he appears as ' J. B., once a carrier, now a colonel ; ' and Birch Birch Burnet states that when a member of parlia- \ ment he ' retained still, even to affectation, ; the clownishness of liis manner.' He also quotes a speech 'of Birch, in which he admits that he had l been a carrier once.' Similar insinuations of the lowness of his origin occur in the traditions as to how he joined the army. According to the Barrett MSS. in the library of the Chetharn Society, quoted in note by j Thomas Heywood to Newcome's ' Diary ' ' (p. 203), being of great stature,' he ' enlisted ! as a private trooper in the parliamentary , army, which being known of Colonel Birch of Birch to be his namesake and countryman, was by him favoured and preferred in the ; army from post to post.' According to i another account, while driving his packhorses j along the road, he so resolutely resisted the attempt of some parliamentary soldiers under Cromwell to rob him, that he attracted the ! notice of that commander, who offered him { a commission in his troop (TowNSEND, Hist. of Leominster, p. 109). The pedigree above quoted sufficiently refutes the tradition of his ignoble birth, and his letters prove incontes- tably that he had received more than a j ' clownish education.' That both of the above statements in regard to his early connection with the army are totally groundless, is also evident from his ' Military Memoir,' in which he makes his first appearance as captain of volunteers at the siege of Bristol. Either previously or subsequently he may have acted as ' a carrier,' and ' driven packhorses/ but when he joined the army he had a large business as a merchant in Bristol, and, accord- ing to the * Visitation of Lancashire ' above quoted, had married Alice, daughter of Thomas Deane, and widow of Thomas Selfe of Bristol, grocer. It is, however, not an im- probable conjecture that Birch came into the possession of his business by marrying the widow of his master, whose goods' he may previously have been in the habit of deliver- ing to the customers. In any case, he inherited a combination of talents certain to bring him into prominence in troublous times such as those in which he lived : great per- sonal strength, remarkable coolness in the most perplexing surroundings, an inborn capacity for military command, a rugged elo- quence which rendered him one of the most formidable orators of his time, and a keen business instinct which let slip no oppor- tunity of advancing his personal interests. After the surrender of Bristol to the royalists Birch went to London and levied there a regiment, with which he served as colonel under Sir William Waller in his campaigns in the west. In the assault of Arundel he was so severely wounded as to be left for dead ; but the cold stopped the haemorrhage, and thus accidentally saved his life. After obtaining medical assistance in London, he returned to his command, and was present at the battle of Alresford, the blockade of Ox- ford, and the prolonged skirmish at Cropredy Bridge. Waller's troops having deserted him in the subsequent aimless march towards London, Birch obtained the command of a Kentish regiment of newly levied troops, with which he assisted at the defence of Plymouth. The institution of the New Model was a serious blow to his hopes, for his presbyterian principles were even dearer to him than his own advancement. On its institution he was ordered to join the army of Fairfax and Crom- well near Bridgewater, and was entrusted with the care of Bath. It was in a great degree owing to his representations that in September 1645 it was decided to storm Bris- tol, and he assisted in its assault with a con- siderable command of horse and foot, receiving special commendation in the report of Crom- well to the parliament (CARLYLE, Cromwell, letter xxxi.) Notwithstanding this, he re- mained only a colonel of volunteers with the joint care of Bath and Bristol, a position with so few advantages to compensate for its diffi- culties that he contemplated resigning his commission, when, goingto London in Novem- ber 1645 to inform the committee of safety of his intention, he received a new commission along with Colonel Morgan, governor of Gloucester, to ' distress the city of Hereford.' Only a few months previously the city had suc- cessfully withstood the assaults of the Scotch army under Leven ; but Birch, after obtaining secret information of the strength, disposition, and habits of the garrison, succeeded in de- vising a clever stratagem which enabled him to enter the gates before a proper alarm could be raised. Such a remarkable stroke of for- tune was received with general rejoicing in London, and formed the turning-point in Birch's career. He received the special thanks of parliament, who voted 6,000/. for the pay- ment of his men, was appointed governor of Hereford, and shortly afterwards was chosen member for Leominster. With the capture of Goodrich castle in 1646, his career as a soldier of the parliament practically closes. Throughout it, it is not difficult to trace the predominance of his schemes as a man of business. It was possibly to secure compen- sation for the loss of his property in Bristol that he first became a captain of volunteers. When forced to suspend his business as a merchant, he lent his money to the parlia- ment at the high interest of 8 per cent., and his governorship of Hereford supplied him with admirable opportunities for speculating in Birch 6 4 Birch church lands, of which he took full advan- tage, purchasing Whitbourne, a county resi- dence attached to the see of Hereford, for l,348/.,and afterwards the palace of Hereford and various bishop's manors for 2,476/. (Me- moir, 154-5). These purchases were of course nullified at the Restoration, and Richard Baxter mentions that Birch sought to per- suade him to take the bishopric of Hereford ' because he thought to make a better bargain with me than with another ' (KENNET, Re- gister, 303). At the same time Birch made his worldly interests entirely subservient to his presbyterian principles. According to his own statement in the debate of 10 Feb. 1672- 73, he suffered, on account of his opposition to the extreme measures of the Cromwellian party, as many as twenty- one imprisonments. When Charles II appeared in England as the champion of presbyterianism, Birch's wari- ness did not prevent him from being seen riding with Charles in Worcester the day be- fore the battle. This was remembered against him when fears arose in 1654 of a rising in Hereford, and he suffered an imprisonment in Hereford gaol from March of that year to November 1655 (TiiuRLOE, iv. 237). He was returned to the parliament which met in March 1656, but was excluded, and, along with eighty others, signed a protest (TiiUK- LOE, v. 453). He took a prominent part in the restoration of Charles II, being chosen in February 1659-60 a member of the new coun- cil of state, of which General Monk was the head (KENXET, Register, 66). Notwith- standing his dubious political action, he had held during the later years of the protector- ship an important situation in the excise, and at the Restoration he was made auditor. That under the new regime his business in- stincts were still unimpaired is further shown by the entries in the State Papers ( Calendar, Domestic Series (1664-5), pp. 361 and 383) re- garding his rental, along with James Hamil- ton, ranger of Hyde Park, of 55 acres of land at the north-west corner of the park, at an annual rental of 5s., to be planted with apple-trees for cider, one half of the apples being for the use of the king's household. In February 1660-61 he acted as commissioner for disbanding 'the ; general's regiment of foot,' and in March fol- ; lowing as commissioner for disbanding the navy (KENNET, 389). In the convention par- liament he sat for Leominster, from 1671 to ! 1678 for Penrhyn, and during the remainder of his life for Weobly, the property of Weobly and also that of Garnstone having been pur- chased by him. in 1661. His practical busi- ness talents and his acquaintance with mili- tary affairs enabled him in the debates to ! make use of his oratorical gifts with remark- ! able effect. His plan for the rebuilding of \ London after the great fire indicated great ! practical shrewdness, and, had it been fol- lowed both then and thereafter up to the pre- ; sent time, the question of housing the poor Avould have been completely solved. He pro- i posed that the whole land should be sold to trustees, and resold again by them with ; preference to the old owner, l which,' as Pepys , justly remarks, ' would certainly have caused the city to be built where these trustees pleased' (PEPYS, Diary, iii. 412). Burnetsays of Birch : < He was the roughest and boldest speaker in the house, and talked in the lan- guage and phrases of a carrier, but with a beauty and eloquence that was always ac- ceptable. I heard Coventry say he was the best speaker to carry a popular assembly be- fore him that he had ever known.' He died 10 May 1691, and was buried at Weobly, where a monument was erected to his memory, the inscription of which was defaced by the Bishop of Hereford. In the new inscription the year of his birth is wrongly given as 1626 instead of 1616. [Memoir by Heywood in edition of Newcome's Diary. Chetham Soc. Pub. xviii. 203-206 ; Mili- tary Memoir of Colonel John Birch, written by Koe, his secretary, Camden Soc. Pub. 1873 ; Townsend's Hist, of Leominster, 109-11 ; Pepys, Diary ; Burnet's Hist, of Own Time ; Whiteloeke's Memorials ; .Rennet's Register ; Thurloe's State Papers.] T. F. H. BIRCH, JOHN (1745 P-1815), surgeon, was born in 1745 or 1746, but where cannot now be traced. He served some years as a surgeon in the army, and afterwards settled in London. He was elected on 12 May 1784 surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, and held office till his death on 3 Feb. 1815. He was also surgeon extraordinary to the prince re- gent. Birch was a surgeon of much repute in his day, both in hospital and private prac- tice, but was chiefly known for his enthusi- astic advocacy of electricity as a remedial agent, and for his equally ardent opposition to the introduction of vaccination. He served the cause of medical electricity by founding an electrical department at St. Thomas's Hospital, and carrying it on with much energy. For more than twenty-one years, he says, he performed the manipulations himself, since he found it difficult to induce the students to take much interest in the subject. The kind of electricity employed was exclusively the frictional, which is now known to be of little use, the therapeutical value of galvanism being not at that time understood. Nevertheless his writings on the subject, which were widely circulated both in this country and abroad, must have Birch Birch done much in keeping alive professional in- terest in investigations which have turned out to be remarkably fruitful in practical results. Birch published several pamphlets in op- ; position to the practice of vaccination, and j in favour of inoculation, for the small-pox. I He also gave evidence before a committee of j the House of Commons in the same sense. | His objections have no longer much scien- | tific interest, but the point of view from j which he regarded the subject is probably j fairly represented in his monumental epi- : taph, as follows : ' The practice of cow- poxing, which first became general in his day, undaunted by the overwhelming influ- ence of power and prejudice, and by the ; voice of nations, he uniformly and until ! death perseveringly opposed, conscientiously believing it to be a public infatuation, fraught with peril of the most mischievous conse- j quences to mankind.' Birch was buried in ! the church in Rood Lane, Fenchurch Street, j where a monument was erected to his me- ! mory by his sister Penelope Birch. The j epitaph, from which some of the dates given ! above are quoted, is printed in a posthu- mous edition of his tracts on vaccination. His portrait, painted by T. Phillips and en- graved by J. Lewis, is rather commonly met with. He wrote : 1. ' Considerations on the Effi- cacy of Electricity in removing Female j Obstructions,' London, 1779, 8vo : 4th edi- ! tion 1798 (translated into German). 2. 'A Letter on Medical Electricity,' published in George Adams's { Essay on Electricity,' Lon- don, 1798, 4to (4th edition) ; also separately, 1792, 8vo. 3. ' An Essay on the Medical Applications of Electricity^' 1802, 8vo (trans- lated into German, Italian, and Russian). 4. ( Pharmacopoeia Chirurgica in usum noso- comii Londinensis S. Thomse,' London, 1803. 12mo. 5. t A Letter occasioned by the many failures of the Cow-pox,' addressed to W. R. Rogers. Published in the latter writer's ' Examination of Evidence relative to Cow- pox delivered to the Committee of the House of Commons by two of the Surgeons of St. Thomas's Hospital,' 2nd edition, 1805. 6. 'Se- rious Reasons for objecting to the Practice of Vaccination. In answer to the Report of j the Jennerian Society,' 1806, 8vo. 7. ' Copy of an Answer to the Queries of the London College of Surgeons and of a Letter to the College of Physicians respecting the Cow-pox,' 1807, 8vo. The last two were reprinted by Penelope Birch, with the title ' An Appeal to the Public on the Hazard and Peril of "V accination, otherwise Cow-pox,' 1817, 8vo. 8. ' The Fatal Effects of Cow-pox Protection,' TOL. v. 1808, 12mo (anonymous, but ascribed to Birch in the ' Diet, of Living Authors,' 1816). 9. < A Report of the True State of the Ex- periment of Cow-pox/ 1810 (on the same authority). [Biog. Diet, of Living Authors (1816) ; Calli- sen's Meclicinisches Schriftsteller-Lexikon (Co- penhagen, 1830-45), i. 264, and Appendix; Ar- chives of St. Thomas's Hospital ; Birch's Works.! J. F. P. BIRCH, JONATHAN (1783-1847), translator of * Faust,' was born in Holborn,. London, on 4 July 1783. When a lad he had a strong desire to become a sculptor, but in October 1798 he was apprenticed to an uncle in the city. In 1803 he entered the house of John Argelander, a timber-merchant at Memel, where he remained until Argelander's death, in 1812, much of his time being em- ployed in travelling in Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. In 1807 the three eldest sons of Frederick William III of Prussia took refuge with Argelander for eighteen months, and became warmly attached to Birch, in whose company they took delight. In 1812 Birch returned to England and turned to literary pursuits. In 1823 he married Miss Esther Brooke, of Lancaster, who bore him five children, of whom only two survived, a boy and a girl. His son, Charles Bell Birch, A.R.A., became a sculptor. After many minor essays in literature he published t Fifty-one Original Fables, with Morals and Ethical Index. Embellished with eighty-five original designs by Robert Cruickshank ; also a translation of Plutarch's " Banquet of the Seven Sages," revised for this work,' London, 1833, 8vo. The preface is signed ' Job Crithannah,' an anagram of the author's name. The Crown Prince of Prussia accepted a copy, and renewed the friendship formed at Memel. Birch next produced ' Divine Emblems ; embellished with etchings on copper [by Robert Cruick- shank], after the fashion of Master Francis Quarles. Designed and written by Johann Albricht, A.M.' (another anagram of Jona- than Birch), London, 1838, 8vo ; Dublin, 1839, 8vo. On sending the crown prince a copy he received in return a gold medal, of which only thirty were struck, and given by the prince to his particular friends. He now undertook a complete translation of Goethe's ' Faust,' being the first to attempt the two parts. The first was published in 1839, and dedicated to the crown prince, who, on coming to the throne in 1840 as Frederick William IV, sent him the ' great gold medal of homage.' In 1841 Birch was elected ' foreign honorary member of the P Birch 66 Literary Society of Berlin,' the only other : Englishman thus honoured being Thomas ; Oarlyle. The second part of * Faust ' was j published in 1843, and dedicated to the King i of Prussia. Birch also translated, from the i German of Bishop Eylert, two works upon ! Frederick William III. In 1846 the King j of Prussia offered him a choice of apartments in three of his palaces. He chose Bellevue, near Berlin, mainly for the sake of his son's artistic studies. At the end of 1846 he settled in Prussia, and completed his last work, a translation of the ' Nibelungen Lied,' Berlin, 1 848, 8vo. He was greatly aided by Professor Carl Lachmaiin, whose text he mainly fol- lowed, and by the brothers Grimm. While his work was still in the press he was taken ill, and died at Bellevue on 8 Sept. 1847. [Private information.] T. C. BIRCH, PETER, D.D. (1652 P-1710), divine, was son of Thomas Birch of the an- cient family of that name settled at Birch in Lancashire. He was educated in presby- terian principles. In 1670 he and his brother Andrew went to Oxford, where they lived as sojourners in the house of an apothecary, became students in the public library, and had a tutor to instruct them in philosophical learning, 'but yet did not wear gowns.' After a time Peter left Oxford and entered the university of Cambridge, though no entry of his matriculation can be discovered. Sub- sequently he returned to Oxford, and, having declared" his conformity to the established church, Dr. John Fell procured certain let- ters from the chancellor of the university in his behalf. These were read in the convo- cation held on 6 May 1672, with a request that Birch might be allowed to take the de- gree of B.A. after he had performed his -exercise and to compute his time from his matriculation at Cambridge. On the 12th of the same month he w r as matriculated as a member of Christ Church, and being soon after admitted B.A. (1673-4) he was made one of the chaplains or petty canons of that house by Dr. Fell. He graduated M.A. in 1674, B.D. in 1683, and D.D. in 1688. For a time he was curate of St. Thomas's parish, Oxford, then rector of St. Ebbe's church and , lecturer at Carfax, and subsequently, being recommended to the service of James, duke of Ormond, he was appointed by that noble- man one of his chaplains. He became chap- lain to the House of Commons and a pre- bendary of Westminster in 1689. King William III, just before one of his visits to Holland, gave the rectory of St. James's, Westminster, to Dr. Thomas Tenison, and after the advancement of that divine to the Birch see of Lincoln, the Bishop of London, pre- tending that he had a title to the rectory, conferred it on Dr. Birch, 11 July 1692. The queen, being satisfied that the presenta- tion belonged to the crown, granted the living to Dr. William Wake. These con- flicting claims led to litigation between Birch and Wake in the court of king's. bench, and eventually the House of Lords decided the case on appeal, 12 Jan. 1694-5, in favour of the latter. Shortly afterwards, on 19 March 1694-5, Birch was presented by the dean and chapter of Westminster to the vicarage of St. Bride's, Fleet Street. Abel Boyer, referring to the dispute about the rectory, states what was probably the real reason of Birch being ousted from it. He says Birch 'was a great stickler for the High-church party; and 'tis remarkable, that in King William's reign, and on the Prince's birth- day, he preach'd a sermon in St. James's Church, of which he was then rector, on this text, "Sufficient to each day is the evil thereof;" which having given great offence to the court, he was removed from that church, and afterwards chosen vicar of St. Bride's ' (History of Queen Anne, 1711, 421). In September 1697 l Dr. Birch was married to the lady Millington, a widdow, worth 20,0007. ' (LuTTKELL, Relation of State Af- fairs, iv. 284). He died on 2 July 1710. His will, dated on 27 June in that year, is printed in the Rev. John Booker's ' History of the Ancient Chapel of Birch.' By his wife Sybil, youngest daughter and coheir of Humphrey Wyrley of Hampstead in Stafford- shire, he had issue two sons, Humphrey Birch and John Wyrley Birch. He published: 1. 'A Sermon before the House of Commons, 5 Nov.,' London, 1689, 4to. 2. ' A Sermon preached before the honourable House of Commons at St. Mar- garet's, Westminster, 30 Jan. 1694,' London, 1694, 4to. Some of the members took offence at some passages in this discourse, which elicited two replies, entitled respectively ' A Birchen Rod for Dr. Birch ; or, some Ani- madversions upon his Sermon. . . . In a Letter to Sir T[homas] D[yke] and Mr. H[unger- ford],' London, 1694, 4to, and < A New- Year's Gift for Dr. Birch ; or, a Mirror discovering the different opinions of some Doctors in re- lation to the present Government,' London, 1696, 4to. 3. ' A Funeral Sermon preach'd on the decease of Grace Lady Gethin, wife of Sir Richard Gethin, Baronet, on the 28 day of March 1700, at West minster- Abby. And for perpetuating her memory a sermon is to be preach'd in Westminster- Abby, yearly, on Ash Wednesday for ever,' London, 1700, 4to. Reprinted in ' Reliquiae Gethinians6.' Birch Birch [Wood's Athense Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 659; Wood's Fasti, ii. 334, 344, 387, 404 ; Compleat History of Europe for 1710, Remarkables, p. 34; Le Neve's Mormmenta Anglicana (1700-15), 209; Luttrell's Eelation of State Affairs, ii. 45, 520, iii. 426, 451, iv. 284, v. 251, 298, 627; Mal- colm's Londinium Eedivivura, i. 161, 358; Atter- bury's Epistolary Correspondence, i. 211 ; New- court's Kepertoriura, i. 317, 661, 922 ; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ix. 658; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), iii. 362 ; Booker's Hist, of the Ancient Chapel of Birch (Chetham Soc.), 100-104.] T. C. BIRCH, SIR RICHARD JAMES HOL- WELL (1803-1875), general, came of a well-known Anglo-Indian family, and was the son of Richard Comyns Birch, of the Ben- gal civil service, and afterwards of Writtle, Essex, who was a grandson of John Zepha- niah Holwell, of the Bengal civil service, author of the famous account of his sufferings in the Black Hole of Calcutta. Birch was born in 1803, and received a commission as an ensign in the Bengal infantry in 1821. His numerous circle of relations in India insured his rapid promotion and almost continuous service on the staff, and after acting as deputy-judge advocate-general at Meerut, and as assistant secretary in the mili- tary department at Calcutta, he was appointed judge-advocate-general to the forces in Bengal in 1 841 . In the same capacity he accompanied the army in the first Sikh war (1845-6), was mentioned in despatches, and was promoted lieutenant-colonel for his services. In the second Sikh war (1849) he was appointed to the temporary command of a brigade after the battle of Chillianwallah. He distinguished himself at the battle of Goojerat, and was made a C.B. in 1849, and continued to serve as brigadier-general in Sir Colin Campbell's campaign in the Kohat pass in 1850. He then reverted to his appointment at head- quarters, and in 1852 received the still more important post of secretary to the Indian government in the military department. He was promoted colonel in 1854, major-general in 1858, and still held the secretaryship when the Indian mutiny broke out in 1857. His services at this time were most valuable, though he never left Calcutta, for his thorough knowledge of the routine duties of his office .and his long official experience enabled him to give valuable advice to Lord Canning, the governor-general, and to Sir Colin Campbell when he arrived to take up the command in chief. These services were recognised by liis being made aK.C.B. in 1860, and in 1861 he left India, In the following year he was promoted lieutenant-general and retired on full pay, and on 25 Feb. 1875 he died at Yenice, aged 72. [Hart's Army List; Times, 10 March 1875; East India Register and Army List.] H. M. S. BIRCH, SAMUEL (1757-1841), drama- tist and pastrycook, was born in London 8 Nov. 1757. He was the son of Lucas Birch, who carried on the business of a pas- trycook and confectioner at 15 Cornhill. This ; shop, though the upper portion of the house I had been rebuilt, still (1885) retains its old- fashioned front, and is probably the oldest shop of the kind in the city. The business was established in the reign of George I i by a Mr. Horton, the immediate predecessor I of Lucas Birch. Samuel was educated at a private school kept by Mr. Crawford at Newington Butts, and upon leaving school I was apprenticed to his father. P]arly in life, ! in 1778, he married the daughter of Dr. John | Fordyce, by whom he had a family of thirteen I children. He was elected one of the common j council on 21 Dec. 1781, and in 1789 became i deputy of the Cornhill ward. In May 1807 | he was elected alderman of the Candlewick | ward in the place of Alderman Hankey. When young he devoted much of his leisure time to the cultivation of his mental powers and the improvement of his literary taste ; he was a frequent attendant of a debating | society which met in one of the large rooms formerly belonging to the King's Arms Tavern, Cornhill, and there, in the winter of 1778, he made his first essay in public speaking. In politics he was a strenuous supporter of Pitt's administration, though he vigorously opposed the repeal of the Test and Corpora- tion Acts. He became a frequent speaker at the common council meetings. When he first proposed the formation of volunteer regiments at the outbreak of the French revolution, not a single common councilman supported him. Subsequently, when the measure was adopted, he became the lieutenant-colonel commandant of the 1st regiment of Loyal London volun- teers. The speech which he delivered in the j Guildhall on 5 March 1805 against the Ro- man catholic petition was severely criticised in an article entitled 'Deputy Birch and others on the Catholic Claims,' which appeared in the ' Edinburgh Review' (x. 124-36). It was, however, highly commended by the king, and the freedom of the city of Dublin was i twice voted him at the midsummer quarter assembly of the corporation of that city on ! 19 July 1805 and 18 July 1806, for his advo- | cacy of the protest ant ascendency in Ireland. j In 1811 he was appointed one of the sheriffs | of London, and on 9 Nov. 1814 Birch entered i on his duties as lord mayor. Tory though ! he was, he opposed the Corn Bill of 1815, and i presided at a meeting of the livery in com- j mon hall on 23 Feb. 1815, when he made a F2 Birch 68 Birch vigorous attack upon the intended prohibition of the free importation of foreign corn. The course he took on this occasion is commemo- rated by a medal struck in his honour, on the obverse side of which is the bust of the lord mayor, and on the reverse a representation of a wheatsheaf, with the legend, { Free Impor- tation, Peace and Plenty.' During his mayor- i alty the marble statue of George III by Chantrey, the inscription on which was writ- ten by Birch, was placed in the council chamber of Guildhall. Almost his last act as lord mayor was to lay the foundation-stone of the London Institution in Finsbury Circus (then called the Amphitheatre, Moorfields) on 4 Nov. 1815. In 1836 Birch, who had for j many years carried on his father's old business | in Cornhill, disposed of it to Messrs. Ring & | Brymer, the present proprietors. He retired j from the court of aldermen in 1840, and died at his house, 107 Guildford Street, London, on 10 Dec. 1841, aged 84. Birch was a man of considerable literary attainments, and wrote a number of poems and musical dramas, of which the t Adopted Child ' was by far the most successful. His plays were frequently produced at Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and Haymarket theatres. His varied ac- tivity was the subject of a clever skit, in which a French visitor to London meeting with ' Birch the pastrycook ' in such different ca- pacities as Guildhall-orator, militia-colonel, poet, &c., returned to France, believing him to be the emperor of London ! His portrait, presented by his granddaughter in 1877, hangs in the Guildhall library. He published the following works : 1. 'The Abbey of Ambresbury,' in two parts, 1788-9, 4to (a poem). 2. ' Consilia, or Thoughts on several Subjects,' 1785, 12mo. 3. 'The Adopted Child,' 1795, 8vo (a musical drama, first produced at Drury Lane 1 May 1795 ; music by Thomas Attwood). 4. ' The Smug- glers/ 1796, 8vo (a musical drama, first pro- duced at Drury Lane 13 April 1796 ; music by Thomas Attwood [q. v.]). 5. ' Speech in the Common Council against the Roman Catholic Petition,' 8yo, 1805. 6. ' Speech in the Com- mon Council on the Admission of Papists to hold Commissions in the Army,' March 1807. He also wrote the following dramatic pieces, which were never published : 7. ' The Man- ners/ 1793 (a musical entertainment, first produced at the opera house in the Hay- market 10 May 1793). 8. 'The Packet Boat, or a Peep behind the Veil,' 1794 (a masque, first produced at Covent Garden 13 May 1794 ; music by Thomas Attwood). 9. ' Fast Asleep, 1797 (a musical entertainment, pro- duced at Drury Lane 28 Oct. 1795, and never acted again). 10. 'Albert and Adelaide, or the Victim of Romance,' 1798 (a romance first produced at Covent Garden 11 Dec. 1798). [Baker's Biographia Dramatica, 1812, i. 41-3 ; Chambers's Book of Days, 1869, p. 64 ; Thorn- bury 's Old and New London, 1st ed. i. 412-3, ii. 172 ; Era, 15 Jan. 1881, p. 7 ; Annual Register, 1841, appendix, p. 238.] G. F. R. B. BIRCH, THOMAS, D.D. (1705-1766;, historian and biographer, was born of quaker parents in St. George's Court, Clerkenwell,. on 23 Nov. 1705. His father, Joseph Birch, was a coffee-mill maker. The son received the rudiments of a good education, and when he left school spent his spare time in study. He was baptised, 15 Dec. 1730, at St. James's r Clerkenwell, having been bred as a quaker (Register of St. James's, Harleian Soc. ii. 191). He is believed to have assisted a clergyman called Cox in his parochial duty, and he is known to have married, in the summer of 1728, Cox's daughter Hannah. His wife's- strength had been undermined by a decline, but her death was caused by a puerperal fever between 31 July and 3 Aug. 1729. A copy of verses which the widowed husband wrote on her coffin on the latter day is printed in the ' Miscellaneous Works of Mrs. Rowe/ ii. 133-7, and in the 'Biographica Britannica.' Birch was ordained deacon in the church of England on 17 Jan. 1730, and priest on 21 Dec. 1731. Being a diligent student of English history and a firm supporter of the whig doctrines in church and state, he basked in the patronage of the Hardwicke family, and passed from one ecclesiastical preferment to- another. The small rectory of lilting in Essex was conferred upon him 20 May 1732, and the sinecure rectory of Llandewi-Velfrey in Pembroke in May 1743. In January 1744 he was nominated to the rectory of Sidding- ton, near Cirencester, but he probably never took possession of its emoluments, as on 24 Feb. in the same year he was instituted to the rectory of St. Michael, Wood Street, London. Two years later he became the- rector of St. Margaret Pattens, London, and on 25 Feb. 1761 he was appointed to the rectory of Depden in Suffolk. The last two> livings he retained until his death. Birch never received the benefit of a university education, but in 1753 he was created D.D. of the Marischal College, Aberdeen, and of Lambeth. He was elected F.R.S. 20 Feb. 1735, and F.S.A. 11 Dec. 1735. From 1752 to 1765 he discharged the duties of secretary to the Royal Society. Whilst riding in the Hampstead Road he fell from his horse, it is believed in an apoplectic fit, and died on 9 Jan. 1766. He was buried in the chancel of the church of St. Margaret Pattens. Birch 6 9 Birch Horace "Walpole, in a letter to his anti- quarian friend Cole, makes merry over the insertion of a life of Dr. Birch in the edition of the ' Biographica Britannica ' which was edited by Kippis, and styles the doctor ' a worthy good-natured soul, full of industry and activity, and running about like a young setting-dog in quest of anything new or old, and with no parts, taste, or judgment.' In another letter the newswriter of Strawbeny Hill asks the question, ( Who would give a rush for Dr. Birch's correspondence ? ' Wai- pole's censure, though exaggerated, rests on a basis of truth, but the fact remains that, in spite of their wearisome minuteness of detail and their dulness of style, the works of Dr. Birch are indispensable to the literary or historical student. His principal books were: 1. 'Life of the Right Honourable Robert Boyle,' 1744. 2. 'An Inquiry into the Share which King Charles I had in the Transactions of the Earl of Glamorgan, after- wards Marquis of Worcester, for bringing over a body of Irish Rebels to assist that King,' 1747 and 1756, an anonymous treatise written in reply to Carte's account of the same transaction, and answered by Mr. John Boswell of Taunton, in ' The Case of the Royal Martyr considered with candour, 1758.' 5. Lives and characters written to accom- pany i Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain, engraven by Houbraken and Vertue,' 1747-52, and reprinted in 1756 and 1813. 4. ' Historical View of Negotiations between the Courts of England, France, and Brussels, 1592-1617,' 1749. 5. 'Life of Archbishop Tillotson,' 1752 and 1753, a whig memoir which provoked a thrice-issued pamphlet from the opposite camp of 'Remarks upon the Life of Dr. John Tillotson, compiled by Thomas Birch.' 6. ' Memoirs of reign of Queen Elizabeth from 1581 till her death [chiefly from the papers of Anthony Bacon],' 1754, 2 vols. 7. 'History of Royal Society of London,' 1756-7, 4 vols. 8. 'A Collection of Yearly Bills of Mortality from 1657 to 1758,' 1759, an anonymous publication. 9. ' Life of Henry, Prince of Wales,' 1760. 10. 'Let- ters between Colonel Robert Hammond and the Committee at Derby House relating to Charles I while confined in Carisbrooke Castle/ 1764, also anonymous. 11. 'Account of Life of John Ward, LL.D., Professor of Rhetoric in Gresham College,' which was published in 1766, after its author's death. These works, important and numerous as they are, by no means exhausted Dr. Birch's contributions to literature. He assisted, in common with the other members of the literary circle which was formed around the Hardwicke family, in composing the ' Athenian Letters ... of an agent of the King of Persia residing at Athens during the Peloponnesian War ; he edited the ' State Papers of John Thurloe ' | in seven folio volumes, and corrected Murdin's ! ' State Papers of Queen Elizabeth,' 1759. When Dr. Maty was carrying on the ' Journal Britannique,' he obtained the aid of Dr. Birch, and when Cave Avas editing the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' he sought the assistance of Birch both in the general articles and in the par- liamentary debates. Most of the English ' lives in the ' General Dictionary, Historical | and Critical,' which appeared in ten folio | volumes (1734-41), were written by him, and j his communications in the ' Philosophical I Transactions ' were numerous and valuable. I His biographies Avere held in such high esti- i mation that his memoirs of Chillingworth, j Mrs. Cockburn, Cudworth, Du Fresnoy, i Greaves, Rev. James Hervey, Milton, and | Raleigh were prefixed to editions of their works, which appeared between 1742 and 1753, and his critical aid was sought for the superintendence of an edition of the works and letters of Bacon and of Spenser's ' Fairy Queen.' He bequeathed his books and manu- i scripts to the British Museum, together with a sum of about 500Z. for increasing the stipend of the three assistant librarians. The manu- scripts are numbered 4101 to 4478 in the ' Additional MSS.,' and are described in the catalogue of the Rev. Samuel Ayscough (1782). They relate chiefly to English his- tory and biography. Among them were a series of letters transcribed from the originals at his expense and in course of arrangement for publication at his death. These were published in 1849 in four volumes, under the title of ' The Court and Times of James the First ' and ' The Court and Times of Charles the First.' Numerous letters between Dr. Birch and the principal men of his age are printed in Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes ' and ' Literary Illustrations,' the < Biblio- theca Topographica Britannica,' iii. 398-4 16, and in Boswell's 'Johnson.' Dr. Johnson acknowledged that Dr. Birch ' had more anec- dotes than any man,' and is reported to have said that ' Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation, but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him and numbs all his faculties.' The justice of this condemnation of his writings is apparent to every one who consults them. The high estimation of his good qualities which was held by the tory and high-church Johnson in social life is confirmed by those who agreed with the political and religious opinions of Dr. Birch. [Kippis's'Biog. Brit.; Boswell's Johnson (ed. 1848), pp. 48, 351 ; Ayscough's Catalogue, pp. Birch Birchensha v-vi; Weld's Koy. Soc. ii. 561 ; Thomson's Roy. Soc. p. 14, and App. p. xl ; Edwards's Brit. Mus. ii. 415 ; Walpole's Letters, i. 384, vii. 326 ; viii. 260; Pink's Clerkenwell, 269-71 ; Morunt's Essex, ii. 565 ; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 585-637, ii. 507, iii. 258, v. 40-3, 53, 282-90; Lit. Illust. ir. 241 ; Gent. Mag. 1766, pp. 43, 47.] W. P. C. BIRCH, THOMAS LEDLIE (d. 1808), Irish presbyterian minister, was ordained minister of Saintfield, co. Down, on 21 May 1776. In 1794 he preached a sermon before the synod of Ulster, in which he specified 1848 as the date of the fall of the papacy. He was much opposed to the doctrines and ways of the seceders, and in 1796 published a pamphlet in which he tells how, by taking the bull by the horns, he kept them out of Saintfield. In 1798 he was mixed up with the insurrection, and, having 1 been tried by court martial at Lisburn on 18 and 20 June, was permitted to emigrate to America, where he died on 12 April 1808. He published : 1. 'The Obligation upon Christians, and espe- cially Ministers, to be Exemplary in their Lives ; particularly at this important period when the prophecies are seemingly about to be fulfilled,' &c., Belfast, 1794 (synodical sermon, Matt. v. 16). 2. 'Physicians lan- guishing under Disease. An Address to the Seceding or Associate Synod of Ireland upon certain tenets and practices/ &c., Belfast,1796. [Belfast News-Letter, June 1798 ; Witherow's Hist, and Lit. Mem. of Presbyterianism in Ire- land, 2nd series, 1880.] A. G. BIRCH, WILLIAM (d. 1794?), enamel painter and engraver, was born in Warwick about 1760, and practised in London. In 1781 and the following year he exhibited enamels at the Royal Academy, and in 1785 received a medal from the Society of Arts for the excellence of his work in this kind, and the improvements which he had intro- duced into it. He was a fairly good engraver, as is shown by his one published work, ' Delices de la Grande Bretagne,' which con- tains views of some of the principal seats and chief places of interest in England. There is one charming etching by Birch, ' The Porcupine Inn Yard, Rushmore Hill, etched upon the spot.' This little work is quiet, natural, balanced, and thoroughly pictu- resque. Unhappily we have not much more of this quality. In 1794 he went to America. He settled in Philadelphia, and painted a portrait of Washington. On the title of his work above referred to he describes himself as ' enamel painter, Hampstead Heath.' The date of his death is uncertain. [Birch's Delices de la Grande Bretagne, 1791 ; Redgrave's Diet, of Artists, 1878.] E. R. BIRCHENSHA, JOHN (ft. 1664-1672), musician, was probably a member of the- Burchinshaw, Burchinsha, Byrchinshaw, or By rchinsha family, the senior branch of which were settled at Llansannan in Denbighshire, and the junior branch (in which the name John was of frequent occurrence) at Ryw, Dymeirchion, Flintshire, in the first half of i the seventeenth century. Very little is known I concerning him. In his early life he resided ! at Dublin in the family of the Earl of Kil- I dare, but he left Ireland at the time of the j rebellion, and after the Restoration lived in \ London, where he taught the viol. Haw- i kins adds that he was remarkable for his I ' genteel behaviour and person.' In 1664 he ! published a translation of the { Templum Musicum ' of Johannes Henricus Alstedius,. on the title-page of which work he designated himself as ' Philomath.' He occupied him- ! self largely with the study of the mathema- I tical basis of music, his theories as to which i seem to have attracted some attention at that j time. Bircheiisha's notion, according to a | letter from John Baynard to Dr. Holder,. ! dated 20 March 1693-4 (Sloane MS. 1388, f. 167 #), was ' That all musical whole-notes are equall ; and no difference of half-notes from one another, and that the diversitie of keyes | is no more than the musical pitch higher or j lower, or will pass for that without any great i inconvenience.' A manuscript volume of frag- mentary calculations, made in all probability largely by Birchensha in 1666-6, is preserved in the British Museum (Add. MS. 4388) r where may also be seen a copy of the pro- spectus, or 'Animadversion' as he called it, which he issued in 1672 requesting subscrip- tions to the amount of 500/. in order to en- able him to publish the results of his inves- tigations under the title of ' Syntagma Musicse.' This work was to be published before 24 March 1674, and in it Birchensha promised that he would teach how to make ' airy tunes of all sorts ' by rule, and how to- compose in two parts ' exquisitely and with all the elegancies of music' within two months. The book was apparently never published, as no copies of it are known to exist. Birchensha's proposals are alluded to in a play of Shadwell's (quoted in HAWKINS'S Hist, of Music (1853), ii. 725), where it is said that he claimed to be able to ' teach men to compose that are deaf, dumb, and blind.' This seems to allude to some intended work,, the manuscript title-page for which (in the British Museum manuscript quoted above) runs as follows : ' Surdus Melopseus, or the Deafe Composer of Tunes to 4 voices, Cantus ? Altus, Tenor, Bassus. By helpe whereof a t deafe man may easily compose good melo- Birchington Bird dies. Gathered by observation.' In 1672 ! Birchensha published Thomas Salmon's * Es- say to the Advancement of Musick/for which ! he wrote a preface. He also printed a single sheet of < Rules for Composing in Parts.' Of his music almost the only specimens extant are preserved in the Music School Collec- tion, Oxford, where are some vocal pieces by | him for treble and bass, with lute accom- i paniment, and twelve manuscript voluntaries in the Christ Church collection. John Evelyn in 1667 (Aug. 3) heard Birchensha play. He mentions him as ' that rare artist who in- vented a mathematical way of composure very extraordinary, true as to the exact rules of art, but without much harmonie ' (Diary, ed. Bray, p. 297). The date of his death is unknown, but one John Birchenshaw, who may possibly have been the subject of this notice, was buried in the cloisters of West- minster Abbey 14 May 1681. * [Hawkins's Hist, of Music (1853), ii. 716, 725 ; Burney's Hist, of Music, iii. 472 ; Heraldic Visi- tations of Wales (ed. Meyrick, 1846), 300, 347 ; Add. MSS. 4388, 4910; Cat. Music School Col- lection ; Chester's Registers of Westminster Ab- bey ; information from the Rev. J. H. Mee.l W. B. S. BIRCHINGTON, STEPHEN 0/.1382), historical writer, probably derived his name from a village in the isle of Thanet. He became a monk of Christ Church, Canter- bury, in 1382, though it is said that he was closely connected with that house before. For some time he held the offices of treasurer and warden of the manors of the monastery. The year of his death is not recorded. He wrote t Vitse Archiepiscoporum Cant./ edited by Wharton in his ' Anglia Sacra,' and, accord- ing to his editor's belief, another and longer book on the 'Lives of the Archbishops,' which has not been preserved. In the same codex with the manuscript of the ' Vitse ' Wharton found three other histories, viz. ' De Regibus Anglorum,' ' De Pontificibus Romanis,' and * Be Imperatoribus Romanis,' which he also assigns to Birchington. [Wharton's Anglia Sacra, Pref. i.] W. H. BIRCHLEY, WILLIAM. [See AUSTIN, JOHN.] BIRCKBEK, SIMON (1584-1656), di- vine, was born at Hornby in Westmoreland. At the age of sixteen he became a student of Queen's College, Oxford, where he was 1 successively a poor serving child, tabarder, or poor child, and at length fellow, being then master of arts.' He proceeded B.A. in 1604, and B.D. in 1616. Entering holy orders about 1607, he became noted as a preacher and disputant, as well as for his ex- tensive knowledge of the fathers and school- men. In 1616 he was admitted to the reading of the sentences, and the year after was made vicar of the church of Gilling in Yorkshire, and also of the chapel of Forcet, near Rich- mond, in the same county. He received these preferments l by the favour of his kinsman, Humphrey Wharton.' During the troubles- of the civil war he * submitted to the men in power,' and therefore l kept his benefice with- out fear of sequestration.' His most im- portant work is entitled * The Protestant's Evidence, showing that for 1,500 years after Christ divers Guides of God's Church have in sundry Points of Religion taught as the Church of England now doth,' London, 1634. The book is thrown into the form of a dia- logue between a papist and a protestant, and was valued by Selden. A friend having for- warded to Birckbek a copy of his book covered with marginal glosses, which the annotator entitled 'An Antidote necessary for the reader thereof,' an elaborate ' Answer to the Antidotist ' was appended to a second edi- tion of the 'Evidence' in 1657. The 1657 edition, with this appendix, was published again in 1849 in the supplement to Gibson's 1 Preservative from Popery,' by the Reforma- tion Society, the Rev. John Gumming being the editor. Birckbek also wrote a ' Treatise of the Last Four Things' (death, judgment,, hell, and heaven), London, 1655. He died 14 Sept. 1656, and was buried in Forcet Chapel. [Wood's Athense Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 421, and Fasti, i. 302, 366 ; B. M. Catalogue.] R. B. BIRD, CHARLES SMITH (1795-1862), theological writer, has written his own bio- graphy. He traces his descent from John Bird [q.v.], the first protestant bishop of Chester and prior of the Carmelite monks in the reign of Henry VIII. The father of Charles Smith Bird was a West Indian merchant, who was taken prisoner in one of his voyages during" the war of American independence. He was of a highly religious character, objecting, for instance, to his children reading Shakespeare. He died in 1814. Charles Smith was the last but one of six children, born in Union Street, Liverpool, 28 May 1795. After attending several private schools, he was articled to a firm of conveyancing solicitors at Liverpool in 1812. His leisure time w^as spent at the Athenaeum reading-room in the study of theology. He returned to school at Dr. Davies's, of Macclesfield, in 1815, and thence went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he 'chose no companion unless there was Bird Bird Christianity in him.' He became a scholar of Trinity in 1818, was third wrangler in 1820, and elected a fellow of his college. He was then ordained and became curate of Burghfield, six miles from Reading. He took ;a house at Culverlands, near Burghfield, in 1823. He added to his income by taking pupils, a practice he continued for twenty years. One of them was Lord Macaulay. On 24 June of this year he was married to Margaret Wrangham, of Bowdon, Cheshire. He now frequently sent contributions to the * Christian Observer,' edited by Mr. Cunning- ham. It was against the Irish educational measures that he wrote his ' Call to the Pro- testants of England,' now inserted among his poems. In 1839 Bird edited a monthly perio- dical called the ' Reading Church Guardian,' in the interests of protestant truth. The publication languished for a year and then died. In 1840 Bird became a sort of Sunday curate to a Mr. Briscoe at Sulhamstead. Having given up his house at Burghfield, he was glad to accept the curacy of Fawley, some three miles from Henley-on-Thames. In 1843 he secured the vicarage of Gains- borough, to which was attached a prebendal stall of Lincoln. In this old-fashioned market town Bell passed many happy years. His course of life was regular" and tranquil. Occasionally he lectured at the Gainsborough Literary and Mechanics' Institute on natural history, English literature, and other sub- jects of interest. In the summer of 1844 e went to Scotland, and in the next year preached before Cambridge university four sermons on the parable of the sower. About this time the proposal for the admission of Jews into parliament aroused Bird's indigna- tion. His ' Call to Britain to remember the Fate of Jerusalem,' one of his longer poems, may be read with interest. In 1849 the cholera ravaged Gainsborough. Bird assidu- ously and bravely administered to the wants of the sufferers. His conduct was marked by exemplary devotion to the wants of his parishioners, to his own great and abiding honour. In 1852 Bird suffered himself a severe illness. In 1859 he was appointed chancellor of the cathedral of Lincoln, and left Gainsborough. He died at the Chancery, aged 67. The grateful people of Gainsbo- rough decorated their church with a painted window in his memory. He was buried in the country churchyard of Riseholme. Bird was an ardent entomologist, and had managed to satisfy himself that insects were almost, if not entirely, destitute of feeling ; yet he would not allow any to be killed by his children until he was convinced of their rarity. He became a fellow of the Linnean Society i; in 1828. There is an excellent article of his in the ' Entomological Magazine ' for August | 1833, and the Liverpool feather-horned Tinea, or Lepidocera Birdella, was honoured by | Curtis with his name. As a proof of his conscientiousness we read in his ' Diary ' that 1 when young he embezzled 6d., and spent it in pegtops and lollipops. His modesty pre- j vented him from forming many acquaintances. I Among his friends were Sir Claudius S. i Hunter, bart., of Mortimer, Berkshire, Rev. ! G. Hutton, rector of Gate-Burton, Alfred Ollivant, D.D., regius professor of divinity at Cambridge, and the Rev. J. Jones, of Repton. Besides sermons he published: 1. 'For Ever, and other Devotional Poems,' 1833. 2. ' The Oxford Tract System considered with reference to the principle of Reserve in Preaching,' 1838. 3. ' Transubstantiation tried by Scripture and Reason, addressed to the Protestant inhabitants of Reading, in con- sequence of the attempts recently made to introduce Romanism amongst them,' 1839. 4. ' A Plea for the Reformed Church, or Obser- vations on a plain and most important declara- tion of theTractarians in the " British Critic " for July,' 1841. 5. ' The Baptismal Privileges, the Baptismal Vow, and the Means of Grace, as they are set forth in the Church Catechism, considered in six Lent Lectures preached at Sulhamstead, Berks,' 1841; 2nd ed. 1843. 6. ' A Defence of the Principles of the Eng- lish Reformation from the Attacks of the Tractarians ; or a Second Plea for the Re- formed Church,' 1843. 7. 'The Parable of the Sower, four Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge in May 1845.' 8. 'The Dangers attending an immediate Revival of Convocation detailed in a letter to the Rev. G. Hutton, rector of Gate-Burton,' 1852. 9. 'The Sacramental and Priestly System examined ; or Strictures on Arch- deacon Wilberforce's Works on the Incarna- tion and Eucharist,' 1854. 10. ' The Eve of the Crucifixion/ 1858. [Gent. Mag. (1862), ii. 786 ; Brit. Mus. Catal. ; Bird's Sketches, &c.] J. M. BIRD, EDWARD (1772-1819), sub- ject painter, was born at Wolverhampton, 12 April 1772, and educated himself. His father bound him apprentice to a maker of tea-trays in Birmingham. He is said to have embellished these articles with taste and skill, so that at the end of his apprenticeship he had very alluring offers from the 'trade.' Bird rejected all such offers, and went, with- out any definite prospect, to Bristol. He busied himself with painting, and there con- ducted a drawing school. In 1807 he sent some pictures to an exhibition at Bath, and Bird 73 Bird was fortunate in finding purchasers for them. 1 The Interior of a Volunteer's Cottage ' was the subject of one ; some * Clowns dancing in an Alehouse ' that of another. In 1809 he sent to the Royal Academy a picture called * Good News/ which at once made known his name, and established it. This was followed by other successful works ' Choristers re- hearsing,' and the ' Will.' In 1812 he was made an associate of the Academy. Both in his early development and late departures, the history of Bird, as an artist, is curiously like that of Wilkie, and, although the genius of the latter was incomparably greater, Bird had yet talent enough to suggest to some in- terested people that he might be made to rival the too popular Scotchman. Of this little intrigue got up against "Wilkie, in which Bird, it should be said, was innocent of play- ing a part, an interesting account is preserved in Haydon's ' Journals ' (i. 142, 1st ed. 1853). After his election to the honours of the Aca- demy, and under some delusion as to the quality of his genius, Bird turned his at- tention to religious and historical subjects. He painted successively the ' Surrender of Calais,' the ' Death of Eli,' and the ' Field of Chevy Chase.' The last of these is esteemed his greatest work. It was bought by the Mar- quis of Stafford for three hundred guineas ; the original sketch for the same was sold to Sir Walter Scott. That this was indeed a powerful picture can be best understood by those acquainted with the fact that it moved Allan Cunningham to tears. The Marquis of Stafford also bought the ' Death of Eli ' for five hundred guineas. The British Institu- tion awarded the painter its premium of three hundred guineas in respect of this picture. In 1815 he was elected a full member of the Royal Academy. In the following three years he exhibited the ' Crucifixion,' * Christ led to be crucified,' the 'Death of Sapphira,' and the 'Burning of Bishops Ridley andLattimer.' The < Chevy Chase procured for him the appointment of court painter to Queen Char- lotte. His last historical work was the ' Em- barcation of the French King. ' For the com- pletion of this painting many contemporary portraits were required, and, according to Cunningham's account, the painter's health was broken by the scant courtesy he received in his efforts to get them. The death of a son and daughterincreasedhis trouble. His spirits forsook him, and he died. He was buried in the cloisters of Bristol Cathedral November 1819. He was properly a genre painter, only occa- sionally and partially successful in other de- partments of art. Upon such paintings as the * Good News,' the ' Country Auction,' the ' Gipsy Boy,' and others of this class, his re- putation depends. ' He showed great skill in the conception of his higher class pictures, ! but he had not the power suited to their com- pletion, and his colouring was crude and tasteless.' [Gent. Mag. vol. Ixxxix. pt. ii. ; Life of B. R. ! Haydon, 1853; Cunningham's Lives of British ' Painters ; Pilkington's Dictionary of Artists ; I Redgrave's Diet, of Artists of Eng. School ; Cata- 1 logue of Works of Ed. Bird exhibited the year after his death at Bristol; Brit. Mns. Gen. Cat. \ sub cap. ' Bird.'] E. R. I BIRD, FRANCIS (1667-1731), sculptor, was born in Piccadilly. He was sent when eleven years old to Brussels, and there studied (WALPOLE) under one Cozins, a sculptor who had been in England. From Flanders he found his way, on foot it is said, to Rome, and worked under Le Gros. At nineteen, I * scarce remembering his own language,' he ! came home, and studied under Gibbons and Gibber. Redgrave gives 1716 as the date of his return, which seems, however, to be a i mistake. After another short journey to Rome, performed also on foot, he succeeded to ! Gibber's practice and set up for himself. The ! work which raised his reputation, and which i alone maintains it now, was the statue of Dr. Busby for Westminster Abbey. Though not in itself superexcellent, it is yet a marvel of art if we compare it only with other works by the same hand. Bird secured the favour of Christopher Wren, and was largely employed upon the decoration of St. Paul's. He executed the group for the pediment of the west end, ' The Conversion of St. Paul,' of which Horace Walpole remarks : ' Any statuary was good enough for an ornament at that height, and a great statuary had been too good.' The same observation applies to the five figures of apostles which maybe dimly descried upon the roof of either transept. For the statue of Queen Anne which con- fronts Ludgate Hill Bird received 1,130/. A public statue in London needs to be very bad to attract to its demerits any special atten- tion. The fact, therefore, that our public took peculiar delight in mutilating this group may be attributed rather to the ad- vantage of its position than to its undoubted meanness as a piece of art. It was re- moved in 1885, and is to be replaced. His monument of Sir ClowdisleySho veil in West- minster Abbey is one of the worst works in the world. It was to this that Pope ap- plied the epithet ' the bathos of sculpture.' His work, Nagler says, is barbarous in style and devoid of any charm. He was, however, for a long period at the head of his profession Bird 74 Bird in England, and produced a vast number of ! elected assistant physician to Guy's, and statues. Many of these may be seen by the i joint lecturer on materia medica in the medi- TTTT i All TT _ 1 * J * 1 _ T 1 T T Q/4 ^7 !-,/-. -rrrrt r rtln rf~*O fm 4vM + Vtk curious in Westminster Abbey. 1731. He died in j cal school. In 1847 he was chosen for the triennial appointment of lecturer on materia medica at the College of Physicians, and [Gent. Mag. vol. i. ; Walpole's Anecdotes of ] S ' ^J --<-<=< tinting, ii. 636: Redgrave's Diet, of Artists of \ gave some important lectures on the thera- Painting, ii. 636 ; Redgrave's Diet, of Artists of the Eng. School ; Nagler's Allgemeines Kiinstler- Lexikon.] E. K. BIRD, GOLDING (1814-1854), physi- cian, was born on 9 Dec. 1814 at Downham, Norfolk. He was educated at a private school, where he occupied himself out of school hours with the study of chemistry and botany, and even undertook to give lec- peutical uses of electricity, and the influ- ence of researches in organic chemistry on therapeutics. While thus occupied in medi- cal practice and teaching, Bird was keenly interested in the natural sciences, and pub- lished one or two short papers on natural history subjects. He belonged to the Lin- nean and Geological, and was a fellow of the Royal Society. He was also a corre- tures on those subjects to his schoolfellows, spending member of several learned societies These proceedings, however, met with the on the continent. disapproval of his schoolmaster, and led to | There can be little doubt that Bird did too his being taken away from the school. In j much. His foible was perhaps ambition, December 1829 he was apprenticed to Wil- | which led him to overstrain his powers in liam Pretty, an apothecary, of Burton Cres- ; the twofold effort to obtain a large practice, cent, London, and remained his pupil till and also to make a name in science. An October 1833. In 1832 he entered as a stu- ! attack of rheumatism in early life had per- dent at Guy's Hospital, where his industry ; manently damaged the heart ; and the weak- and scientific knowledge attracted the notice ness thus induced, combined with overwork, of his teachers, especially of Dr. Addison | caused a breakdown of his health in 1849. and Sir Astley Cooper, the latter of whom j Two years later a still more serious warning availed himself of his pupil's assistance in j compelled him to take rest. He resigned his the chemical section of his work on diseases ; appointments at Guy's Hospital on 4 Aug. of the breast. He was also occupied in giving private tuition to some of his fellow- students. When barely twenty-one he went up for examination at Apothecaries' Hall ; but the court of examiners, in consideration 1853, and in June 1854 retired to Tunbridge Wells, where he died on 27 Oct. of the same year. He married in 1842, and left a widow with five children, one of whom, Mr. Cuth- bertH. Golding Bird, is now (1885) a lecturer of the reputation he had already attained, on physiology and assistant-surgeon at his declined to examine him, and gave him at ; father's hospital. once the license to practise, with the * honours i Bird was a remarkable instance of intel- of the court,' on 21 Jan. 1836. i lectual precocity. He was very successful Bird started in general practice in London, ! in practice, and there are few instances of a but, not meeting with much encouragement, i London physician having earned as large an resolved to begin anew as a physician. He | income as he did so early in life. But he accordingly took the degree of M.D. at j was more especially known for his researches St. Andrews on 24 April 1838, as was then I in scientific medicine, which, though not possible without residence, and on 18 April placing him in the first rank of investiga- 1840 that of M.A. He became licentiate of tors, still show considerable originality. He the College of Physicians of London on carried on the work of Prout in applying 30 Sept. 1840, and was elected a fellow on | chemistry to medical practice, and in study- 9 July 1845. In 1836 he was appointed lee- ing morbid conditions of the urine. Although turer on natural philosophy at Guy's Hos- ! some of the novelties on which he laid great pital, and in this capacity delivered the lee- ! stress, especially ' oxaluria,' have not turned tures which were the basis of his book on out to be so important as he believed, the- that subject. He afterwards lectured also work on ' Urinary Deposits,' in its five edi- on medical botany and on urinary patho- tions from 1844 to 1857, had great influence logy. His course on the latter subject ap- on the development of medical chemistry in peared in the l London Medical Gazette ' in England. Bird's * Elements of Natural Phi- 1843 as a series of papers, which were twice losophy ' was for many years a very popular translated into German, and were ultimately text-book, especially with medical students, incorporated in the author's well-known work for whom its attractive style, and its compara- on urinary deposits. About the same time he tive freedom from mathematical reasonings, became physician to the Finsbury Dispensary, alike fitted it ; although, indeed, the writer's After seven years' hard work he was in 1843 i want of rigorous mathematical training con- Bird 75 Bird stituted, from a scientific point of view, its weakness. It was strengthened on the ma- thematical side, and otherwise enlarged, by Mr. Charles Brooke, under whose editorship the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions appeared. Bird's shorter papers exhibit considerable originality and inventive capacity. One of them (London Medical Gazette,lIDec. 1840) contains the description of a flexible stetho- scope, an invention revived of late years. In another (1839) he suggests a method of printing figures of natural objects by sun- light on paper impregnated with the salt ferridcyanide of potassium, which anticipates some of the modern photographic processes. In private life Bird was a man of amiable disposition and winning manners. His earnest piety led him to take a deep interest in the religious welfare of medical students, and hence to become one of the founders of the ' London Christian Medical Association.' He wrote : 1. l Urinary Deposits, their Diagnosis, Pathology, and Therapeutical Indications,' 1st ed. 12mo, London, 1844 ; 5th ed., edited by Dr. E. L. Birkett, 1857. 2. ' The Ele- ments of Natural Philosophy,' 1st ed. 12mo, London, 1839, edited by Charles Brooke; 4th ed. 1854, also 5th ed. 1860, 6th ed. 1867, American edition, Philadelphia, 1848 (from the 3rd ed. London). 3. ' Lectures on Elec- tricity and Galvanism in their Physiological ; The Chemical Nature of Mucous and Puru- lent Secretions,' ser. i. iii. 35 ; ' Report on Electricity as a Remedial Agent,' ser. I. vi. 84 ; ' Report on Diseases of Children treated in Guy's Hospital,' 1843-4, ser. n. iii. 108 ; and others. 5. 'Lectures on Oxaluria,' 'Lon- don Medical Gazette/ July 1842, xxx. 637 ; 6. ' The Influence of Researches in Organic Chemistry upon Therapeutics' (being lec- tures at Royal Coll. Physicians), 'London Medical Gazette,' 1848, vols. xli. and xlii. 7. 'The Medico-Chemical History of Milk,' ' London Medical Gazette,' March 1840 (and in Sir Astley Cooper's work on the 'Anatomy of the Breast,' 4to, 1840) ; besides very numerous lectures and papers in medical journals, some of which are incorporated in the separately published works. [Biographical notice by his brother, Dr. Frede- ric Bird, reprinted from Association Medical Journal, 5 Jan. 1855; Balfours Biographical .Sketch, Edinburgh, 1855 ; Lancet, 11 Nov. 1854 ; Medical Times and Gazette, 11 Nov. 1854; manu- script communications from family.] J. F. P. ~~BIRD, JAMES (1788-1839), poetical writer and dramatist, was the son of Samuel Bird, a farmer of Earl's Stonham, Suffolk,, where he was born on 10 Nov. 1788. After receiving a scanty education he was appren- ticed to a miller, and at the same time began to study by himself literature and the drama. The fame of John Kemble, the actor, reached his native village, and as a youth he made a romantic journey to London to witness his performance, returning on foot and penniless. About 1814 he was in a position to hire two windmills at Yoxford, but after five years of j ill success in his trade he abandoned it, and opened early in 1820 a stationer's shop in i the same place, which maintained him until j his death in 1839. Before Bird was sixteen years old he had written poetry, and later he contributed some of his early poems to the ' Suffolk Chronicle,' whose editor, Thomas Harral, became his- most intimate friend. In 1819 he published his first long poem, ' The Vale of Slaughden, y a story of the invasion of East Anglia by the Danes. First issued by subscription, its suc- cess induced a London publisher, three months- after its appearance, to undertake an edition for the public. In 1820 Dr. Nathan Drake in his '"Winter Nights' (ii. 184-244) re- viewed it at length, and claimed for Bird the same rank in literature as that attained by Robert Bloomfield. Bird's second ven- ture was a mock-heroic poem entitled ' The White Hats' (1819), in which he humor- ously attacked the radical reformers. His sub- sequent narratives in verse were : 1. ' Machin r or the Discovery of Madeira,' 1821. 2. 'Poeti- cal Memoirs : the Exile, a tale in verse,' 1823 r and second edition 1824 ; the first part of' this volume is a spirited imitation of Byron's 'Don Juan.' 3. 'Dunwich, a Tale of the Splendid City, in four cantos,' 1828. 4. 'Fram- lingham, a Narrative of the Castle,' 1831, 5. ' The Emigrant's Tale and Miscellaneous Poems,' 1833 (cf. the review in Gent. Mag. ciii. pt. ii. p. 152, and Bird's good-humoured reply, p. 229). 6. ' Francis Abbott, the Re- cluse of Niagara [founded on Captain Alex- ander's ' Transatlantic Sketches, ii. 147-55] : Metropolitan Sketches/ 1837. Bird alsa wrote two dramas, the one entitled ' Cosmo, Duke of Florence, a Tragedy,' published in 1822, and the other ' The Smuggler's Daughter, a Drama,' published in 1836. The first, it is stated, was performed several times at small London theatres, but the managers of the chief playhouses refused to examine it. The second was successfully produced at Sadler's Wells in October 1835. Bird edited ' A Short Account of Leiston Abbey ' in 1823. Most of his verse indicates an intimate acquaint- ance with Dryden and Pope, and the influ- ence of Byron and Campbell. But Bird has Bird 76 Bird .an habitual command of forcible yet melo- dious language. Late in life he began with much success the study of Greek. His portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1829. He was the father of .sixteen children, of whom a son George be- came a surgeon of London and married a daughter of the poetical writer Edwin Ather- stone [q. v.] After Bird's death, his friend Thomas Harral, in 1840, published with a memoir selections from his poems. [Davy's MS. Suffolk Collections, in Addit. MS. 19118 ff. 289 et seq. ; Harral's Selections with Memoir; Gent. Mag., new series, ii. 550; Brit. Mus. Cat.] S. L. L. BIRD, JOHN, D.D. (d. 1558), bishop of 'Chester, is said by Wood to have been pro- bably descended from the ancient Cheshire family of his name. He became a Carme- lite friar, and appears to have studied in the houses of that order in both the universities of England. He proceeded B.D. at Oxford in 1510, and commenced D.D. there in 1513. Bishop Godwin states that he was D.D. at ^Cambridge, but this may be doubted. * In 1516 he was, at a general chapter held at Lynn, elected the provincial of his order. He governed for the usual period of three years, when he was succeeded by Robert Lesbury, who held the office till 1522, when Dr. Bird was again elected thereto at a general chapter held at York. When the papal power began to decline in this country, he became a strenuous supporter of, and preacher for, the king's supremacy. His character was that of a temporiser, and he was engaged in state intrigues. He was one of the divines sent in 1531 to confer and argue with Thomas Bilney, the reformer, in prison; and in 1535 he, with Bishop Fox, the royal almoner, and Thomas Bedyl [q. v.], a clerk of the council, were sent by Henry VIII to his divorced queen, Katharine of Arragon, to endeavour to persuade her to forbear the name of queen, ( which never- theless she would not do' (STRYPE, Eccle- siastical Memorials, i. 61). On 24 June 1537 he was consecrated at Lambeth suffragan to the bishop of Llandaff, with the title of bishop of Penrith. In the beginning of the year 1539 we find him and Wotton on an embassy in Germany; and Cromwell, writing to him in or about April, desired him to get ' the picture of the lady,' meaning Anne of Cleves, whom the king was induced to marry on seeing her portrait. In July of the same year he was elected bishop of Bangor. He was present at the convocation of 1540, and subscribed the de- cree in favour of the divorce from Anne of Cleves, though he had probably been to a great extent instrumental in bringing about her marriage. By letters patent, dated Wai- den, 4 Aug. 1541, he was translated to the newly created bishopric of Chester, being also then, or soon afterwards, invested with archidiaconal powers over the whole dio- cese. An account by him of the sale and appropriation of church ornaments, plate, and jewels within his diocese is preserved in the Public Record Office (State Papers, Dom. Edward VI, vol. iii. art. 4). On 16 March 1553-4, when Queen Mary had succeeded to the throne, he was deprived of his bishopric by a royal commission on account of his being married (STETPE, Ecclesiastical Me- morials, iii. 99). At this time he owed the crown 1,087/. 18*. Ofd. A < Foxian MS./ quoted by Strype, states that he at once re- pudiated his wife, whom he had, as he alleged, married against his will, and ' for bearing with the time ; ' and in fact he showed such signs of repentance, that soon afterwards Bonner, bishop of London, appointed him his suffra- gan, and on 6 Nov. 1554 presented him to the vicarage of Great Dunmow in Essex. The manuscript just cited says : ' This Dr. Byrd was well stricken in years, having but one eye ; and though he, to flatter with the time, had renounced his wife, being made of a young Protestant an old Catholic ; yet as Catholick as he was, such devotion he bare to his man's wife that he had them both dwelling with him in his own vicarage, she being both young, fair, and newly married, that either the voice of the parish lied or else he loved hr more than enough.' He died in an obscure condition about the close of 1558, and was buried in Chester Cathedral according to Wood, but at Dunmow accord- ing to Le Neve. Bale, in his ' Exposition on the Revelations,' makes him one of the ten horns. His works, none of which appear to have been printed, are : 1. i De fide justificante.' 2. l Contra missam papist icam ex doctoribus.' 3. l Homelise eruditse per annum.' 4. ' Lec- tures on St. Paul.' 5. ' Contra transubstan- tiationem.' 6. ' Epicedium in quendam Ed- munduin Berye obdormientem in Calisia.' 7. ' Conciones corain Henrico VIII contra papse suprematum.' [Godwin, De Praesulibus Anglise, ed. Richard- son, 776 ; Bale's Scriptorum Brytannie Cat. (1559), 724; Wood's Athense Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 238, ii. 773; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 102; New- court's Repertorium Ecclesiasticum, ii. 225 ; Strype's Eccl. Memorials, ii. 466, 486, iii. 99, 138, 139,206: Strype's Grindal, 308; Strype's Cranmer, 61, 62, 63, 309, 362, App. 257 ; Brad- ford's Writings, ed. Townsend, ii. 1 ; Grindal's Bird 77 Bird Eemains, introd. i. ; Lo Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglic, ed. Hardy ; Cooper's Athense Cantab, i. 190, 551 ; Calendars of State Papers ; Machyn's Diary, 58, 78, 341 ; Ormerod's Cheshire, i. 75, 126, 145.] T. C. BIRD, JOHN (1709-1776), mathematical instrument maker, was a native of the county of Durham, and by trade a cloth-weaver. Finding himself one day in a clockmaker's shop, he was struck with the irregularity of the divisions on a dial-plate, thought out a plan for improving them, and for some time engraved dial-plates for recreation. On the strength of a certain reputation thus gained he came to London about 1740, and was engaged by Sisson to cut the divisions on his instru- ments. Countenanced and instructed by Graham, he perfected his methods, and by 1 745 was carrying on business independently. His well-known premises were situated in the Strand. As the mechanical coadjutor of Bradley, he acquired European fame. An instru- mental refit for the Royal Observatory was sanctioned towards the close of 1748. In February 1749 Bird received an order for a brass quadrant of 8-feet radius, which in June 1750 was ready for use. The construction of this instrument, by rendering possible the con- summate accuracy of Bradley's observations, marked an epoch in practical astronomy. It was built with the utmost solidity, weighing about 8 cwt., and bore a double arc, one with ninety, the other with ninety-six divi- sions, accurately cut by Graham's method of ( continual bisections.' Its price of 300/. was compensated by sixty-two years of valu- able service, and although replaced in 1812 (by which time it had become eccentric with use) by Troughton's circle, it is still reve- rently preserved at Greenwich. A half-size model was, by order of the commissioners of longitude, prepared by Bird in 1767, and de- posited in the British Museum. No sooner was the Greenwich quadrant completed than a duplicate was ordered for the observatory of St. Petersburg, another reached Cadiz, and a fourth^ was used by D' Agelet and Lalande at the Ecole Militaire. With a similar instrument of 3-feet radius, Tobias Mayer made his lunar observations at Gottingen. Indeed, most of the chief con- tinental observatories still possess a Bird's quadrant, valuable even now as affording a measure of the probable errors of earlier ob- servations(MAEDLER, Gesch. d.Himmelskunde, i. 455). Of their necessarily imperfect kind, these instruments could scarcely be surpassed. Bird further supplied Bradley, about 1750, with a new transit instrument, as well as with a 40-inch movable quadrant, and put a fresh set of divisions, in 1753, upon the- great mural arc constructed by Graham for Halley. The extraordinary value attached to his work is evinced by the fact that a sum of 500/. was paid to him by the commis- sioners of longitude, on the conditions that he should during seven years instruct an ap- prentice in his methods, and deliver in writ- ing, upon oath, a full and unreserved account of them. Such was the origin of the two- treatises entitled respectively 'The Method of dividing Astronomical Instruments,' Lon- don, 1767, and ' The Method of constructing Mural Quadrants exemplified by a Descrip- tion of the Brass Mural Quadrant in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich,' London, 1768, both published by order of the com- missioners, and furnished each with a preface by the astronomer-royal (Maskelyne), setting forth the singular circumstances under which they had been composed. They were bound together, so as to form one work, were re- issued in 1785, and supplemented by W. Lud- lam's ' Introduction and Notes on Mr. Bird's Method of dividing Astronomical Instru- ments,' solemnly vouched for as accurate by Bird in June 1773, and published at the ex- pense of Alexander Aubert [q. v.] in 1786. The standard yards of 1758 and 1760, destroyed in the conflagration of the houses of parliament, 16 Oct. 1834, were both con- structed by Bird (see BAILY, Mem. R. A. Soc. ix. 80-1). He observed the transit of Venus r 6 June 1761, at Greenwich with Bliss and Green, and the annular eclipse of 1 April 1765, using on both occasions reflectors made by himself (Phil. Trans, lii. 175-6, liv. 142). He died, 31 March 1776, aged 67. [Ludlam's Preface to Introduction and Notes on Mr. Bird's Method ; Bradley's Miscellaneous Works, passim ; Poggendorff : s Biog.-Lit. Hand- worterbuch ; MS. Addit, 5728 ; Gent. Mag. xlvi. 192 ; Bromley's Catalogue of Engraved Portraits, p. 398.] A. M. C. BIRD, RICHARD, D.D. (d. 1609), canon of Canterbury, matriculated at Cambridge as a sizar of Trinity College in February 1564-5, was elected a scholar of that house in 1568, and took the degree of B.D. in 1568-9. He was subsequently elected a fel- low, and in 1572 he commenced M.A. It appears probable that in 1576 he was serving- a cure at, or in the neighbourhood of, Saffron Walden in Essex, where a new sect of dis- senters, calling themselves 'pure brethren/ had arisen. ' A sort of libertines they were/ who considered that they were not bound to the observance of the moral law of the ten commandments, which they held to be bind- ing only upon Jews ; and we are told that Bird Bird * one Bird ' wrote to Dr. Whitgift soliciting his advice as to the best mode of answering certain questions which the sectaries had propounded (SxRYPE, Annals of the Refor- mation, ii. 451). Bird proceeded B.D. at Cambridge in 1580. Subsequently he tra- velled as tutor with William Cecil, eldest son of Sir Thomas Cecil, eldest son of Lord Burghley. In France Cecil embraced the j Roman catholic faith, and this led to Bird j being subjected to harsh treatment by Sir j Edward Stafford, the English ambassador j at Paris. Bird protested that he had been j * robbed of the sowle of that young gentle- man by wicked and treacherous men ' (MS. Lansd. 46, f. 18). On 21 March 1588-9 he was collated to the archdeaconry of Cleveland, and on 29 Sept. 1590 he became a canon of Canterbury. He resigned his archdeaconry in or before April 1001, was created D.D. in 1608, and, dying in June 1609, was buried in Canterbury Cathedral on the 19th of that month. He is the author of: 1. ' Latin verses on "Whitaker's translation of Jewel against Har- ding,' 1578. 2. ' Appeal to Lord Burghley against the cruel treatment of Sir Edward Stafford, ambassador in France ' (MS. Lansd. 46, art. 9). 3. i A communication dialogue wise to be learned of the ignorant,' London, 1595, 8vo. This seems to have been com- monly known as ' Bird's Catechism.' [Tanner's Bibl. Brit. 102 ; Strype's Annals of the Eeformation, i. 207, ii. 433, 451, iii. 189; Strype's Life of Whitgift, 75 ; Cooper's Athenae Cantab, ii. 521 ; MS. Baker, xxxiii. 282 ; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, 1305 ; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Anglic, i. 58, iii. 148 ; Hasted's Kent, xii. 98.] T. C. BIRD, EGBERT MERTTINS (1788- 1853), a Bengal civil servant, arrived in India on 9 Nov. 1808, and, commencing his service -as an assistant to the registrar of the court of Sadr Diwani Adalat, the company's chief court of appeal at Calcutta, was subsequently em- ployed in the provinces in various judicial posts, from which in 1829 he was transferred to the appointment of commissioner of reve- nue and circuit for the Gorakhpur division. In the discharge of his duties as a judicial officer Bird acquired a remarkable insight into the landed tenures of the country and the effect upon them of the laws then in force, which ' referred to a state of things wholly distinct from that which existed among the people' (Fourth Report from, the Select Com- mittee on Indian Territories, 1853 Minutes of Evidence, p. 29). Upon his appointment as a revenue commissioner, the soundness and clearness of his views and his remarkable ad- ministrative capacity speedily stamped him as the ablest revenue officer in Bengal; and when it was determined in 1833 to revise the set- tlement of the land revenue of the north- western provinces, the governor-general fixed upon Bird as the fittest man in the service to undertake that task. In the previous year he had been appointed a member of the board of revenue, then newly constituted at Alla- habad. Retaining his seat as a member of the board, he took sole charge of the settle- ment operations, which he brought to a com- pletion at the close of 1841. The result was recorded in a report which he laid before go- vernment early in the following year, and in which he explained that the work had not been confined to f such an accurate ascertain- ment of the resources of the land as would insure to government its full share of the rents or produce ; ' but that it ' included the decision and demarcation of boundaries, the defining and recording the separate possession, rights, privileges, and liabilities of the mem- bers of those communities who hold their land in several ty ; the framing a record of the several interests of those who hold their land in common ; the providing a system of self- government for the communities ; the rules framed with their own consent according to the principles of the constitution of the dif- ferent tenures ; the preparation of the record of the fields and of the rights of cultivators possessing rights ; and the reform of the vil- lage accounts and completion of a plan of record by their own established accountants, and according to their own method, by refer- ence to which the above points of possession and right might, under the various changes to which property is subject, continue to be ascertained.' A corresponding system of ac- counts for the offices of the tahsildars, or native collectors, and for those of the collec- tors of districts, was also framed. The set- tlement was the most complete that had yet been made in India. It embraced an area of seventy-two thousand square miles, and a population of twenty-three millions. It is especially remarkable from the fact that it was designed and carried out by an officer whose duties during the greater part of his service had been judicial. Bird retired from the service in 1842, and spent the remainder of his life in England, where he became an ac- tive member of the committee of the Church Missionary Society, travelling on deputation and attending meetings in various parts of the country on behalf of the society. A few months before his death, which occurred at Torquay on 22 Aug. 1853, he gave evidence before the committee of the House of Com- mons on the renewal of the East India Com- pany's charter. Bird 79 Birdsall [General Register of the Honourable East India Company's Civil Servants on the Bengal Establishment from 1790 to 1842, by the Hon. H. T. Prinsep, India Office ; Marshman's History of India (1867), iii. 47, 48 ; Bird's Report on j the Settlement of the North-West Provinces, I 1859 ; Fourth Report from the Select Committee j of the House of Commons on Indian Territories, j 1853 ; Minutes of Evidence ; private letters.] A. J. A. BIRD, SAMUEL ( /. 1600), divine, j was a native of Essex, and matriculated j as a pensioner of Queens' College, Cam- | bridge, in June 1566. He proceeded B.A. 1569-70, and commenced M.A. 1573. In November 1573 he was elected a fellow of Corpus Christ! College, being admitted 30 April 1574. He vacated his fellowship in or before 1576. He must also have been fel- low of Benet College, as his earliest title-page shows : ' A friendlie Communication or Dia- logue between Paule and Demas, wherein is disputed how we are to vse the pleasures of this life. By Samuel Byrd, M.A., and fel- low not long since of Benet Colledge,' 1580. It is further known that Bird was minister of St. Peter's, Ipswich, which was at the time a, perpetual curacy, very poorly endowed. Unfortunately the church-books at present extant date back only to 1667, whilst a list of the incumbents from the year 1604 com- mences with his successor. His perpetual curacy he must have filled for a quarter of a century say 1580 to 1604. He vacated the living in 1604. It must have been by ces- sion or resignation, as in 1604 he was ad- mitted a student at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and on 8 May 1605 was incorporated M.A. in that university. Nothing is known of him at a later date. In Bacon's MSS. belonging to the corpo- ration of Ipswich, which date 16 July 1595 (38 Elizabeth), is the following entry : ' Exhibition of a poore scholler. Petition for exhibition for Mr. Bird's sonne at Cam- bridge. It's ordered the gift of Mr. Barney shall be considered and what money is laid out, and thereuppon order shall farther be made.' Then, on 14 Aug. (same year) : ' It was ordered by the Great Court that 4 li. shall be given yearly to Samuel Bird, sonne of Mr. Bird, minister of St. Peter's, at Cam- bridge, to his maintenance in learning till 20 li. be laid out.' Besides 'A Friendlie Communication,' pub- lished in 1580, Bird issued ' The Principles of the True Christian Religion briefly selected out of many good books. By S. B.' 1590 ; * The Lectvres of Samvel Bird of Ipswidge vpon the 8 and 9 chapters of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians,' 1598 ; ' The Lec- tvres of Samvel Bird of Ipswidge vpon the 11 chapter of the Epistle unto the He- brewes, and upon the 38 Psalme,' 1598 (an edition of 1594 is also recorded). The ' He- brewes ' is dedicated to M. Edward Bacon of Shrubland Hall. Finally Bird published ' Lectvres ... on the Seventh Chapter of the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians,' 1598. [Cooper's Athense Cantabrigienses, ii. 429-30; Cole MSS. (B. Museum), B. 128; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum in Brit. Mus. ; Herbert's Ames, 1011, 1357, 1426; Lowncles (Bohn); Masters's History of C. C. C. C. (Lamb), 326 ; Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 307 ; communications from Rev. Alexander Jeffrey, Ipswich.] A. B. G. BIRD, WILLIAM, musician. [See BYRD.] BIRDSALL, JOHN AUGUSTINE (1775-1837), president-general of the Bene- dictines in England, was born at Liverpool 27 June 1775. His father, a well-to-do grocer, sent him at an early age to the Dominican Col- lege of Bornhem in Flanders. He entered him- self among the Benedictines at Lamspringe in Hanover in October 1795. He was there admitted to his solemn profession 6 Nov. 1796. On 30 May 1801 he was ordained priest at Hildesheim in Westphalia. During September 1802 he was appointed prefect of the students at Lamspringe, where Peter Baines [q. v.], afterwards bishop, was one of his pupils. On the suppression of the abbey of Lamspringe by the Prussians, 3 Jan. 1803, Father Birdsall had to return hurriedly to England. After remaining for a while at St. Lawrence's Col- lege, Ampleforth, he was sent on the mission in the south, or, as it was still called, the Canterbury province of the Benedictine order in this country. On 30 May 1806 he arrived at Bath, whither he had been despatched to assist the incumbent of St. John the Evan- gelist, where the Benedictines had long been established. In October 1 809 he left, in order to establish a new mission at Cheltenham, and on 3 June 1810 opened the first catholic chapel known there since the Reformation. A French refugee, the Abbe Alexandre Caesar, who had been saying mass on Sundays and holy days in the back room of a low public house, died in his eightieth year on 24 Sept. 1811. Many obstacles to the foundation of the mission were overcome by the untiring i zeal of Father Birdsall. He remained in ac- tive charge of the mission for twenty-five years altogether. Twenty years after his arrival in Cheltenham he established a new mission at Broadway, in Worcestershire. On 15 May 1828 he began there the new chapel of St. Saviour's Retreat. That mission in Birdsall Birkbeck its completed form was publicly inaugurated in 1830, as an appendage to its founder's prin- cipal enterprise at Cheltenham. Four years afterwards, however, when he had at length succeeded in establishing at Broadway, in due collegiate organisation, something like his | old community of Lamspringe, he withdrew altogether from Cheltenham in 1834, settling down thenceforth permanently in. his new j home, which he loved to call by its old Roman name of Vialta, in Worcestershire, and resided < there till his death on 2 Aug. 1837, in the sixty-third year of his age. Meanwhile he had been steadily advanced in his order as a Benedictine. In 1814 he was appointed one of the definitors of the southern province in England, and in 1822 was elected the provincial of Canterbury. Re-elected provincial of Canterbury in 1826, Father Birdsall was promoted in the same year to the highest office of all within his reach in this country, that, namely, of presi- dent-general of the English congregation of the order of St. Benedict. It proved an anx- ious and painful pre-eminence. It brought him into direct conflict with Bishop Baines, the vicar apostolic of the western district in England, whom he regarded from the outset as endeavouring to extend beyond due limits his episcopal jurisdiction to the prejudice of the exemptions enjoyed by the religious orders. The holy see eventually decided the dispute in favour of the Benedictines. Father Bird- sall also saved from extinction the thenceforth flourishing Benedictine college of Ampleforth in Yorkshire. Father Birdsall was made cathedral prior of Winchester in 1826, and in 1830 abbot of Westminster. His multifarious employments prevented his giving much attention to lite- rary pursuits. Besides an unpublished ac- count of Lamspringe, found among his papers after his death, the only work he is known to have produced was ' Christian Reflections for Every Day in the Year,' 1822, translated from the ' Pensees Chretiennes,' &c., published anonymously at Paris in 1718, and attributed to the Sieur de Saint e-Beuve. Father Birdsall's mother wit rendered him a delightful as well as a powerful controversialist. He was one of the most valued correspondents of William Cobbett (between 29 Nov. 1824 and 9 July 1827) when the latter was writing his his- tory of the Protestant Reformation. Father Birdsall occasionally in his catechetical in- structions enforced his argument by humorous illustrations. * We catholics are said to be idolaters of images,' he once remarked, adding, as he pointed to two carved angels that flanked the altar-steps of the chapel at Chel- tenham : ' Now I gave 4/. 16s. for those two statues, and if anybody will send me a five- pound note for the pair I'll let him have them with pleasure. That's how I worship them ! ' On 6 Nov. 1877 the homely old chapel built up by Father Birdsall at Cheltenham was re- placed by the handsome Gothic church of St. Gregory ; while on 7 Oct. 1850 the last mis- sion established by him at Broadway was given up by the outgoing Benedictines to the Passionists from Woodchester. The tablet erected in his honour at Cheltenham has been removed in the transformation of the chapel, and is no longer discoverable ; while the in- scription on his tomb at Broadway can only be here and there deciphered. [Dr. Oliver's Collections illustrating the His- tory of the Catholic Religion in the Counties of Cornwall, &c., 1857, 8vo, pp. 119, 120, and 242; Snow's Necrology of the English Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict from 1600 to 1883, 8vo, p. 148.] C. K. BIRINUS, SAIXT (d. 650), bishop of Dor- chester, was a Benedictine monk of Rome, who r receiving a mission from Pope Honorius to visit Britain, landed in Wessex in 634, having first received episcopal consecration at the hands of Asterius, bishop of Genoa. Preach- ing the gospel to the heathen people he suc- ceeded in converting them to Christianity, and in 635 baptised Cynegils, king of Wes- sex, Oswald, king of Northumbria, standing sponsor. Then was founded the see of Dor- chester, Birinus being the first bishop settled at Dorcic or Dorchester, Oxfordshire, a city conferred upon him by the two kings. ' After many churches had been built and conse- crated and many peoples called to the Lord by his pious labour ' (BJEDJE, IT. E. iii. 7), Birinus died and was buried at Dorchester in the year 650, his body being afterwards removed to Winchester, and subsequently enshrined by Bishop ^Ethelwold (963-84). The influence obtained by Birinus, not only ; in Wessex but also in the neighbouring king- i dorn of Mercia, is indicated by the references made in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to the ! baptism by him of different princes. [Hacldan and Stubbs. Councils, vol. iii. 1871, I p. 90 (quoting Bseda and the A.-Saxon Chronicle) ; Rudborne's Hist. Major Winton. in Wharton's ' Anglia Sacra, pt. i. 1691, p. 190: Kennett's i Parochial Antiquities. Oxford, 1818, i. 36 sqq. ; see also, for Birinus's Life as a Saint, Hardy's Catalogue of Materials for English History (Rolls Series), vol. i. 1862, p. 236.] E. M. T. BIRKBECK, GEORGE, M.D. (1776- 1841), the founder of mechanics' institutions, Avas the son of William Birkbeck, a banker and merchant of Settle. Yorkshire, where he was born 10 Jan. 1776. He studied medi- Birkbeck 81 Birkenhead cine at Edinburgh and London, taking his degree of M.D. in 1799 at the university of the former city. Among his friends and fellow- students at Edinburgh were Brougham and Jeffrey. Soon afterwards, when only twenty- three years old, he succeeded Dr. Garnett as professor of natural philosophy at the Ander- sonian University (now Anderson's College), Glasgow, and while holding that post he commenced his efforts at popular education. Having had his attention drawn to the diffi- culties in the way of intelligent artisans who were anxious to acquire information on scien- tific matters, he established in 1800 courses of lectures to which Avorking men were admitted at a low fee. These lectures were for long a successful department of the university, but eventually the ' mechanics' class ' became in 1823 the ' Glasgow Mechanics' Institution,' apparently the first genuine institution of the sort. In 1804 he left Glasgow for London, and here he established himself as a physician, first in Finsbury Square, then in Cateaton Street, and afterwards in Old Broad Street. For some years he seems to have devoted him- self entirely to the practice of his profession, in which he attained a considerable reputation, but the foundation of the Glasgow Institution above mentioned led to his once more taking up the cause of popular education. On the suggestion being made in the ' Mechanics' Magazine ' that a similar institution should be provided for London, Dr. Birkbeck at once assumed the lead in the movement. He lent 3,700/. for the building of a lecture-room, and, having been elected president, delivered the opening address 20 Feb. 1824. It was thus that the London Mechanics' Institution was founded, which many years afterwards, in honour of its first president, was called the * Birkbeck Institution.' In the enterprise he was associated with Lord Brougham, both of them being amongst the first trustees. For some time the new enterprise had but a fluctuating success ; it was, however, assisted by the capital as well as the influence of its founder, and neither the ridicule of its enemies nor the quarrels of its promoters sufficed to prevent its eventual establishment. Dr. Birkbeck took an active interest in the fortunes of the institution till his death, 1 Dec. 1841. The institution is now (1885) one of the most successful organisations of , its class in existence. These foundations in j Glasgow and London were soon imitated [ throughout the country, and thus was esta- blished an organisation which prepared the way for the existing system of popular scien- tific instruction, as it is carried out by the Science and Art Department. Dr. Birkbeck also took his share in other VOL. V. popular educational movements besides the one in which he was principally interested. He was a founder and one of the first council of University College, London (1827) ; he took a prominent part in the agitation for the repeal of the tax on newspapers (1835-6); and he many years before any change was effected endeavoured (in 1827) to promote a reform in the patent laws. He was a fre- quent lecturer, not only at his own institu- tion, but at the London Institution and else- where, and was always ready to do his best to promote whatever he thought a useful application of science to practical purposes. [J. a. Godarcl's Life of Dr. Birkbeck, 1884.] H. T. W. BIRKENHEAD or BERKENHEAD SIB JOHN (1616-1679), author of the ' Mer- curius Aulicus ' and satirical poems, is said by Anthony a Wood to have been son of Ran- dall Birkenhead, of Northwich in Cheshire, saddler, and born there (Athence Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 1203), and T. W. Barlow (Ches. Biogr. 1852, pp. 20-1) says, 'he was born on the edge of Rudheath,' which is near Northwich, and partly in Davenham parish and partly in the chapelry of Witton, parish of Great Budworth. In accordance with this, the Witton register contains a number of entries of children of Randall Berchenhead (so spelled) from 1580 to 1631, with his own death, being then ' parish clarke/ in 1633 ; among these, under 24 March 1615-6, is 'Johes. fil. Randulphi Birchenhead.' Un- luckily experts have pronounced this entry to be a comparatively modern forgery, but it gives nevertheless the correct date. Ormerod (under ' Northwich ') states that Birkenhead 1 descended possibly from the antient family of that name in this county (who first held property here in 1508), but of low immediate origin, being the son of a saddler.' At the free grammar school of the town in the churchyard of Witton, John Birken- head doubtless received his early education from the worthy schoolmaster, Thomas Far- mer. In the beginning of 1 632, aged 1 7 (which harmonises with the forged date in the Wit- ton register), Wood informs us, he pro- ceeded to Oxford, being entered at Oriel College as servitor, and under the tuition of Humphrey Lloyd, afterwards bishop of Ban- gor. He remained ' till B. A/ (Athence Oxon.} He was introduced to Laud and appointed his amanuensis, and Laud, l taking a liking to him for his ingenuity, did by his diploma make him M. A.' in 1639. Nor was this all, for by his letters commendatory thereupon he was elected probation-fellow of All Souls College in 1640.' During the civil war, while the Birkenhead Birkenhead king and court were at Oxford, Birkenhead was a leading spirit. The thick-coming events of the time compelled almost daily publication of news. The parliament had their l Mercurius Britannicus ' and others, j The royalists were in need of ajournaltillBir- kenhead devised, and was appointed to write, ! the ' Mercurii Aulici ' (Athence Oxon.} The j * Mercurius Aulicus ' communicated ' the in- | telligence and affairs of the court ' at Ox- ! ford ' to the rest of the kingdom.' No. 1 is ! dated January 1642. It went on without \ break till 1645, and occasionally after, 'weekly in one sheet ' (a small quarto). The ' Mer- [ curius Aulicus ' has not received that critical j attention which it deserves. When it is ; remembered that, with very occasional help later by Dr. Peter Heylin and others, the , burden of carrying on the ' Mercurius Auli- ! cus ' fell on Birkenhead, it must be recognised I that he proved himself by this achievement ' ^ilone a man of intellectual capacity and wit. I The ' Mercurius Aulicus ' now extremely J rare complete has never been reprinted or edited. Its literary quality gives it a far superior interest to that attaching to the 4 Mercurius Britannicus.' The t Mercurius Aulicus ' having proved * very pleasing to the loyal party, his ma- ' jesty recommended him [Birkenhead] to the electors that they would chuse him for moral philosophy reader ' (Athence Oxon.") \ His duties were discharged l with little profit,' ; says Wood ambiguously. The year 1648 found him in exile with the | prince (afterwards Charles II). We have a glimpse of both in a letter from Birkenhead to John Raymond, worked into the preface of Raymond's ( Itinerary contayning a Voyage made through Italy in the Years 1646 and 1647 ' (1648). The letter is dated 'Amiens, 11 July 1648,' and is a characteristic speci- men of his style. After the ' parliamentary visitors ' finally deprived him of his posts and fellowship, he appears to have gone and come between France, Holland, and England. Ultimately, according to Wood, having suffered several imprisonments, he lived at Oxford 'by his wits in helping young gentlemen out at dead lifts in making poems, songs, and epistles to their respective mistresses, as also in translating and writing several little things and other petite employments.' Of his own 'petite things ' we have in 1647 (though not pub- lished till 1662-3), 'The Assembly Man, or the Character of an Assembly Man ;' in 1648, 'News from Pembroke and Mont- gomery, or Oxford Manchester'd ; ' in 1649, 4 Paul's Churchyard, Libri Theologici, Poli- tici, Historic!,' enlarged in 1653 as follows : ' Two Centvries of Paul's Churchyard. Una cum Indice Expurgatorio in Bibliothecam Parliament!, sive Librorum, qui prostant venales in vico vulgo vocato Little-Brittain. Done into English for the Benefit of the Assembly of Divines, and the two Univer- sities;' in 1659, 'The Four-legg'd Quaker, a Ballad to the Tune of the Dog and Elder's Maid.' There were also 'A Poem on his staying in London after the Act of the Banishment for Cavaliers,' and ' The Jolt ' on Cromwell's famous overturn of the coach. There is much drollery in these productions, and his language is always nervous and effec- tive. The Restoration brought Birkenhead to the winning side. On 22 Aug. 1649, at St. Germains, he received a grant of arms, and probably his knighthood (Harleian MS. 1144, f. 82 b~). On 6 April 1661, on the king's letters he was created D.C.L. by Oxford, and as such was one of the eminent civilians con- sulted by the convocation on the question ' whether bishops ought to be present in capi- tal cases,' and with the rest on 2 Feb. 1661-2 said ' Yes.' He was returned M.P. for Wil- ton, was made a member of the Royal So- ciety, and was appointed one of the masters of requests. But he failed to win the respect of even so ultra a royalist partisan as Anthony a Wood, who says of him : ' A certain anony- mous (" A Seasonable Argument to persuade . . . for a New Parliament, 1677 ") says he was a poor ale-keeper's son, and that he got by lying and buffoonery at court 3,000/. . . . The truth is, had he not been given too much to bantering, which is now taken up by vain and idle people, he might have passed for a good wit. And had he also ex- | pressed himself grateful and respectful to those that had been his benefactors in the i time of his necessity, which he did not, but i rather slighted them (shewing thereby the baseness of his spirit), he might have passed i for a friend and a loving companion.' Except the 'Assembly-Man ' delayed from 1647 he gave to the press nothing of any extent after the Restoration. He has verses in the Beaumont and Fletcher folio (1675), and Latin lines under Fletcher's portrait. Pro- bably the ' Miscellanies ' of ' Wit and Loyal tv ' received contributions from him, but they re- main unidentified. He died at Whitehall 4 Dec. 1679, 'leaving behind him a choice collection of pamphlets, which came into the hands of his executors, Sir Richard Mason and Sir Muddford Bramston ' (Ath. Oxon.} He does not appear to have married. [Wood's Athenge, iii. 1203; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum in Brit. Mus. ; letters from Mr. John Weston, The Heysoms, Hartford, North- Birkenshaw Birkhead wich; Birkenheacl's Works ; the nuncupative will I of Kandall Birkenhead (in Probate Registry at | Chester) leaves all his goods to his wife Margaret, j not mentioning his occupation or children.] BIRKENSHAW, JOHN, musician, j [See BIRCHENSHA.] BIRKHEAD or BIRKET, GEORGE (A. 1614), archpriest, was a native of the county of Durham. He entered the English college at Douay in 1575, and was ordained priest C April 1577. In January 1578 he set out from Rheims, accompanied by the Rev. Richard Haddock and four students, and pro- ceeded to the English college at Rome, which liad just been founded by Dr. Allen under the auspices of Pope Gregory XIII. Returning to Rheims in 1580 he was sent in the same year to labour on the English mission, and we are told that he was < well esteemed by all parties upon account of his peaceable and reconciling temper.' In 1583 he took relics of the Jesuit Father Campion to Rheims. Dr. Allen, notifying this circumstance to Father j Alfonso Agazzari, says: 'Nobis egregiampar- tern cutis, variis aromatibiis ad durabilitatem I conditam, Campiani nostri detulit ibidem P. Georgius ' (Records of the English Catholics, ii. 202). On 22 Jan. 1607-8 Pope Paul V nomi- nated him archpriest of England, from which office Dr. George Blackwell [q. v.] had been deposed in consequence of his acceptance of the oath of allegiance devised by the govern- ; ment of King James I. The new archpriest was admonished to dissuade catholics from taking the oath and frequenting the protestant worship (State Papers, Domestic, James I, vol. xxxi.) Birkhead retained the dignity till his death in 1614. From his deathbed he ad- dressed farewell letters (5 April 1614) to his clergy and to the superior of the Jesuits. At different times he assumed the names of Hall, Lambton, and Salvin. He was succeeded as .archpriest by the Rev. William Harrison. The catholic church historian of England states that < Mr. Birket was a person of sin- gular merit, studious of the reputation of the clergy, yet not inclinable to lessen that of others, as it appears from several original let- ters I have read between him and Father Par- sons ; wherein some controversies are handled between the Jesuits and clergy, which he toucheth with all tenderness and circumspec- tion that things of that kind require, and with a due regard to the pretensions and passions of parties.' [Dodd's Church Hist. (1737) ii. 377, 483-99; -also Tierney's edit. iv. 77, App. 157, 159, 161, v. 8, 12, 13-30, 48, 60, App. 27, 57, 58, 103, 106, 117, 141, 158, 159, 160-4; Berington's Memoirs of Panzani ; Morris's Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, 2nd series, 53, 57, 408 ; Calendar of State Papers, Dom. James I, 397, 455 ; Bartoli's Istoria della Compagnia di Giesu, L'Inghilterra, 294 ; Diaries of th> English College, Douay ; Ullathorne's Hist, of the Restoration of the Cath. Hierarchy, 9 ; Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen; Butler's Hist, Memoirs (1822), ii. 266.] T. C. BIRKHEAD, HENRY (1617?-! 69(5) Latin poet, was born in the parish of St. Gregory, near St. Paul's Cathedral. Aubrey (Tanner MS. 24, f. 159) states that he was bora in 1617, i at the Paul's Head, which his father kept/ but Wood fixes the date of his birth four years earlier. Having been edu- cated in grammar learning by the most famous schoolmaster of that time, Thomas Farnabif, he became a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, in Midsummer term 1633, and was admitted scholar on 28 May 1635. Induced by the persuasions of a Jesuit, he shortly afterwards entered the college of St. Omer. But he soon abandoned Romanism, and in 1638, by the influence of Archbishop Laud, was elected fellow of All Souls, being then bachelor of arts, ; and esteemed a good philo- logist,' After taking his master's degree (5 June 1641), he devoted himself to the study of law. In May 1643 he submitted to the authority of the visitors appointed by parliament. " In 1653 he was allowed by the delegates of the university to propose a dis- pensation in convocation for taking the degree of doctor of physic by accumulation, provided that he should perform the necessary exer- cises ; but it is uncertain whether he took the degree. He resigned his fellowship in 1657, and at the Restoration became registrar of the diocese of Norwich, an office which he continued to hold until 1681. He also had a chamber in the Middle Temple, where he frequently resided. In 1645 he issued at Oxford a quarto volume of ' Poemata,' printed for private circulation. In 1656 appeared 1 Poematia in Elegiaca, lambica, Polymetra Antitechnemata et Metaphrases membratim quadripertita,' Oxonii, 8vo. He joined with Henry Stubbe, of Christ Church, in publish- ing another volume of Latin verse in the same year, < Otium Literatum siye Miscel- lanea qugedam Poemata ab H. Birchead et H. Stubbe edita,' Oxon., 16mo. A second edition of this little volume appeared in 1658. Birkhead also edited, with a preface, some philological works of Henry Jacob in 1652 ; and wrote several Latin elegies, 'scatteredly printed in various books, under the covert letters sometimes of H. G.,' to persons who had suffered for their devotion to Charles I. Birks 8 4 Birks An unpublished allegorical play by Birkhead, ' The Female Rebellion,' is preserved among the Tanner MSS. (40(3) ; it has little merit. In 1643 there was published at Oxford a collection of ' Verses on the death of the right valiant Sir Bevill Grenvill, knight. Who was slaine by the rebells, on Lans- downe-hill neare Bath, July 5, 1643,' 4to. Birkhead was one of the contributors to this collection, which included elegies by Jasper Mayne, William Cartwright, Dudley Digges, and others. Forty-one years afterwards, in 1684, the collection was reprinted, and Henry Birkhead, the only survivor with one excep- tion of the thirteen contributors, addressed a long 'Epistle Dedicatory' to the Earl of Bath, son of Sir Bevill Grenvill. Wood vaguely says that after the Restoration he ' lived ... in a retired and scholastical con- dition,' adding that he ( was always accounted an excellent Latin poet, a good Grecian, and well vers'd in all human learning.' He died on Michaelmas Eve, 1696, and was buried at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. The professorship of poetry at Oxford was founded in 1708 from funds bequeathed by Birkhead. [Tanner MS. 24, f. 159; Wood's Afhense Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, iv. 573-4 ; Wood's Hist, and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, ed. Gutch, ii. 434 ; Martin's Archives of All Souls, 381 ; Burrows's Eegister of the Visitors of the University of Oxford, 1647-58 (Camden Society), pp. 43, 117 ; Hazlitt's Handbook ; Corser's Col- lectanea Anglo-Poetica, ii. 285-8.] A. H. B. BIRKS, THOMAS RAWSON (1810- 1883), theologian and controversialist, was born on 28 Sept. 1810 at Staveley in Derby- shire. His father was a tenant farmer under the Duke of Devonshire. The family being nonconformists, young Birks was educated first at Chesterfield and then at the Dissent- ing College at Mill Hill. Funds were pro- vided to send him to Cambridge. He won a sizarship and a scholarship at Trinity, and in his third year gained the chief English declamation prize. As the holder of this prize he delivered the customary oration in the college hall. The subject chosen was 1 Mathematical and Moral Certainty/ and, in a letter to Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Whewell spoke very highly of this oration. In January 1834 Birks came out as second wrangler and second Smith's prizeman. Having joined the church of England on leaving the university, Birks settled at Wat- ton as tutor and then curate to the Rev. Ed- ward Bickersteth [q. v.] During his stay there he devoted much time to the study of the prophetic scriptures, and took the affirmative side in the warm controversy which arose on the subject of the premillennial theory of th& Lord's return. In 1843-4 Birks won the Seatonian prize for the best English poem at Trinity. Some years before he had been elected a fellow of his college. He ardently engaged in many religious controversies, and one of these, on the future of the lost, led ta the severance of private friendships and reli- gious connections. In his views on this sub- ject he was equally opposed to the univer- salists and the annihilationists. In the year 1844 Birks married Miss Bickersteth, the daughter of his friend, and accepted the- living of Kelshall in Hertfordshire. In 1850 Birks published his edition of Paley's ' Horse Paulinae/ with notes and a supplementary treatise entitled ' Horse Apo- stolicae.' Two years later the work was fol- lowed by ' Horee Evangelicse/ and in 1853 appeared his ( Modern Rationalism ' and ( The Inspiration of the Scriptures.' In 1856 Birks lost his wife, and the severity of the afflic- tion caused the suspension of his literary labours for several years. The year 1861, however, witnessed the publication of another of his more important works, ' The Bible and Modern Thought,' at the request of the committee of the Religious Tract Society. The author subsequently en- larged his work by a series of notes on the evidential school of theology, the limits of religious thought, the Bible and ancient Egypt, the human element in Scripture, and Genesis and geology. Birks left Kelshall in 1864, and in 1866' accepted the important charge of Trinity Church, Cambridge. In the latter year he married a second time. By his first marriage he had eight children, one of whom, his eldest son, also attained distinction, succeed- ing him as a fellow of Trinity. At the time of the disestablishment of the Irish church Birks came forward with a lengthy treatise on ' Church and State/ which was an elabo- ration of a treatise written thirty years be- fore, and now republished as bearing upon the ecclesiastical change proposed by Mr. Gladstone and carried into effect by parlia- ment. Birks was installed honorary canon of Ely Cathedral in 1871, and in 1872, on the death of the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice, he was elected professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge. This appointment led to a stormy controversy. It was regarded as a retrograde step by the large body of liberal thinkers who sympathised with the views of Mr. Maurice. While pastor at Cambridge, Birks laboured assiduously in giving reli- gious instruction to the undergraduates, to older members of the university, and also to the residents in the town. In the year of Birks Birmingham his appointment he published his ' Scripture Doctrine of Creation ' and ' The Philosophy of Human Responsibility.' His inaugural lecture as professor of moral philosophy was on * The Present Importance of Moral Sci- -ence.' In 1873 appeared his ' First Principles of Moral Science/ being a course of lectures delivered during his professorship. This work was followed in 1874 by ' Modern Utilitarianism/ in which the systems of Paley, Bentham, and Mill were examined and compared. In 1876 Birks delivered the annual address to the Victoria Institute, his subject being l The Uncertainties of Modern Physical Science.' Birks published in 1876 his work on ' Modern Physical Fatalism and the Doctrine of Evolution.' It contained the substance of a course of lectures devoted to the examination of the philosophy un- folded in Mr. Herbert Spencer's ( First Prin- ciples.' Birks held the views expressed by Mr. Spencer { to be radically unsound, full of logical inconsistency and contradiction, .and flatly opposed to the fundamental doc- trines of Christianity and even the very ex- istence of moral science.' To the strictures upon his ' First Principles ' Mr. Spencer re- plied at length, and this led to the re-publi- cation, in 1882, of Birks's treatise, with an introduction by Dr. Pritchard, F.R.S., Sa- vilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, in which Mr. Spencer's rejoinder was dealt with, and the original arguments of Birks illustrated and further explained. Birks resigned the vicarage of Trinity in 1877, and in the same year published a volume on ' Manuscript Evidence in the Text of the New Testament/ being an en- deavour to bring ' mathematical reasoning to bear on the probable value of the manu- scripts of different ages, with a general in- ference in favour of the high value of the cursive manuscripts as a class.' In the same year Birks issued his * Supernatural Revela- tion/ being an answer to a work on ' Super- natural Religion/ which had given rise to much criticism. Birks's treatise was repub- lished at a later period by Professor Pritchard, with a reply to objections that had been urged against it. Early in 1875 Birks suffered from a para- lytic seizure, and this was followed by a .second stroke in 1877. He still took a deep interest in questions of the day, and was able to dictate various works, pamphlets, .and letters bearing upon these questions. In April 1880, while residing in the New Forest, he was stricken for a third time, and fatally, with paralysis. He was con- veyed home to Cambridge, where he lin- gered for three years, being incapacitated for intellectual effort. He died on 19 July 1883. Birks was for twenty-one years honorary i secretary to the Evangelical Alliance. He | was an examiner for the theological exami- | nation at Cambridge in 1867 and 1868, and I was a member of the board of theological I studies. He took an active part in all uni- ; versity affairs during his connection with | Cambridge, was appointed to preach the | Ramsden sermon in 1867, and was frequently ! a select preacher before the university. In I addition to the works named in the course ! of this article, Birks was the author of a j considerable number of treatises on prophecy i and other subjects connected with the older j revelation, as well as of a l Memoir of the ' Rev. Edward Bickersteth.' [The works of Professor Birks ; Record, 27 July 1 1883 ; Men of the Time (llth edition) ; Times, 23 July 1883; Guardian, 25 July 1883.1 G. B. S. BIRMINGHAM, JOHN (1816-1884), astronomer, was a country gentleman residing at Millbrook, near Tuam, Ireland, whose I attention was directed to astronomy by his ' discovery of a remarkable new star in Corona I Borealis on 12 May 1866 (Month. Ato.,xxvi. 310). In 1872, at the suggestion of the Rev. T. W. Webb, he undertook a revision of Schjellerup's i Catalogue of Red Stars/ and extended the scope of his task so as to in- I elude Schmidt's list from the ' Astronomische 1 Nachrichten' (No. 1902), some ninety ruddy stars found by Webb and himself, with | others pointed out by the late C. E. Burton | in all, 658 such objects reobserved with a I 4^-inch refractor, and a magnifying power of 53. The spectra of several, as described by ! Secchi, D'Arrest, and others, were added. I This valuable work was presented to the Royal Irish Academy on 26 June 1876, and published in their * Transactions ' (xxvi. 249, 1879). Its merit was acknowledged by the bestowal of the Cunningham medal early in 1884. Birmingham was engaged in revising and extending it at the time of his death, which occurred at Millbrook, from an attack of jaundice, on 7 Sept. 1884. He was unmar- ried, a pious catholic, liberal, kindly, and unassuming. He possessed considerable lin- guistic accomplishments, had travelled in most parts of Europe, and was in correspon- dence with several foreign astronomers, notably with Father Secchi of Rome. He held for some time the post of inspector under the board of works. On 22 May 1881 he discovered a deep red star in Cygnus, which proved strikingly vari- Birnie 86 Birnie able, and became known by his name. The particulars of his observations on the meteor- showers of 12-13 Dec. 1866, and 27 Nov. 1872, on the transit of Venus of 6 Dec. 1882, on sun-spots and variables, were published in ' Monthly Notices/ t Astronornische Nach- richten/ and ' Nature.' He communicated to the British Association in 1857 a paper on * The Drift of West Galway and the Eastern Parts of Mayo ' (Report, ii. 64), published in cxtenso in the ' Journal of the Geological Society of Dublin ' (viii. 28, 111). The same volume contains (p. 26) his remarks on the 1 Junction of the Limestone, Sandstone, and Granite at Oughterard, co. Galway.' His only separate publication was a small poeti- cal work of a controversial character entitled ' Anglicania, or England's Mission to the Celt ' (London, 1863). [Athenaeum, 20 Sept. 1884 ; Tuam News, 12 Sept. 1884; R. Soc. Cat. Scientific Papers, i. 388, vii. 178.] A. M. C. BIRNIE, ALEXANDER (1826-1862), poet and journalist, was born in the north of Scotland, it is believed in Morayshire. The place and exact date of his birth are un- known ; but he has himself left it on record that he was born in 1826. His life was erratic. At an early age he came to Eng- land, and was at one time a baptist minister in Preston. He was in that town when it passed through its great labour strikes, and he wrote letters to the local journals on the events of the day. In 1860 he arrived in Falkirk, foot sore and penniless, having walked all the way from Lancashire. He obtained some employment, but, being dismissed from it, entered the Carron works, Falkirk, as a painter. He appears to have struck all with whom he came in contact by his brilliant powers. Birnie was ultimately dismissed from the Carron works for intemperance. While in Carron he began his journalistic notes under the signature of f Cock of the Steeple.' He was ultimately taken upon the regular staff of the f Falkirk Advertiser ; ' but several weeks before that journal ceased pub- lication, he began the 'Falkirk Liberal/ which was published at one halfpenny per copy, and printed in Stirling. Although this journal was the recognised organ of the feuars of Falkirk, it speedily began to be apparent that it could not succeed. The printers lost by the speculation, and Birnie, ' sorrowing and penitent for his sins, went to his death, crushed in spirit that he could only raise 3/. 10*. to pay an account of 27/.' It is stated that his party promised to sup- port him, but failed to do so. Birnie's death was melancholy. One morn- ing in March 1862, he was found in a straw stack near Stobhill brick works, Morpeth r where he had been concealed without food or drink for a fortnight. His statement to> this effect was corroborated by a diary which he had carefully kept for some weeks. He j was removed to the workhouse hospital ;. mortification of both feet set in, and he suc- cumbed at the age of thirty-six years. It 1 appears that Birnie made his way to Edin- : burgh, hoping to meet with employment there. In one of the dens of that city he was robbed of the whole of his little stock of money, and resolved to commit suicide. He obtained a large quantity of laudanum, which he swallowed ; but his stomach being unable to retain the quantity of poison, which was far too large, his life was saved. He now started on foot for Newcastle, and made daily entries in a little journal which has been printed. Reaching Morpeth late in the even- ing, he spent his last penny on a roll. Mis- taking his road, fatigue overpowered him, and he crept into a stack, with the intention of sleeping or starving to death, as the last entry in his diary testified. He requested in it that some kind hand might make a se- lection of his articles and speeches in this and in another diary at Chester-le-Street, as well as from the ' Chester-le-Street Libe- ral/ and ' Falkirk Advertiser and Liberal/ and publish them on behalf of his widow and family. A subscription was raised on behalf of Mrs. Birnie and her children, but it does not appear that the request for a collection from the deceased's writings was carried out. [Gent, Mag. 1862 ; Falkirk Herald. March 1862; Newcastle Chronicle, March 1862; and other journals of the time.] Gr. B. S. BIRNIE, SIB RICHARD (1760 P-1832), police magistrate of Bow Street, London, was a native of Banff, Scotland, and was born about 1760. After serving his ap- prenticeship to a saddler he came to London, where he obtained a situation in the house of j Macintosh & Co. in the Haymarket, sad- i dlers and harness-makers to the royal family. i Having on one occasion been accidentally j called upon to attend on the Prince of Wales, : he did his work so satisfactorily that the prince on similar occasions was accustomed to ask that the 'young Scotchman' might be sent to him. The patronage of the prince secured his advancement with the firm, and he was made foreman and eventu- ally a partner in the establishment. Through his marriage with the daughter of a wealthy baker he also obtained a considerable fortune, including a cottage with adjoining land at Acton, Middlesex. After his marriage he Birnie Birnie rented a house in St. Martin's parish, and office except that of watchman and beadle. In 1805 he was appointed churchwarden and, along with his colleague and the vicar, ; he established a number of almshouses for decayed parishioners in Pratt Street, Camden Town. He also gave proof of his public . spirit by enrolling himself in the Royal West- minster Volunteers, in which he became a i captain. At the special request of the Duke of Northumberland he was placed in the | commission of the peace, and from this time \ he began to frequent the Bow Street police ; court, in order to obtain a practical acquaint- ! ance with magisterial duties. In the absence of the stipendiary magistrates he sometimes presided on the bench, and with such effi- ciency that he was at length appointed police j magistrate at Union Hall, from which he \ was a few years afterwards promoted to the j Bow Street office. In February 1820 he j headed the police officers in the apprehension of the Cato-street conspirators. He took the j responsibility, in the absence of the soldiers, j who failed, as they had been ordered, to turn ! out at a moment's notice, of proceeding at once to attempt the capture of the band, be- fore they were fully prepared and armed. In this dangerous enterprise he, according to a contemporary account, ' exposed himself everywhere, encouraging officers to do their duty, while the balls were whizzing about his head.' At the funeral of Queen Caroline in August 1821 he displayed similar decision and presence of mind in a like critical emer- gency, and when Sir Robert Baker, the chief magistrate, refused to read the riot act, took upon himself the responsibility of reading it. Shortly afterwards Baker resigned, and he was appointed to succeed him, the honour of knighthood being also conferred on him in Sep- tember following. During his term of office he was held in high respect by the ministers in power, who were accustomed to consult him on all matters of importance relating to the metropolis. He also retained throughout life the special favour of George IV. He died on 29 April 1832. [Gent. Mag. cii. pt. i. pp. 470-1 ; Ann. Reg. Ixxiv. 198-9.] T. F. H. BIRNIE, WILLIAM(1563-1619),Scotch divine, was only son of a fabulously ancient house, William Birnie of ' that ilk.' He was born at Edinburgh in 1563, entered student in St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, 3 Dec. 1584, proceeded in his degree of M.A. in 1588, became a ship-master merchant, but sustain- ing heavy losses at sea returned to his studies, and attended divinity three years in Leyden. He is found in exercise at Edinburgh 25 Jan. 1596, and w r as presented to the vicarage of Lanark by James VI on 28 Dec. 1597. There had been internecine feuds in the parish for a number of years. ]Jut Birnie, a man of com- manding presence, was able to wield a sword, and thus is said to have gradually reconciled rrties. He was constituted by the king, Aug. 1603, master and economus of the hospital and almshouse of St. Leonard's, and appointed dean of the Chapel Royal 20 Sept. 1612. Earlier he had shown sympathy with the brethren confined in Blackness Castle previous to their trial in 1606 at Linlithgow. He appears as a member of the general as- sembly of the kirk of Scotland in 1602, 1608, 1610. He was nominated * constant mode- rator of the presbytery ' by the assembly of 1606, and the presbytery were l charged by the privy council 17 Jan. thereafter, to serve him as such within twenty-four hours after notice, under pain of rebellion.' He was also named on the court of high commission 15 Feb. 1610, and presented to the deanery of the Chapel Royal of Stirling, which was 1 to be hereafter callit the Chapel Royal of Scotland,' 20 Sept. 1612. The acceptance of the f constant moderatorship ' showed episco- pal leanings. In 1612 he was transferred from Lanark to Ayr, to l parsonages prima and secundo, and vicarages of the same, and to the parsonage and vicarage of Alloway ' the scene of the Tarn o' Shanter of Burns on 16 June 1614. He was a member again of the high commission 21 Dec. 1615, and one of the commissioners for the suppression of popery agreed to by the assembly in 1616. He married Elizabeth, daughter of John Lindsay,, parson of Carstairs. Their issue were three sons and two daughters. He died on 19 Jan. 1619 in the fifty-sixth year of his age and twenty-second of his ministry. A kind of doggerel epitaph runs : He waited on his charge with care and pains At Air on little hopes, and smaller gains. For generations stories were told of him all over the southern shires of Scotland. One represents him as so agile that he could make the salmon's leap ' by stretching himself on the grass, leaping to his feet, and again throwing them over his head.' He was the author of a prose book entitled l The Blame ofKirk-bvriall, tending to perswade Cemete- riall Civilitie. First preached, then penned, and now at last propyned to the Lord's inheri- tance in the Presbyterie of Lanark by M. William Birnie, the Lord his minister in that ilk, as a pledge of his zeale and care of that Birnston 88 Bischoff reformation. Edinburgh, printed by Robert Charteris, printer to the king's most excellent maiestie, 1606 ' (4to). This was reprinted in 1833, in one hundred copies, by W. B. D. Turnbull. Birnie here deprecates interment within the church. There is considerable learning in the book, but its lack of arrange- ment and an absurdly alliterative style make it wearisome reading. [Scott's Fasti, ii. 86-7, 306 ; Eeid's History of Presbyterianism in Ireland, i. ; Blair's Auto- biography ; Stevenson's Hist, of Church of Scot- land ; Calderwood's History ; Boke of the Kirke, 318; Orig. Letters; Melvill's Autob.; Nisbet's Heraldry, ii. ; Anderson's Scottish Nation, for ancestry and descendants.] A. B. (r. BIRNSTON. [See BTENSTON.] BIRREL, ROBERT (Ji. 1567-1605), dia- rist, was a burgess of Edinburgh. His ' Diary, containing Divers passages of Staite, and Uthers Memorable Accidents. From the 1532 yeir of our Redemption, till ye Begin- ning of the yeir 1605,' was published in 1798 in * Fragments of Scottish History,' edited by Sir John Graham Dalyell. Extracts from the * Diary ' were also published in 1820. There is not much minuteness in the record of events till about 1567, when Birrel probably began to keep a note of them. There is no evidence in the ' Diary ' regarding the political or re- ligious views of the writer, facts being simply recorded as they happened, without comment or any apparent bias of opinion. There is some evidence that the work was intended for publication, the writer having apparently taken some trouble to collect his facts. A con- siderable part of it was incorporated by Sir James Balfour in his ' Annals.' The original manuscript is in the Advocates' Library. [Diary as above.] T. F. H. BISBY or BISBIE, XATHANIEL,D.D. (1635-1695), divine, son of the Rev. John Bisbie, of Tipton, Staffordshire, who was ejected from a prebend in Lichfield Cathedral about 1644, and of Margaret, daughter of Anthony Hoo, of Bradely Hall in the same county, was born 5 June 1635. He was elected student of Christ Church, Oxford, from Westminster School, in 1654, proceeded B. A. 1657 and M.A. 1660, and accumulated his degrees in divinity on 7 June 1668. At the Restoration he was presented to the rectory of Long Melford, Sudbury, Suffolk. He was then, says Anthony a Wood, l esteemed an excellent preacher and a zealous person for the church of England.' He married Eliza- beth, daughter of John Wall, of Radwater Grange, Essex, in 1672. He published a number of occasional sermons, entitled ' The Modern Pharisees,' 1673; * Prosecution no Persecution, or the Difference between Suf- fering for Disobedience and Faction and Suffering for Righteousness and Christ's sake,' 1682; 'Mischiefs of Anarchy,' 1682; ' Korah and his Company proved to be the Seminary and Seed-plot of Sedition and Re- bellion,' 1684 ; i The Bishop visiting,' 1686. On the accession of William and Mary he re- fused to take the oath of allegiance, and as a nonjuror was deprived of his rectory of Melford in February 1690. His publications consist nearly wholly of violent invectives against the nonconformists. He died 14 May 1695, and was buried at Long Melford. [Wood's Athense (Bliss), iv. 640; Walker's Sufferings ; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library ; Fuller's Worthies; Welch's Scholars of West- minster (1852), 142-3.] A. B. G. BISCHOFF, JAMES (1776-1845), author of works on the wool trade, was of a German family which settled in Leeds in 1718. He was born at Leeds about 1776,and was brought up there. His early mercantile pursuits were connected with the wool and woollen trades, and he took a lively interest in all measures likely to affect them. Being convinced that the restrictive laws relating to wool were bad, he used his utmost endeavours to bring about a change. He published some letters on the subject in 1816 in the 'Leeds Mercury' and the 'Farmer's Journal.' In 1819 he was ap- pointed one of the deputies from the manu- facturing districts to promote a repeal of the Wool Act, and wrote a pamphlet entitled 'Reasons for the Immediate Repeal of the Tax on Foreign Wool' (1819, 8vo, pp. 47). In the following year he published ' Obser- i vations on the Report of the Earl of Sheffield to the Meeting at Lewes Wool Fair, July 20, 1820.' In 1825 Huskisson, then president of the board of trade, invited the counsel of Bischoff with regard to some proposed altera- tions in commercial policy, particularly a re- duction of the duty on foreign manufactured goods. Bischoff gave his opinion strongly in the direction of freedom of trade, and the reasons he advanced had great weight with the minister in the proposals which he subse- quently made in parliament. He was examined in 1828 before the privy council on the subject of the wool trade, and in the same year pub- lished ' The Wool Question considered: being an Examination of the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords appointed to take into consideration the State of the British Wool Trade, and an Answer to Earl Stanhope's Letter to the Owners and Occu- j piers of Sheep Farms' (8vo, pp. 112). In | 1832 he issued a ' Sketch of the History of Biscoe 8 9 Bishop Van Dieman's Land,' 8vo, and in 1836 an essay' on ' Marine Insurances, their Impor- tance, their Rise, Progress, and Decline, and their Claim to Freedom from Taxation/ 8vo, pp. 34. BischoiFs most important work has the following title : ' A comprehensive His- tory of the Woollen and Worsted Manufac- tures, and the Natural and Commercial His- tory of Sheep, from the Earliest Records to the Present Period ' (Leeds, 1842,2 vols. 8vo). His last publication was a pamphlet on ' Foreign Tariffs ; their Injurious Effects on British Manufactures, especially the Woollen Manufacture ; with proposed remedies. Being chiefly a series of Articles inserted in the " Leeds Mercury" from October 1842 to February 1843 ' (1843, 8vo, pp. 69). Bischoff, who married in 1802 Peggy, daughter of Mr. David Stansfeld of Leeds, carried on business as a merchant and in- surance broker for many years in London, and died at his residence, Highbury Terrace, on 8 Feb. 1845, in his seventieth year. Mount Bischoff, in the north-west corner of Tasmania, is said to derive its name from James Bischoff. [Gent. Mag., April 1845, p. 443; Preface to Bischoff's Hist, of the Woollen and Worsted Manufactures ; Stansfeld pedigree in Foster's Yorkshire Pedigrees.] C. W. S. BISCOE, JOHN (rf.1679), puritan divine, was born at High Wycombe, Buckingham- shire, and educated at New Inn Hall, Oxford. In'Athense Oxonienses' (ed. Bliss, iii. 1198) Wood states that he was born in 1646, which is probably a literal error for 1606. From the ' Fasti ' we learn that he took his bachelor's degree on 1 Feb. 1626-7. He left the university about two years afterwards, and became a preacher at Abingdon. Hav- ing joined the puritan party he was ap- pointed minister of St. Thomas's, South- wark. He served as assistant to the com- missioners of Surrey appointed to eject ' scandalous and insufficient ministers.' At the Restoration, being ejected from his living, he preached in conventicles. He died at High Wycombe, where he was buried on 9 June 1679. Biscoe is the author of: 1. ' Glorious Mystery of God's Mercy, or a Precious Cordial for Fainting Souls/ 1647, 8vo. 2. 'The Grand Trial of True Conversion, or Sanctifying Grace appearing and acting first and chiefly in the Thoughts,' 8vo, 1655. S. ' Mystery of Free Grace in the Gospel, and Mystery of the Gospel in the Law,' n.d. [Wood's Athense Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, iii. 1198; Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 426 ; Calamy's Nonconformist's Memorial, ed. Palmer, i. 135.1 A. H. B. BISCOE, RICHARD (d. 1748), divine, was educated at an academy kept by Dr. Benion at Shrewsbury, and on 19 Dec.^1716 was made a dissenting minister at a meeting- house in the Old Jewry. In 1727 he con- formed and was made rector of St. Martin Outwich, in the city of London. He also held the living of Northwald, near Epping, and was a minor canon of St. Paul's and a chaplain to George II. He died in May 1748. He delivered the Boyle lectures in 1736, 1737, and 1738, and in 1742 published in two volumes the substance of his prelec- tions under the title ' History of the Acts of the Holy Apostles confirmed from other authors ; and considered as full evidence of the truth of Christianity, with a prefatory discourse 011 the nature of that evidence.' The work is highly eulogised by Dr. Doddridge as showing * in the most convincing manner how incon- testably the Acts of the Apostles demonstrate the truth of Christianity.' It was reprinted in 1829 and 1840. A German translation w^as published at Magdeburg in 1751. He was also the author of ' Remarks on a Book lately published entitled " A Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper," ' 1735. [London Magazine, xvii . ( 1 ? 48) 284 ; Protestant Dissenters' Magazine, vi. 306-7 ; Chalmers's Biog. Diet. v. 298 ; British Museum Catalogue.] BISHOP, ANN (1814-1884), vocalist, was the daughter of a drawing-master named Riviere, and was born in London in 1 814. As a child she showed talent for the pianoforte, and studied under Moscheles. On 12 June 1824 she was elected a student at the Royal Aca- demy of Music, where she soon distinguished herself by her singing. On leaving the aca- demy she became (in 1831) the second wife of Sir Henry Rowley Bishop, the composer, and in the same year appeared at the Philharmonic Concerts as a singer. Her reputation quickly increased, and for the next few years she took a prominent place at Vauxhall, the so-called 1 Oratorios,' and the country festivals. At first Mrs. Bishop devoted herself to clas- sical music, but she was induced to turn her attention to the Italian school by Bochsa, the harp-player, with whom she went on a pro- vincial tour in the spring of 1839. On their return to London she sang at a benefit con- cert given by Bochsa, at which she achieved great success, although Grisi, Persiani, and Viardot were among the performers. A few days later she left her husband and eloped with Bochsa to the continent. From Sep- tember 1839 to May 1843 she visited the principal towns of Europe, and sang at no less than 260 concerts. Among other places Bishop < she visited St. Petersburg, Novgorod, Odessa, and Kasan, in which latter town she is said to have sung in the Tartar language. From 1843 to 1846 she sang in Italy with great success ; at the San Carlo at Naples she ap- Cred in twenty operas, her engagement ing for twenty-seven months. In 1846 she returned to England, together with Bochsa, and sang at several concerts. In 1847 Mrs. Bishop went to America, where she sanjy in the United States, Mexico, and California. In 1855 she went to Australia, where Bochsa died, and Mrs. Bishop re- turned to England by way of South America and New York, where she married a Mr. Schulz. She sang at the Crystal Palace in 1858, and, after a farewell concert on 17 Aug. 1859, returned to America, and sang with great success throughout Canada, the United States, Mexico, and at Havana. In 1865 she left New York and went to California, whence she sailed for the Sandwich Islands. In February 1866 the ship in which she was sailing from Honolulu to China was wrecked on a coral reef, and Mrs. Bishop lost all her music, jewels, and wardrobe. After forty days' privation the shipwrecked crew reached the Ladrone Islands, whence the indefatigable singer went to Manilla, and after singing there and in China arrived in India in 1867. In May 1868 she was once more in Australia, and after visiting London she went to New York, where the remainder of her life was spent. She died of apoplexy in March 1884. Mrs., or Madame Anna Bishop, as she was generally called, possessed a high soprano voice, and was a brilliant but some- what unsympathetic singer. She was a mem- ber of many foreign musical societies, and her popularity in the United States was great. [Times, 24 March 1884 ; Moore's Encyclopaedia of Music ; Cazalet's History of the Eoyal Aca- demy of Music, p. 138 ; Men of the Time (10th ed.); Musical World, xii. 11, 179, 235; Add. MS. 29261.] W.B. S. BISHOP, GEORGE (1785-1861), astro- nomer, was born at Leicester 21 Aug. 1785. At the age of eighteen he entered a British wine-making business in London, to which he afterwards, as its proprietor, gave such extension that the excise returns were said to exhibit half of all home-made wines as of his manufacture. His scientific career may be said to date from his admission to the Royal Astronomical Society in 1830. The amount and stability of his fortune by that time permitted the indulgence of tastes hitherto in abeyance. He took lessons in algebra from Professor De Morgan, with a view to reading the t Mecanique Celeste,' and >. Bishop acquired, when near fifty, sufficient mathe- matical knowledge to enable him to compre- hend the scope of its methods. In 1836 he realised a long-cherished desire by erecting an observatory near his residence at South. Villa, Regent's Park. No expense was spared in its equipment, and the excellence of the equatorial furnished by Dollond (aperture,, seven inches) confirmed his resolve that some higher purpose than mere amusement should be served by the establishment. ' I am de- termined,' he said when choosing its site, ' that this observatory shall do something/ He attained his aim by securing the best observers. The Rev. William Dawes con- | ducted his noted investigations of double j stars at South Villa 1839-44 ; Mr. John I Russell Hind began his memorable career | there in October of the latter year. From | the time that Hencke's detection of Astnea, 8 Dec. 1845, showed a prospect of success in I the search for new planets, the resources of Bishop's observatory were turned in that di- rection, and with conspicuous results. Be- tween 1847 and 1854 Mr. Hind discovered ten small planets, and Mr. Marth one, making i a total of eleven dating from South Villa. ' The ecliptic charts undertaken by Mr. Hind | for the purpose of facilitating the search were ' continued, after his appointment in 1853 as ! superintendent of the ' Nautical Almanac,' by Pogson, Vogel, Marth, and Talmage succes- sively, under his supervision. They embraced all stars down to the eleventh magnitude in- clusive, and extended over a zone of three degrees on each side of the ecliptic. Seven- teen of the twenty-four hours were engraved when the observatory was broken up on the death of its owner. A testimonial was awarded to Bishop by the Astronomical Society, 14 Jan. 1848, 'for the foundation of an observatory leading to- various astronomical discoveries,' and pre- sented, with a warmly commendatory ad- dress, by Sir John Herschel, 11 Feb. (Month. Not. R. A. Soc. viii. 105). He acted as se- cretary to the society 1833-9, as treasurer 1840-57, and was chosen president in two successive years, 1857 and 1858, although the state of his health rendered him unable to i take the chair. After a long period of bodilv prostration, his mind remaining, however, un- clouded, he died 14 June 1861, in his seventy- sixth year. His character, both social and ! commercial, was of the highest, and his dis- \ criminating patronage of science raised him to- the front rank of amateurs. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society 9 June 1848 r i was also a fellow of the Society of Arts, and sat for some years on the council of Uni- versity College. He published in 1852, in one Bishop 9 1 quarto volume, * Astronomical Observations taken at the Observatory, South Villa, Re- gent's Park, during the years 1839-51,' in- cluding a catalogue of double stars observed | by Dawes and Hind, with valuable t historical j and descriptive notes ' by the latter, observa- tions of new planets and comets, and of the temporary star discovered by Hind in Ophiu- chus 27 April 1848, besides a description of the observatory, &c. After Bishop's death the instruments and dome were removed to ; the residence of George Bishop, jun., at . Twickenham, where the same system of work j was pursued. [Month. Not. E. A. Soc. xxii. 104 ; L'Astro- nomie Pratique, Andre et Rayet, i. 95 ; Ann. Reg. ciii. 402.] A. M. C. BISHOP, SIR HENRY ROWLEY | (1786-1855), musical composer, was the; son of a London merchant whose family j came from Shropshire, and was born in Great ! Portland Street on 18 Nov. 1786. He seems to have received all his instruction in music from Francesco Bianchi, an Italian who came to England in 1793, where he lived for the ! rest of his life, enjoying a great reputation, ! not only as a composer, but also as a teacher and theoretical musician. Bishop's earliest ! compositions are a set of twelve glees and several Italian songs, in all of which the in- fluence of his master an influence w r hich remained with him throughout his life is ! plainly discernible. In 1804 his first operatic | work/- Angelina,' was played at the Theatre ; Royal, Margate. He soon after began to j write ballet music for the King's Theatre | and Drury Lane. At the former house the | success of his l Tamerlan et Bajazet ' (1806) i led to his permanent engagement, and he began at once to write the immense mass of compilations, arrangements, and incidental music which for thirty years he continued to produce. In this manner he was more or less concerned in ' Armide et Renaud ' (15 May 1806), 'Narcisse et les Graces ' (June 1806), and ' Love in a Tub ' (November 1806). At Drury Lane he wrote or arranged music for 1 ( 'aractacus,' a pantomime-ballet (22 April 1808), < The Wife of Two Husbands ' (9 May 1808), 'The Mysterious Bride ' (1 June 1808), ' The Siege of St. Quentin ' (10 Nov. 1808), besides contributing some new music to * The Cabinet.' Other works of this period are ' The Corsair, or the Italian Nuptials,' described as a ' pantomimical drama,' and ' The Travellers at Spa,' an entertainment of Mrs. Mountain's, for which Bishop wrote music. At the begin- ning of 1809 his first important opera, * The Circassian Bride,' was accepted at Drury Lane, and was brought out with great suc- Bishop cess on 23 Feb., but on the following night the theatre was burnt down, and the score of the opera, which Bishop subsequently re- wrote from memory, perished in the flames. On 15 June of the same year his ballet, 1 Mora's Love,' was performed at the Kings Theatre in the Haymarket, which was fol- lowed at the same house by ' The Vintagers ' on 1 Aug. After the burning of Drury Lane the company of that house moved to the Ly- ceum Theatre, and here Bishop produced, on 13 March 1810, ' The Maniac, or Swiss Ban- ditti/ which was acted twenty-six times. He was next engaged for three years as composer and director of the music at Covent Garden Theatre, where the first work upon which he was employed was the music to ' The Knight of Snowdoun,' a musical drama, founded on Sir Walter Scott's ' Lady of the Lake,' which was produced on 5 Feb. 1811, and was acted twenty-three times. This was followed in rapid succession by 'The Virgin of Sun' (31 Jan. 1812), ' The ^Ethiop ' (6 Oct. 1812), new music for ' The Lord of the Manor ' (22 Oct. 1812), 'The Renegade' (2 Dec. 1812), ' Haroun al Raschid,' a new version of ' The yEthiop,' produced on 11 Jan. 1813, and withdrawn after one performance, new music to ' Poor Vulcan ' (8 Feb. 1813), ' The Brazen Bust ' (29 May 1813), and ' Harry le Roy,' an 'heroic pastoral burletta' (2 July 1813). On the expiration of his first engage- ment at Covent Garden he was re-engaged for five years, during which his most noteworthy production was the music to the melodrama ' The Miller and his Men,' which was per- formed for the first time on 21 Oct. 1813, but received additions in 1814. In 1813, on the foundation of the Philharmonic Society, Bishop was one of the original members, but none of his compositions were performed by the new society until some years later. In- deed the whole of his energies at this time must have been devoted to his duties at Covent Garden, where he continued to pro- duce in rapid succession a series of original compositions and compilations, which, though often of the slightest quality, must have kept him too fully occupied to devote him- self seriously to the cultivation of his un- doubted talent. ' The Miller and his Men r was followed on 15 Dec. 1813 by 'For Eng- land Ho ! ' and this (in collaboration with Davy, Reeve, and others) by ' The Farmer's Wife ' (1 Feb. 1814), ' The Wandering Boys r (24 Feb. 1814), ' Hanover,' a cantata written for Braham and performed at the oratorios at Covent Garden in March 1814, 'Sadak and Kalastrade ' (11 April 1814), fresh music to ' Lionel and Clarissa ' (3 May 1814), < The Grand Alliance,' announced as ' an allegorical Bishop festival ' (13 June 1814), ' Aurora ' and ' Doc- tor Sangrado,' both ballets (September 1814), a compressed version of Arne's ' Artaxerxes,' with recitatives by Bishop, and ' The Forest of Bondy ' (both" on 30 Sept. 1814), addi- tional music in 'The Maid of the Mill' (18 Oct. 1814), a compilation from Boi'el- dieu's 'John of Paris' (12 Nov. 1814), * Brother and Sister,' in collaboration with Reeve (1 Feb. 1815), 'The Noble Outlaw' (7 April 1815), ' Telemachus ' (7 June 1815), 4 The Magpie or the Maid ' (15 Sept. 1815), 4 John du Bart' (25 Oct. 1815), additions to 'Cymon' (20 Nov. 1815), ' Comus ' (same year), and ' Midsummer Night's Dream ' (17 Jan. 1816), ' Guy Mannering,' a collabo- ration with Attwood. Whittaker, and others, Bishop's best work in it being the famous flee 'The Chough and Crow' (12 March 816), ' Who wants a Wife ' (16 April 1816), a version of 'Kreutzer's ' Lodoiska ' (15 Oct. 1816), 'The Slave' (12 Nov. 1816), ' Royal Nuptials' (November 1816), 'The Humour- ous Lieutenant ' (18 Jan. 1817), ' The Heir of Vironi ' (27 Feb. 1817), ' The Apostate ' (13 May 1817), ' The Libertine,' a very free adaptation of Mozart's ' Don Juan ' (20 May 1817), ' The Duke of Savoy ' (29 Sept, 1817), and ' The Father and his Children ' (25 Oct. 1817). In 1816 and 1817, in addition to his post at Covent Garden, Bishop was director of the music at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, where he wrote music for ' Exit by Mistake,' a comedy ballet (22 July 1816), and ' Teasing made Easy ' (30 July 1817). But Covent Garden remained the chief scene of his labours, and here during the next few years he wrote or adapted music for the fol- lowing plays and operas : ' The Illustrious Traveller' (3 Feb. 1818), ' Fazio ; (5 Feb. 1818), ' Zuma,' in collaboration with Braham (21 Feb. 1818), additions to 'The Devil's Bridge ' (11 April 1818), ' X Y Z ' (13 June 1818), ' The Burgomaster of Saardam ' (23 Sept. 1818), ' The Barber of Seville,' a version of Rossini's opera (13 Oct. 1818), 4 The Marriage of Figaro,' a free adaptation from Mozart (6 March 1819), 'Fortunatus and his Sons ' (12 April 1819), ' The Heart of Midlothian ' (17 April 1819), 'A Roland for an Oliver' (29 April 1819), 'Swedish Patriotism' (19 May 1819), 'The' Gnome King ' (6 Oct. 1819), ' The Comedy of Errors ' (11 Dec. 1819), 'The Antiquary' (25 Jan. 1820), 'Henri Quatre' (22 April 1820), 4 Montoni ' (3 May 1820), ' Bothwell Brigg ' (22 May 1820), 'Twelfth Night' (8 Nov. 1820), 'Don John.' (20 Feb. 1821), music to 4 Henry IV,' part ii. (25 June 1821), ' Two Gentlemen of Verona' (29 Nov. 1821),' Mont- rose' (14 Feb. 1822), 'The Law of Java,' Bishop which contains the well-known 'Mynheer van Dunck ' (11 May 1822), ' Maid Marian ' (3 Dec. 1822), 'The Vision of the Sun' (31 March 1823), ' Clari ' (8 May 1823), in which Bishop introduced or composed (for the origin of the tune is a matter of dispute) the ever-popular ' Home, sweet Home,' ' The Beacon of Liberty ' (8 Oct. 1823), ' Cortez ' (5 Nov. 1823), 'The Vespers of Palermo' (12 Dec. 1823), 'Native Land' (10 Feb. 1824), ' Charles II ' (9 May 1824), and i As you like it' (10 Dec. 1824). With the last-named work Bishop's long connection with Covent Garden terminated. In 1819 he had entered into partnership with the I management of the theatre in conducting the so-called ' oratorios,' concerts of the most I heterogeneous description, which were given at the opera-houses during Lent, and in 1820 Bishop became the sole manager of these curious entertainments. His management, however, ceased after one season. In the autumn of the same year he went to Dublin, where he was received with great honour, the freedom of the city being unanimously voted and bestowed upon him (2 Aug. 1820). In 1825 Bishop was engaged by Elliston at Drury Lane, where he produced on 19 Jan. 1825*' The Fall of Algiers.' This was fol- lowed by versions of Auber's ' Masaniello ' (17 Feb. 1825), and Rossini's ' Guillaume Tell' (11 May 1825). In the same year he brought out a revised version of his early work, 'Angelina/ and wrote (in collabora- tion with Cooke and Horn) music to ' Faustus ' (16 May) and the ' Coronation of Charles X ' (5 July). The year 1826 was memorable in the annals of music in England for the pro- duction of Weber's ' Oberon ' at Covent Gar- den, under the composer's own direction. By way of a counter-attraction, the manage- ment of Drury Lane commissioned Bishop to write a grand opera on the subject of ' Aladdin.' He took more than usual pains over this work, the composition of which oc- cupied him for at least a year, but the book was even worse than that of ' Oberon,' and the music, though written with much care, was found to be inferior to Bishop's best compositions, probably because, by attempt- ing to meet Weber on his own ground, he had only succeeded in producing a weak imi- tation of the style of the German master. 1 Aladdin,' which Avas produced on 29 April 1826, shortly after Weber's opera, was fol- lowed by several unimportant works, 'The i Knights of the Cross ' (29 May 1826), ' Eng- ! lishmen in India' (27 Jan. 1827), 'Edward ! the Black Prince ' (28 Jan. 1828), and ' Don i Pedro' (10 Feb. 1828). Bishop's permanent [connection with Drury Lane ceased about Bishop 93 Bishop this time, and his remaining writings for the J stage were produced as follows : ' The Ren- contre ' (Haymarket, 12 July 1828), ' Yelva ' (Covent Garden, 5 Feb. 1829), ' Home, sweet Home' (Covent Garden, 19 March 1829), ' The Night before the Wedding,' a version j of Boieldieu's ' Les Deux Nuits ' (Covent j Garden, 17 Nov. 1829). 'Ninetta' (Covent I Garden, 4 Feb. 1830), ' Hofer ' (Drury Lane, | 1 May 1830), ' Under the Oak ' (Vauxhall, ! 25 June 1830), 'Adelaide, or the Royal i William' (Vauxhall, 23 July 1830), 'the i Romance of a Day' (1831), 'The Tyrolese Peasant' (Drury Lane, May 1832), 'The Election' (Drury Lane, 1832), which was ; composed by Carter, but scored by Bishop, j ' The Magic Fan ' (Vauxhall, 18 June 1832), i 'The Sedan Chair' (Vauxhall, 1832), 'The ! Bottle of Champagne' (Vauxhall, 1832), and j ' The Demon,' a version of Meyerbeer's ' Ro- bert le Diable,' in which he collaborated with ; T. Cooke and R. Hughes (Drury Lane, 1832). j He also wrote music for ' Hamlet ' at Drury j Lane (1830), for Stanfield's diorama at the same theatre (1830), and for ' Kenil worth ' : (1832),'Waverley'(1832),'Manfred'(1834), ' The Captain and the Colonel ' (1835), and ' The Doom Kiss ' (1836). The long list of Bishop's writings for the stage is closed by ; ' Rural Felicity ' (Haymarket, 9 June 1839), additions to 'The Beggars' Opera' (Covent Garden, 1839), music to 'Love's Labour's Lost' (1839), and the masque of 'The Fortu- nate Isles,' written to celebrate the marriage of Queen Victoria, and produced at Covent Garden under Madame Vestris's management on 12 Feb. 1840. In 1830 Bishop left Drury Lane and was appointed musical director of Vauxhall Gar- j dens, which post he occupied for three years, j In 1832 he was commissioned by the Phil- harmonic Society to write a work for their concerts, in fulfilment of which he composed j a sacred cantata, ' The Seventh Day,' which | was performed in the following year, with- j out, however, achieving any great success. Two years later (1836) another cantata of Bishop's, ' The Departure from Paradise,' was sung at the same concerts by Malibran. Other cantatas composed by him are ' Waterloo ' (performed at Vauxhall in 1826), and a set- ting of Burns's ' Jolly Beggars.' In 1838, ac- cording to the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' (1838, i. 539), he was appointed composer to her majesty ; but this statement is proved to be inaccurate by the absence of any record of his appointment in the official documents of the lord steward's and lord chamberlain's offices, as well as by the fact that in 1847 he was desirous of obtaining the post on its becom- ing vacant. In the following year he received the degree of Mus. Bac. at Oxford. He was for some time professor of harmony and composi- tion at the Royal Academy of Music, and in November 1841 was elected to the Reid profes- sorship at Edinburgh, which appointment he continued to hold until December 1843, when he was succeeded by Henry Hugo Pierson. From 1840 to 1848 he conducted the Antient Concerts, and in 1842 he was knighted by the queen, this being the first occasion on which a musician had been so honoured. In 1848 he succeeded Dr. Crotch as professor of music at Oxford, where in 1853 he received the degree of Mus. Doc., his exercise being an ode performed on the installation of the Earl of Derby as chancellor of the university. Between 1819 and 1826 Bishop had been occupied at various times with arranging different ' Melodies of Various Nations ' and ' National Melodies ' to English words, and in 1851 he began a similar undertaking, his collaborator in this case being Dr. Charles Mackay. Of these arrangements, which are extremely free and much altered from the originals, Bishop wrote that he was more proud than of any musical composition that he had ever produced. He also edited Handel's ' Messiah ' and many other works. Though at one time Bishop must have been in receipt of a considerable income, he was extravagant in his habits and made no pro- vision for his old age, in which he was harassed by pecuniary difficulties. In a let- ter (Egerton, 2159) written in 1840 he says: 'I have worked hard, and during many a long year, for fame ! and have had many difficulties to encounter in obtaining that portion of it which I am proud to know I possess. I have been a slavish servant to the public; and too often, when I have turned each way their weathercock taste pointed, they have turned round on me and upbraided me for not remaining where I was I . . . Had the public remained truly and loyally English, I would have remained so too ! But I had my bread to get, and was obliged to watch their caprices, and give them an exotic fragrance if I could not give them the plant, when I found they were tired of, and neg- lecting the native production.' In writing these words Bishop doubtless had in mind the failure of his ' Aladdin,' but the reason- why in his later years he suffered from neg- lect was perhaps not so much the fault of the public as he thought. Possessed of a won- derful wealth of melody and great facility in composition, during the best years of his life he frittered away his talents on compositions which were not strong enough to survive be- yond the season which saw their production ; and worse than this, he not only wrote down, Bishop 94 Bishop to the level of the taste of the day, but in his adaptations from the works of great foreign musicians he altered and defaced them so as to bring them to a level with his own weak productions. If, as he complained, he suffered from the public taste veering round to the music of continental composers, it was in some sort a revenge brought about by the whirligig of time, for from no one did the works of the great masters receive worse treatment than they met with at the hands of Bishop himself. Amongst the manuscript scores in his handwriting which are preserved in the Liverpool Free Library there is a volume entirely consisting of l additional accompani- ments ' (mostly for brass and percussion in- struments), and alterations which he made in works by Beethoven, Mozart, Cherubini, Rossini, and many others, a volume which must ever remain a disgrace to the man who wrote it, and a record of the low state of musical opinion that could have allowed such barbarisms to be perpetrated without a protest. With regard to his original com- positions, there is no doubt that his style was very much based upon that of his master Bianchi, as an examination of the somewhat rare compositions of the latter will show. But, though Bishop's music is in this respect less original than is usually supposed, he was possessed of a singularly fertile vein of melody, in which the national character can be perpetually recognised, although the dress in which it is presented is rather Italian than English. In this respect Bishop may be regarded as the successor of Arne, who in the latter part of his career came under the influence of the Italian school in which Bishop received his early training. In his glees Bishop was without a rival, and it is pro- bable that it is on this form of composition that his future fame will rest ; for his songs, with the exception of a very few, are even now but seldom heard, and it is safe to pre- dict that the entire operas in which all his best glees and songs originally appeared will never bear revival. Bishop was twice married. His first wife was a Miss Lyon, who came out as a singer at Drury Lane in ' Love in a Village ' on 10 Oct. 1807, and to whom he was married soon after the production of ' The Circassian Bride/ in which opera and l The Maniac ' she sang small parts. By her he had two sons and a daughter. By his second wife [see BISHOP, ANN] he had two daughters and a son. During the greater part of his life he lived at 4 Albion Place and 13 Cambridge Street, Hyde Park. In his latter years he suffered much from cancer, and eventually died from | the effects of an operation he underwent for that disease. His death took place at his house in Cambridge Street on Monday eve- ning, 30 April 1855. He was buried on the Saturday following at the Marylebone Ceme- tery, Finchley Road, where a monument was ! erected to his memory by public subscription. I The manuscript scores of most of Bishop's I operas are preserved in the libraries of the j British Museum, the Royal College of Music, and the Free Library of Liverpool. There I are two portraits of him in the National | Portrait Gallery, both by unknown painters. There are engravings of him (1) drawn by Wageman, engraved by Woolnoth, and ! published on 1 June 1820 ; (2) engraved by S. W. Reynolds from a painting by J. Foster, published in July 1822; and (3) engraved by B. Holl and published 1 April 1828. [Grove's Diet, of Music, i. 245 ; Dictionary of Musicians, i. (1827); Add. MSS. 19569, 29905 ; Musical World, xxxiii. 282 ; Musical Times for April 1885 ; Athenaeum, 5 May 1855 ; Fitzball's Memoirs, i. 152, 196, ii. 276 ; Parke's Memoirs, ii. 36; Gent. Mag. 1838, i. 539; manu- script scores in the Royal College of Music and Liverpool Free Library; Genest's Hist, of the Stage, viii. and ix. ; information from Messrs. G. Scharf, H. Wakeford, Doyne C. Bell, and A. D. Coleridge.] W. B. S. BISHOP, JOHN (1665-1737), musical composer, was born in 1665, and (according to Hawkins) educated under Daniel Rosein- grave, but, as the latter was organist of Win- chester Cathedral from June 1682 to June 1692, and Bishop only came to Winchester in 1695, this is probably an error. Between Michaelmas and Christmas 1687 he became a lay clerk of King's College, Cambridge, where in the following year he was appointed to teach the choristers. In 1695 he was ap- pointed organist of Winchester College, on the resignation of Jeremiah Clarke, but he continued to receive his stipend at Cambridge until the Easter term of 1 696. In November 1696 he was elected a lay-vicar of Winchester Cathedral in the place of Thomas Corfe, and on 30 June 1729 he succeeded Vaughan Richardson as organist and master of the choristers of the same cathedral. Bishop's rival for this post was James Kent, who Avass esteemed a better player, but the * age and amiable disposition ' of the former, coupled with the sympathy felt for some family mis- fortune he had suffered, induced the dean and chapter to give him the appointment, Bishop remained at Winchester until his death, which took place 19 Dec. 1737. He was buried on the Avest side of the college cloister, where his epitaph styles him ' Vir singular! probit ate, in- tegerrima vita, moribus innocuis, musicaeque Bishop 95 Bishop scientise bene peritus.' Bishop published some collections of psalm tunes and anthems, copies of which are now but rarely met with. Manu- script compositions by him are preserved in the British Museum (Add. MS. 17841 , and Harl. MS. 7341), and in the libraries of the Royal College of Music (1649), and of Christ Church, Oxford. In the latter collection is a complete copy of his i Morning and Evening Service ' in I), the Te Deum from which is to be found in other collections. Dr. Philip Hayes's ' Har- monia Wiccamica' (1780) also contains some Latin compositions by Bishop for the use of Winchester College. All his extant works are interesting as showing the manner in which the disregard of proper emphasis and the introduction of meaningless embellish- ments gradually corrupted the style of the school of which Purcell was the greatest orna- ment, and led to the inanities of writers like Kent. Hawkins, who has been followed by other biographers, says that Bishop was at one time organist of Salisbury, but this is in- accurate. The organists of Salisbury (and the dates of their appointments) during Bishop's life were as follows : Michael Wise (1668), Peter Isaacke (1687), Daniel Rosein- grave (1692), Anthony Walkley (1700), and Edward Thompson (1718). [Hawkins's Hist, of Music (ed. 1853), p. 767 ; Hayes's Harmonia Wiccamica (1780) ; Records of King's Coll. Cambridge (communicated by the Rev. A. Austen Leigh) ; Chapter Registers of Salisbury (communicated by the Rev. S. M. Lakin) ; Chapter Registers of Winchester ; in- formation from the Rev. J. H. Mee ; Catalogues of the British Museum and Royal College of Music.] W. B. S. BISHOP, JOHN (1797-1873), surgeon, was the fourth son of Mr. Samuel Bishop, of Pimperne, Dorsetshire. He was born on 15 Sept. 1797, and he received his education at the grammar school at Childe Okeford in Dorsetshire, where he remained for several years. Bishop was originally intended for the legal profession, but this intention was never carried out, and for many years he led the life of a country gentleman. When about twenty-five years of age Bishop was induced by his cousin, Mr. John Tucker of Bridport, to enter the medical profession. After a short preliminary practice, under the direction of his relative, at Bridport, he came to London and entered at St. George's Hospital under Sir Everard Home. While studying in this hospital Bishop attended the lectures of Sir Charles Bell, of Mr. Guthrie, and Dr. George Pearson, and he was a regular attendant at the chemical courses which were delivered at the Royal Institution. In 1824 he obtained the diploma of the Royal College of Surgeons, and entered regularly into his profession. He soon acquired a reputation as a careful and skilful observer. This secured for him the offices of senior surgeon to the Islington Dispensary, and surgeon to the Northern and St. Pancras dispensaries, and to the Drapers' Benevolent Institution. In 1844 Bishop contributed a paper to the 'Philosophical Transactions ' of the Royal Society, on the ' Physiology of the Human Voice.' He was shortly afterwards elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and a corresponding member of the medical societies of Berlin and Ma- drid. The Royal Academy of Science of Paris awarded him two, prizes for memoirs 1 On the Human and Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of Voice.' He was the au- thor of a work l On Distortions of the Hu- man Body,' another l On Impediments of Speech,' and one ' On Hearing and Speaking Instruments.' These works were remarkable for the careful examinations which the author had made on the subjects under investigation, and for the mathematical demonstration given of each theory advanced by him. Bishop con- tributed several articles to Todd's { Cyclopae- dia,' and many papers of more or less impor- tance to the medical literature of the day. Bishop was a man of varied attainments ; he was conversant with continental as well as English literature, and to within a few months of his death he was deeply interested in the progress of science. On 29 Sept. 1873 he died at Strange way s-Marshale, Dorsetshire, within a few miles of his birthplace. [Proceedings of the Royal Societj^ xxi. 5 (1873); Catalogue of Scientific Papers, vol. i. (1877).] R. H-T. BISHOP, SAMUEL (1731-1795), poet, was born in St. John Street, London, on 21 Sept. 1731, but his father, George Bishop, came from Dorset, and his mother from Sussex. He was entered at Merchant Taylors' School in June 1743, and soon became known among his fellow scholars for aptitude and knowledge. In June 1750 he was elected to St. John's College, Oxford, and became a scholar of that institution on 25 June, his matriculation entry at the university being ' 1750, June 28, St. John's, Samuel Bishop, 18, Georgii, Londini, pleb. fil.' Three years later (June 1753) he was elected a fellow of his college, and in the following April took his degree of B.A. Not long afterwards he was ordained to the curacy of Headley in Surrey, and resided either in that village or at Oxford until 1758, when he took his M.A. degree. On 26 July 1758 Bishop was ap- pointed third under-master of his old school, Bishop 9 6 Bishop rose to the second under-mastership 11 Feb. 1772, became the first under-master 12 Aug. 1778, and the head-master 22 Jan. 1783. His preferments in the church were two, the first being the rectory of Ditton in Kent, and the second the rectory of St. Martin Outwich in London, 1 March 1789. He had married in 1763, at St. Austin's, Watling Street, Mary, daughter of Joseph Palmer, of Old Mailing, near Lewes, and at her husband's death, on 17 Nov. 1795, she survived him with one daughter. Bishop was buried in St. Martin Outwich. Bishop published during his lifetime an anonymous 'Ode to the Earl of Lincoln on the Duke of New- castle's retirement' J 762, an effusion said to have been prompted by the connection of his future wife's family with the duke ; numerous essays and poems, signed S. and P. in a division of the 'Publick Ledger' for 1763 and 1764 ; a Latin translation of an ode of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams to Stephen Poyntz ; a volume entitled ' Ferige Poeticse, sive Carmina Anglicana . . . Latine reddita/ 1766 ; and a sermon on the anniversary of Mr. Henry Raine's charity, 1 May 1783. After his death the Rev. Thomas Clare col- lected and printed a volume of 'Sermons chiefly upon Practical Subjects, by the Rev. Samuel Bishop, A.M./ 1798, and two volumes of the ' Poetical Works of the Rev. Samuel Bishop, A.M./ 1796, with a life of the author. A second edition was issued in 1800, a third in 1802, and the poems were embodied in Ezekiel Sanford's 'Works of British Poets/ vol. xxxvii., a collection printed at Phila- delphia. The smaller poems are very grace- ful and pleasing; those to his wife on the recurring anniversaries of their wedding-day, and to their daughter on her various birth- days, breathy the purest affection. Southey said of Bishop that * no other poet crowds so many syllables into a verse. . . . His domestic poems breathe a Dutch spirit by which I mean a very amiable and happy feeling of domestic duties and enjoyments.' Bishop's widow subsequently married the Rev. Thomas Clare, who became the vicar of St. Bride's, Fleet Street. [Gent. Mag. 1795, pt. ii. 972, 994, 1052 ; Life j by Clare ; Southey's Commonplace Book. iv. I 308-9 ; Robinson's Register of Merchant Taylors' ! School, i. p. xv ; Wilson's Merchant Taylors' School, 450, 510-20, 1098, 1130. 1137, 1178; Malcolm's Loncl. Redivivum, iv. 407.1 W. P. C. BISHOP, WILLIAM, D.D. (1554-1624), bishop of Chalcedon, the son of John Bishop, who died in 1601 at the age of ninety-two, was born of a ' genteel family ' at Brailes in Warwickshire in or about 1554. l Though always a catholic ' (DoDD, Church Hist. ii. 361), he was sent to the university of Oxford in the seventeenth year of his age, ' in 1570, or thereabouts ;' and Wood conjectures that he studied either in Gloucester Hall or Lincoln College, which societies were then governed by men who were catholics at heart. It has indeed been surmised, with some ap- pearance of probability, that he was the Wil- liam Bishop who matriculated at Cambridge, as a member of Trinity College, on 2 Dec. 1572, and who took the degree of B.A. in | that university in 1585 (MS. Addit. 5863 f. 156 #), but the biography in Pits's work, ' De illustribus Anglise Scriptoribus ' (1619), the preface to which was written by Bishop himself, must be taken as conclusive evidence that he studied at Oxford. After remaining j there three or four years he settled his pater- nal estate, which was considerable, upon his younger brother, and went over to the Eng- j lish college at Rheims, where he began his- | theological studies, which he subsequently j pursued at Rome. He then returned to> Rheims, was ordained priest at Loan in May 1583, and was sent to the English mission, t but being arrested on his landing, he was- j taken before secretary Walsingham and was imprisoned in the Marshalsea with other priests. Towards the close of the year 1584 i he was released, and proceeded to Paris, where ! he studied with great application for several i years, and was made a licentiate of divinity. He returned to England upon the mission, 15 May 1591 . After labouring here for about two years he returned to Paris to complete the degree of D.D., and then came back to England. When a dispute arose between George Blackwell [q.v.], the archpriest, and a num- ber of his clergy, who appealed against him for maladministration and exceeding his commis- sion, Bishop and John Charnock were sent to< Rome by their brethren to remonstrate against him. On their arrival they were both taken into custody by order of Cardinal Cajetan, the protector of the English nation, who had been informed that they were turbulent persons and the head of a factious party. They were confined in the English college under the inspection of Father Robert Parsons, the j esuit. After a t ime they regained their liberty and returned to England. [For the result of the dispute see BLACKWELL, GEOKGE.] The catholics were greatly alarmed in King James's reign by the new oath of allegiance, and Bishop had his share in those troubles ; he was committed prisoner to the Gatehouse, although he and twelve other priests had given ample satisfaction as to all parts of Bishop 97 Bissait civil allegiance in a declaration published by them in the last year of Queen Elizabeth's reign. He was examined on 4 May 1611, when he said he was opposed to the Jesuits, but declined to take the oath of allegiance, as Blackwell and others had done, because he wished to uphold the credit of the secular priests at Rome, and to get the English col- lege there out of the hands of the Jesuits (State Papers, James I, Dom. vol. Ixiii.) On being again set at liberty he went to Paris and joined the small community of contro- versial writers which had been formed in Arras College. Ever since the death of Thomas Goldwell, bishop of St. Asaph, in 1585, when, accord- ing to the view taken by Roman catholics, the ancient hierarchy came to an end, the holy see had been frequently importuned to appoint a bishop for England. Some obstacle always intervened, but at length, after three archpriests had been appointed in succession to govern the secular clergy, the holy see ac- ceded to the wishes of the English catholics, and nominated Bishop as vicar-apostolic and bishop elect of Chalcedon in February 1622-3. In the following month a bull issued for his consecration, and it was followed almost im- mediately by a brief, conferring on him epi- scopal jurisdiction over the catholics of Eng- land and Scotland. ' When thou shalt be arrived in those kingdoms/ says the brief, ' we give thee license, at the good will of our- selves and our successors in the holy see, freely and lawfully to enjoy and use all and each of those faculties committed by our pre- decessors to the archpriests, as also such as ordinaries enjoy and exercise in their cities and dioceses.' Thus Bishop had ordinary jurisdiction over the catholics of England and Scotland, but it was revocable at the pleasure of the pope, so that in the language of cu- rialists he was vicar-apostolic with ordinary jurisdiction. In exercise of his power he instituted a dean and a chapter as a standing council for his own assistance, with power, during the vacancy of the see, to exercise episcopal ordinary jurisdiction, professing at the same time that ' what defect might be in his own power he would supplicate his holiness to make good from the plenitude of his own.' The appointment of this chapter occasioned many warm debates between the secular and the regular clergy. Bishop was consecrated at Paris on 4 June 1623, and he landed at Dover on 31 July. The summer he spent in administering the sacrament of confirmation to the catholics in and near London. He passed most of the winter in retirement, intending to visit the more re- mote parts of the kingdom in the spring, YOL. V. but falling sick at the residence of Sir Basil Brook, at Bishop's-court near London, he died on 13 April 1624. Wood is mistaken in supposing that Bishop was in his latter days a member of the order of St. Benedict. His works are : 1. ( Reformation of a Ca- tholic deformed by Will. Perkins,' 2 parts, 1604-7, 4to. 2. ' A Reproofe of M. Doct, 1 Abbot's Defence of the Catholike Deformed by M.W. Perkins. Wherein his sundry abuses of Gods sacred word, and most manifold mangling, misaplying, and falsifying the auncient Fathers sentences, be so plainely discouered, euen to the eye of euery indif- ferent reader, that whosouer hath any due care of his owne saluation, can neuer here- | after giue him more credit, in matter of faith | and religion,' 2 parts, Loud. 1608, 4to. 3. 'Dis- proof of Dr. R. Abbots counter-proof against i Dr. Bishops reproof of the defence of Mr. Perkins' reform. Cath./ Paris 1614, 4to, i part i. 4. ' Defence of the King's honour i and his title to the Kingdom of England.' 5. Several pieces concerning the archpriest's | jurisdiction. 6. Preface to John Pits's book, j r. Samuel Hopkins speaks of Blackstone AS ' a man of learning/ and doubtfully adds : ' He seems to have been of the puritan per- suasion, and to have left his country for his nonconformity.' He tells us also that ' he used to come to Providence and preach, and to encourage his hearers gave them the first .apples they ever saw ' his orchard having been as celebrated as his library. Lechford, who wrote in 1641, thus mentions him : * One Mr. Blackstone, a minister sent from Boston, having lived there nine or ten years, because he would not join the church : he lives with Mr. [Roger] Williams, but is far from his opinions/ [Massachusetts Historical Collections, iv. 202, x. 710; Johnson's Wonder-working Providence, where is to be found a notice of one who sym- pathised with Blackstone: 'Mr. Samuel Maverick, living on Noddle's Island in Boston Harbour . . . a,n enemy to the reformation in hand, being strong for the lordly prelatical power ; ' Holmes's An- nals, i. 377 ; Savage's Winthrop, i. 44 ; Everett's Address, Second Century, 29 ; Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, v. 1-3.] A. B. Gr. BLACKSTONE, SIR WILLIAM (1723- 1780), legal writer and judge, was born in Cheapside, London, on 10 July 1723. He was the posthumous son of Charles Blackstone, who is described as ' a silkman, and citizen and bowyer of London,' and who came of a Wilt- shire family. His mother, a daughter of Love- lace Bigg of Chilton Foliot in Wiltshire, died before he was twelve years of age, leaving him to the care of his brother, a London surgeon. Through being thus early left an orphan, he was saved, it has been reasonably suggested, from passing through life as a prosperous tradesman. He had already gone to Charter- house School, and after his mother's death was, on the nomination of Sir Robert Wai- pole, admitted on the foundation. When he left for Oxford in 1738, he was head of the school ; and perhaps from the fact that he gained a gold medal for some verses on Milton, we may gather that his mind had already received its strong literary bent. At Pembroke College, whicli he entered at the age of fifteen, his studies were chiefly in classical learning. Among his contemporaries was Shenstone the poet ; and doubtless at this time were written most of the ' originals and translations ' which he is said to have after- wards collected in an unpublished volume. Prom the pieces which can still be traced to him, and which are full of the strained and .stilted mannerisms of the period, we can judge that nothing has been lost to English literature by Blackstone's seeking in poetiy only a relaxation. In 1741 he entered him- self at the Middle Temple, solemnly marking the change in his life by a poem entitled ' The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse,' wherein English law is figured, in the spirit of his 1 Commentaries,' as a complex yet harmonious whole. The poem has been often reprinted, i e.g. in Dodsley, vol. in., Southey's ' Speci- mens of English Poetry,' Irving Browne's i ' Law and Lawyers in Literature.' Of his : legal studies we know nothing except from a ! letter written by him in 1745 (see Law Stud. Mag. ii. 279), in which he describes himself | as following the plan sketched out by C. J. ; Reeve (see Coll. Jurid. i. 79), and as having | already finished one book of Littleton with- out experiencing much difficulty. ' In my apprehension,' he says, again anticipating the ' Commentaries,' ' the learning out of use is as necessary to a beginner as that of every day's practice.' The vow of exclusive at- tachment to law was not rigorously kept. Before completing his twentieth year he had written a treatise on the ' Elements of Archi- tecture,' which has never been published, but which was highly spoken of by those to whom it was shown. He became a careful student of Shakespeare; Malone tells us that ' the notes which he gave me on Shakespeare show him to have been a man of excellent taste and accuracy, and a good critick ' (PRIOR, Life of Malone, 431. The notes are initialed l E' in Malone's supplement). Even verse was not abandoned, though he had to write in secret. His friends particu- larly admired a poem written by him in 1751 on the death of Frederick, prince of Wales ; but it has now little interest except to collectors of literary parallels, who will compare with ' the cock's shrill clarion ' of Gray's ' Elegy ' (published in the same year) The bird of day 'Gan morn's approach with clarion shrill declare. It appeared under the name of Blackstone's brother-in-law, Clitherow, and is, reprinted in 'Gent, Mag.' li. 335. This interest in literature never left him. Thus in his last years, when he sat on the bench, we find him carefully discussing, as if it were an im- portant legal case, the quarrel between Pope and Addison, and criticising by the light of Pope's letters the account of the quarrel given in Ruff head's < Life.' He had already been elected a fellow of All Souls (1744) and had taken the degree of B.C.L. (1745), when, after the usual period of probation, then five years, he was called to the bar in 1740. For a long time he made little way, ' not being/ it is said, 'happy in a graceful delivery or a flow of elocution (both of which he much wanted), Blackstone 134 Blackstone nor having- any powerful friends or con- nections to recommend him.' Perhaps his lack of friends is exaggerated, for only three years after his call he succeeded one of his uncles as recorder of Wallingford. Still his practice must have been small. He attended the courts assiduously, but in the notes which he took of important cases his own name occurs only twice in the period from 1746 to 1760. He was busy, however, at Oxford. He assisted in bringing to completion the Codrington Library, and as bursar of his college and steward of its manors, he had an opportunity of exercising his almost exces- sive love of order and regularity, ' applying his legal mind/ says Professor Burrows, ' to the examination of all the documents bearing on the college property, re-arranging its ar- chives, and leaving ... a characteristic re- cord of the labour he had bestowed on its accounts in a special manuscript book for the benefit of his successors ' ( Worthies of All Souls, p. 400 ; CHALMERS, i. 179). With the same earnestness he entered into the question of founder's kin, which then agitated the col- lege. Claims had been made J3y remote col- lateral descendants to the privileges which Archbishop Chichele declared in favour of his kin. The college held that some bounds should be put to the meaning of kindred, but their i decisions in particular cases were uniformly ! overruled by the visitors. Blackstone defended ! the college in a tract on * Collateral Consan- j guinity ' (1750, reprinted in ' Law Tracts '), arguing that if there were no collateral limit j all men would be founder's kin, and con- j eluding in favour of the limit of the canon j law, namely the seventh degree. It was < probably due in great part to the assistance ; which he thus gave that in his lifetime a ; regulation was made limiting the number of > privileged fellows. He found fresh work in \ un attempt to reform the administration of j the Clarendon Press. On being appointed a j delegate in 1755 he saw the Press * languish- : ing in a lazy obscurity,' and set himself to ; discover the cause. He studied the charters, statutes, and registers relating to it, and i * had repeated conferences,*' he says, ' with the most eminent masters, in London and other places, with regard to the mechanical part of printing.' His recommendations, i many of which were earned into effect, he set out in a letter to Dr. Randolph, the j vice-chancellor, which still retains some in- terest from its details as to the cost of | printing. Blackstone himself gave an ex- ample of admirable printing in his edition of * Magna Charta,' published by the Clarendon Press in 1758, under the direction of Dr. Prince (THOMSON, Magna Charta). He had meanwhile been led to the chief work of his life. Murray, the solicitor- general (afterwards Lord Mansfield), had recommended him to the Duke of Newcastle for the professorship of civil law at Oxford, which fell vacant in 1752; but owing, it is said, to his want of readiness to promise that he would give the duke his political support at the university, he was passed over (see an account of his interview with the duke in HOLLIDAY'S Life of Mansfield, i. 88). The disappointment was great, but Murray, who seems even then to have understood where Blackst one's strength lay, advised him to go to Oxford and read lectures on English law. As it turned out, he could not have had better advice. Not only were his lectures received with great favour, but they sug- gested to Mr. Viner the idea of founding a chair of English law (HOLLIDAY, p. 89). Mr. Viner, who had himself done useful work in compiling his l Abridgment of Law and Equity,' bequeathed a sum of 12,000/. for the purpose ; and so clear w r ere his direc- tions that in 1758, only two years after his death, his scheme was carried to completion, and Blackstone, as the first professor, began his lectures (see an account of Yiner's bene- faction in BLACKSTONE'S Commentaries, i. 28rc). Among his hearers at one time was Bentham, who claims to have even then detected the fallacies that were to appear in the i Com- mentaries,' and who describes him as 'a formal, precise, and affected lecturer just what you would expect from the character of his writings ; cold, reserved, and wary exhibiting a frigid pride ' (BowRiNG, Bent- ham, x. 45). The subject was a novel one in an English university ; and Blackstone's lectures, which showed the skill of the man of letters quite as much as the learning of the lawyer, attracted considerable attention, and quickly led to a bettering of his own prospects. He took up law r once more, and for several years lived a twofold life : in London, practising at Westminster, and sit- ting in parliament as member for the rotten borough of Hindon in Wiltshire (1761) ; and at Oxford, holding not only his professorship, but also the principalship of New Inn Hall,, to which he was appointed in 1761. From this time onward his name occurs frequently in his own reports of cases ; and, seeing that in 1761 he was offered and that he declined the chief justiceship of the Common Pleas in Ireland, and that two years later he was made solicitor-general to the queen, he must have rapidly risen to a high place in his pro- fession. Through his published w r orks, too, he was becoming known as a careful student of legal history. He had been counsel in the Blackstone '35 Blackstone case of the Oxfordshire election in 1754, when one of the questions raised was whether tenants holding by copy of court roll ac- cording to the custom of the manor, though ; not at the will of the lord, were freeholders | qualified to vote in elections for knights of j the shire. The case exciting great interest, | Blackstone elaborately discussed the ques- I tion in his ' Considerations on Copyholders,' | tracing the history of the tenures in dispute, ! and arguing that they could not confer the I freehold vote. The matter was settled by the passing of the act 31 Geo. II, cap. 14, which declared all tenants holding by copy of court roll incapable of voting. Apart from its own value, Blackstone 's tract shows that he had made a far more careful study of the history of English tenures than his ' Commentaries ' would lead one to imagine. But here, as elsewhere, he accepted too readily the conclusions of previous writers, never questioning, for instance, the theory, afterwards repeated in a balder form in the * Commentaries,' and still almost universally received as true, that copyholders were ori- ginally villeins in a state of bondage, who after the Conquest, by the ' good-nature and benevolence ' of their lords, had been per- mitted to hold their lands without interrup- tion till finally they got fixity of tenure ac- cording to the custom of the manor. (Black- stone is not to blame for originating the theory ; see COKE'S Compleat Copyholder, sect, xxxii. ; BACON'S Use of the Law ; WRIGHT'S Tenures, 3rd ed. p. 220; GIL- BERT'S Tenures, p. 155. A great part of the passage in the ' Commentaries,' in fact, is in Wright's words) . In 1 759 Blackstone brought out his first important work, an edition of the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest. It contains the Articles of the Barons, the issues of the Great Charter in 1215, 1216, and 1217, with several charters of confirmation, the Charter of the Forest, and the Statute of Marlebridge. In a long introduction he traces the history of the charter up to the 29 Edw. I, and gives an account of the various manuscripts known to him, most of which he had himself ex- amined (see in the Introd. to Statutes of the Realm the results of later research compared with Blackstone's work). Some imperfect reports of his lectures having been circulated, and some having ' fallen,' as he says, ' into mercenary hands, and become the object of clandestine sale,' | Blackstone determined to prepare them for I publication in the form of a general sur- vey of English law. The manuscript notes | of his lectures, in his own handwriting, j are in the library of the Incorporated Law Society. They are in four volumes, written with great neatness, and with scarcely a single erasure. He produced the first volume of the ' Commentaries ' in 1765, and the other three volumes at intervals during the next four years. The work begins with his first Yinerian lecture on the study of the law, an elegant plea, once much admired, 'that a competent knowledge of the laws of that society in which we live is the proper accom- plishment of every gentleman and scholar r (cf. the preface to WOOD'S Institutes). He goes on, by way of introduction, to discuss the nature of laws in general (in a chapter which, says Sir H. Maine, ' may almost be said to have made Bentham and Austin into jurists by virtue of sheer repulsion '), the sources of English law, the countries subject to that law, and the legal divisions of Eng- land. In the exposition of the law he fol- lows the arrangement of which he had pub- lished the outline on beginning his lectures (Analysis of the Law, 1754), and which in substance he adopted from Hale's ' Analysis of the Civil part of the Law.' He treats first of the rights commanded or recognised by the law, and secondly of the wrongs which it prohibits ; rights again he divides, accepting Hale's unfortunate translation from Roman law, into rights of persons and rights of things (or property), and wrongs into private wrongs, or civil injuries, and public wrongs, or ' crimes and misdemeanors.' To each of these four divisions is allotted a volume (see a table representing in detail * the arrangement which seems to have been intended by Sir William Blackstone ' in AUSTIN, ii. 1018). The work closes with a chapter on the rise, progress, and gradual improvements of the laws of England, which is interesting as having suggested to Reeves- the utility of a history of English law filled up with some minuteness upon the outline there drawn. The work thus covers the field of law, and though its critics have remarked some disproportion in its parts, such subjects as public law, equity, ecclesiastical law, and the constitution and jurisdiction of the courts- receiving less than their due attention, yet there is a singular completeness in the whole. Few books have been more successful than the ' Commentaries.' From his lectures, and from the sale of the work, he is said to- have made altogether about 14,000/. (PRIOR, Malone, p. 431 ; in BOHMER'S Litteratur de Criminal-Rechts the sum is said to have been 16,0007.) Eight editions appeared in the author's lifetime, and the ninth edition was ready for publication. For sixty years after his death editions continued to follow Blackstone 136 Blackstone one another almost as quickly ; editors were ; found in men like Burn, Christian, Coleridge, j and Chitty, who felt that they were render- : ing a service to their profession in annotat- ; ing Blackstone with minute and almost tender care ; and laymen turned to him to find for the first time English law made readable. So great have been the growth and the changes of law during the last century that to keep the work up to date by means of footnotes is now an almost hopeless task. The attempt is not abandoned in America (see Cooley's edition, 1884), but Blackstone's text has not been reprinted in England since the edition of 1844. As an institutional treatise, however, it still stands alone. When anno- tation grew too cumbersome, less reverent editors came who laid hands 011 the text itself, .and by mechanically inserting corrections and additions adapted it to modern use. In most cases, from a strange desire for uniformity, they have even removed from the lecture on the study of the law the form of oral address and all the references which it contains to the circumstances of its delivery, and have given it thus maimed as aformal introductory chapter ; while Blackstone's worn-out theories on the origin and nature of law and govern- ment have been considered to need only abridgment and not revision. The best known of the adaptations, in point of arrangement and otherwise composed with a freer hand than the rest (the poor laws, for example, being no longer treated under the head of overseers of the poor), is Stephen's 'New Commentaries on the Laws of England,' first published in 1841. It reached a ninth edition in 1883, and is now the recognised text-book by which solicitors are introduced to law. It is still to Blackstone, in some form or other, that English law students turn who seek a general view of the subject. The ' Commen- taries has had a yet higher legal fame, having almost, but not quite, reached the distinction accorded to those treatises which, as Black- stone himself says, ' are cited as authority . . . and do not entirely depend on the strength of their quotations from older authors.' (But see Lord Redesdale's protest against the citing of the ' Commentaries ' as an authority, 1 Sch. and Lef. 327.) His name is constantly heard in our courts, and to this day judges fortify their decisions by quoting his state- ment of the law. ' If he has fallen into some minute mistakes in matter of detail,' said Lord Campbell, in the famous case of the Queen v. Mills, ' I believe that upon a great question like this, as to the constitution of marriage, there is no authority to be more relied upon ' (10 CL and Fin. 767). How wide his influence has been may be judged on the one side from the fact that throughout Digby's ( History of the Law of Real Pro- perty ' his work is referred to ' as at once the most available and the most trustworthy authority on the law of the eighteenth cen- tury,' and on the other side from the publi- cation in 1822 of Sir J. E. Eardley-Wilmot's Abridgment, ' intended for the use of young persons, and comprised in a series of letters from a father to his daughter,' and from the existence of a ' Comic Blackstone/ His re- putation is not confined to England. (See translations in bibliography.) It was made, indeed, matter of reproach to French jurists that they incessantly cited Blackstone as a great authority, rating him even higher than did his own countrymen ; and it is still to the ' Commentaries ' that most continental writers refer on points of English law. Nowhere has his work been more widely read than in America. 1 1 hear,' said Burke, in 1775, ' that they have sold nearly as many of Black- stone's Commentaries in America as in Eng- land.' It has been edited and abridged in America nearly as often as in England ; it suggested to Chancellor Kent the idea of writing his ' Commentaries on American Law :' and there, as here, it has shaped the course of legal education. Yet while edition after edition was ap- pearing the work had many hard things said about it. There were some who looked with apprehension on an attempt to make smooth the path of the student of law. President Jeiferson is reported to have doubted the pro- priety of citing in America English autho- rities after the period of emigration, and still more after the declaration of independence, and to have said that the consequence of ex- cluding them would be ' to uncanonise Black- stone, whose book, although the most eloquent and best digested of our law catalogue, has been perverted more than all others to the degeneracy of legal science. A student finds there a smattering of everything, and his indolence easily persuades him that if he understands that book he is master of the whole body of the law ' (TuCKEK, Life of Jefferson, ii. 361. See a similar opinion in RITSO'S Introduction to the Science of Law). Blackstone sustained more vigorous attacks at home. In 1769, when the publication of the first edition was completed, Dr. Priestley wrote what Blackstone called ( a very angTy pamphlet ' on some passages in the ' Com- mentaries ' relating to dissenters. Black- stone replied in a conciliatory tone, admit- ting that the passages needed some revision in point of expression, but confessing to no material change of opinion: and Priestley wrote a second letter of explanation, in which, Blackstone 137 Blackstone as one of his friends said, ' there is rather too ; much submission for the honour of having "been noticed ' (RuTT, Memoirs of Priestley, i. 73). The same part of the work was sub- jected to a more careful examination in cer- tain letters on the Toleration Act, addressed \ to Blackstone by Dr. Furneaux, who not only condemned its illiberal spirit, but found grave fault with it as an incomplete statement of the law. These criticisms were so far suc- cessful that in subsequent editions the ob- noxious passages were considerably modified ; the doubt, for example, being no longer ex- ! pressed whether, as compared with those of | the papists, ' the spirit, the doctrines, and the ' practice of the sectaries are better calculated ' to make men good subjects.' A few years later (1776) came Bentham's famous ' Frag- ment on Government/ directed against the digression on the legislative power of govern- | ment which occurs (pp. 47-50) in Black- | stone's chapter on the nature of laws in general, where he states his quaint proof of the perfection of the British constitution. Bentham did not notice, nor did Blackstone acknowledge, that much of this chapter comes from Burlamaqui, the very words being some- times reproduced. Even the digression ? which to Bentham seemed to be made without any reason, occurs in Burlamaqui with the same context (Droit de la Nature, part i. ch. 8. Evidently Blackstone had before him Nu- gent's translation published in 1748). In the preface to the tract Bentham summed up his opinion of the ' Commentaries' as a whole, and while frankly recognising Blackstone's merits, ' who, first of all institutional writers, has taught jurisprudence to speak the lan- guage of the scholar and the gentleman,' urged that the work is thoroughly vitiated by its tone of intolerance and of blind ad- miration. We have only Bentham's own account of the way in which Blackstone re- ceived the criticism ; when asked if he would answer it, he said, 'No, not even if it had been better written.' (For Bent ham's opinion of Blackstone see also the very strongly worded remarks extracted from his common- place book in BOWRING'S Bentham, x. 141.) The judgment of Austin was not less severe. To him Blackstone's arrangement is a slavish and blundering copy of Hale's ; in the whole work ( ; the far too celebrated Commentaries' he calls it) there is not a single particle of original or discriminating thought ; its flattery of English institutions is ' a paltry but effec- tual artifice' which has made it popular; and its style, for which other critics have only one voice of admiration, is ' a style which is fitted to tickle the ear, though it never or xarely satisfies a severe and masculine taste ' (i. 71). There should be mentioned one other critic, long ago forgotten, Sedgwick, the editor of Gilbert's ' Law of Evidence,' who, with strong dissent, yet in a spirit of great fair- ness and with minute care, discusses Black- stone's first volume, chapter by chapter (Remarks Critical and Miscellaneous on the Commentaries of Sir W. Blackstone, 1800 ; 2nd ed. 1808). A weak reply to Sedgwick was made by W. H. Rowe in a f Vindication of Blackstone's Commentaries ' (1806). The criticisms of Bentham and of Austin had weight enough to bring Blackstone into undue discredit. To read the ' Commentaries ' ceased to be considered an essential part of the liberal education of gentlemen and scholars, and it grew the fashion to speak lightly of the work. There seems now to be the beginning of a more just appreciation. Most of the specific charges against Black- stone were indeed well founded. His was not a mind of much analytical power, nor in any high sense was he an original thinker. His philosophy of law was but a confused mingling of the theories of Puffendorf, Locke, and Montesquieu ; and its importance now consists only in its having created, by repul- sion, the later English school of jurispru- dence. Of the spirit of intellectual inde- pendence he had very little. Partly by nature, partly through his political sympathies, partly also, it must be remembered, from a truly worthy admiration of a great system of law and government, he was conservative almost to rigidity. In a characteristic passage he declared that the legal restraints to which Englishmen were subject in his day were ' so gentle and moderate . . . that no man of sense or probity would wish to see them slackened ' (i. 144) ; and, with not less bold- ness, speaking of the time of Charles II, and drawing a distinction bet ween the theoretical perfection of law and its practical working, he said that * by the law, as it then stood, . . . the people had as large a portion of real liberty as is consistent with a state of society ' (iv. 439 ; see AM os's The English Con- stitution in the Reign of Charles II, which is a detailed examination of this opinion ; it is discussed also in Fox's History, in ROSE'S Observations, and in HEYWOOD'S Vindication ; and see also how Blackstone himself explains his habit of defending legal anomalies, i. 172). The extent of his learning, moreover, has been often exaggerated. He never knew the civil law otherwise than superficially, and frequently states it inaccurately ; and even in English law his work is not more remark- able for original research than for the sin- gular skill which it shows in making a happy use of the labours of previous text-writers. Blackstone 138 Blackstone As Lord Ellenborough suggested, he made himself a learned lawyer by writing the ' Commentaries' (see the discussion on Black- stone's merits in 23 Parl. Hist. 1078). But within his own sphere of exposition his merits are very great. ' It requires, perhaps,' says Coleridge, in the preface to his edition of the ' Commentaries,' ' the study necessarily im- posed upon an editor to understand fully the whole extent of praise to which the author is entitled ; his materials should be seen in their crude and scattered state ; the contro- versies examined, of which the sum only is shortly given ; what he has rejected, what he has forborne to say should be Known ; before his learning, judgment, taste, and, above all, his total want of self-display can be justly appreciated.' To this just eulogy one need only add that Blackstone had formed the true conception of an institutional work, which not merely should state the principles of ex- isting law, but by means of ' the learning out of use ' should explain their growth. And so well did he carry out his plan that in the ' Commentaries ' there is still to be found the best general history of English law, needing comparatively little correction, and told with admirable clearness and spirit. To his style Austin did less than justice. It lacks variety and restraint ; but, except amid the loose generalities of the introductory chapters, it is never obscure, and at its best it rises to con- siderable dignity. Fox thought it ' the very best among our modern writers, always easy and intelligible ; far more correct than Hume, and less studied and made up than Robert- son ' (TROTTER, Memoirs ; see also Fox's speech on Lord Ellenborough's admission to the cabinet). In 1766 Blackstone, with a growing prac- tice and failing health, resigned both his professorship and his principalship. He still continued to sit in the House of Commons, being returned for the new parliament of 1 768 as member for Westbury, in Wiltshire. But beyond a slight connection with Dr. Mus- grave's report on the peace of 1763 (16 Parl. Hist. 763), his political career was marked by only a single incident. In the exciting de- bates on Wilkes he played an unfortunate part. On the motion to declare Luttrell elected, Blackstone gave it as his opinion that Wilkes was by common law disqualified from sitting in the house. Grenville retorted by quoting from the ' Commentaries ' (i. 162) the causes of disqualification, none of which applied to Wilkes. ' It is well known,' says Philo- Junius, describing the scene, ' that there was n pause of some minutes in the house, from a general expectation that the doctor would say something in his own defence; but it- seems his faculties were too much over- powered to think of those subtleties and re- finements which have since occurred to him.' The matter gave rise to a prolonged paper controversy, in which Sir W. Meredith, Blackstone, Jimius, Dr. Johnson, and others took part. Blackstone, who argued that the expulsion of a member creates in him an in- capacity of being re-elected, had certainly the worst of the controversy, maintaining without great dignity an indefensible posi- tion (see MAY'S Parliamentary Practice, p. 63). Without allowing himself to have been in the wrong, he took pains in his next edition to state the causes of disqualification so as to include such a case as that of Wilkes (i. 162-3 ; the last sentence of the paragraph does not occur in the first edition). Hence came the toast at opposition banquets : ' The first edi- tion of Dr. Blackstone*s " Commentaries on the Laws of England"' (MAHON, Hist. v. 352). After this experience, Blackstone was no doubt glad to retire from parliament. He was invited to be solicitor-general, but he de- clined the office, as hopes of ajudgeship were at the same time held out to him. In Fe- bruary 1770 he was made a justice of the Common Pleas, but he immediately exchanged places with Mr. Justice Yates, and for a few months sat with Lord Mansfield in the court of King's Bench. On Yates's death in the same year he returned to the Common Pleas. He acquired the reputation of being a pains- taking judge, and nothing more. Although he had now unquestionably made himself a learned lawyer, his excessive caution and a scrupulous adherence to formalities stood sadly in his Avay. What Malone tells us of him is in keeping with his general character:. 'There were more new trials granted in causes which came before him on circuit than were granted on the decisions of any other "-} who sat at Westminster in his time. 'he reason was that, being extremely diffi- dent of his opinion, he never supported it with much warmth or pertinacity in the court above if a new trial was moved for * (PRIOR, Malone, p. 432 ; see the chief case& in which he took part in his own reports, vol. ii., also in Burrow's and in Wilson's re- ports. His most famous judgment is that delivered in Perrin v. Blake, in which he dis- cussed the reason, the antiquity, and the extent of the rule in Shelley's case. He took part also in the leading case of Scott v. Shepherd, where he differed from the rest of the court in holding that the action was not maintain- able ; and in the case of Crosby, the lord mayor, reported also in 8 St. Tr. 31, and 19 St. Tr. 1137). In his later years he sue- Blackstone 139 Blackstone ceeded in procuring an increase in the salaries of judges; and he devoted much of his time to advocating a reform in the system of criminal punishment. He strongly supported the penitentiary system, and it was mainly owing to him and Eden (Lord Auckland) that the act 19 George III c. 74 was passed. He died 14 Feh. 1780, and was buried in the parish church of Wallingford, where he had spent much of the latter part of his life. He had married in 1761 Sarah Clitherow, and of his nine children one followed so far in his footsteps as to become a fellow of All Souls, principal of New Inn Hall, Vinerian professor, and assessor in the vice-chancellor's court. Henry Blackstone, the law reporter, was his nephew. In personal character he ever showed that almost oppressive spirit of orderliness which kept him busy at Oxford, and which exhibited itself throughout his life in habits of scrupu- lous punctuality. He was both languid and hot-tempered. So languid was he, it is said, that in writing the ' Commentaries ' he re- quired a bottle of port before him, being ' invigorated and supported in the fatigue of his great work by a temperate use of it ' (Cuo- KEK, Boswell, iv. 465) ; and Lord Stowell, who is the authority for the story, also said that Blackstone was the only man he had ever known who acknowledged and lamented his bad temper. Physically as well as men- tally he was lethargic ; he grew stout, and came more and more to dislike all forms of exercise, and he seems really to have died from the want of it. His statue by Bacon, representing him with his right hand on the ' Commentaries,' and with Magna Charta in his left, stands in the Codrington Library. His works are: 1.' Essay on Collateral Consanguinity,' 1750 (reprinted in 'LaAv Tracts'). See the other side of the question put in ' An Argument in favour of Collateral Consanguinity ' in Wynne's * Law Tracts.' "2. 'Analysis of the Laws of England,' 1 754 ; 6th ed. 1771 ; 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions contain the discourse on the study of the law (reprinted in ' Law Tracts '). 3. * Letter to the llev. Dr. Randolph, Vice-Chancellor of the study of 6. 'The Great Charter and Charter of the Forest, with other authentic instruments, to which is prefixed an introductory discourse, containing the history of the Charters,' 1759 (reprinted in ' Law Tracts '). 7. * A treatise on the law of descents in fee-simple,' 1759. * ' Reflections on the opinions of Messrs. 8. Pratt, Morton, and Wilbraham, relating to Lord Leitchfield's disqualifications,' 1759. 9. ' A case for the opinion of counsel on the ' right of the university to make new statutes/ 1759. (For these two pamphlets see life by Clitherow; they are not mentioned elsewhere.) | 10. ' Tracts, chiefly relating to the antiqui- ties and laws of England,' 2 vols. 8vo, 1762 ; (tracts on collateral consanguinity, copy- ! holders, laws of descent, and a reprint of his i Great Charter) ; 3rd ed. 1771, 1 vol. 4to (same i tracts, except that on laws of descent ; in : addition his * Analysis ' and the letter to I Dr. Randolph) ; German translation, 1779. 11. 'Commentaries on the Laws of England/ j 4 vols. Editions: 1st, 1765-9, 4to; 2nd, 1768, I 4to (see LOWNDES); 3rd, 1768, 4to (the 2nd and i 3rd seem to be editions of only vols. i. and ii.) ; 4th, 1770, 4to ; 5th, 1773 ; 6th, 1774, 4to (Dublin edition, 1775, 12mo) ; 7th, 1775 (this edition and all the subsequent ones are 8vo) ; 8th, 1778 ; 9th (by Burn), 1783 ; 10th and llth (Burn and Williams), 1787, 1791 : 12th, 13th, 14th, and 1 5th (Christian), 1793-5, 1800, 1803, 1809 (the 12th edition was published in numbers, with portraits of sages of the law, which were inserted by the bookseller without the editor's sanction) ; ' a new edi- tion ' (Archbold), 1811 ; another edition not numbered (J. Williams), 1822 ; 16th (Cole- ridge), 1825; 'a new edition' (Chitty), 1826; 17th (' enlarged and continued by the editor of " Warton ? s History of English Poetry,'" Price. 1830) ; 18th (Lee, Hovenden, and Ryland), 1829; 19th (Hovenden and Ry- land), 1836; 20th (adapted by Stewart), 1837-41 ; 21st (Hargrave, Sweet, Couch, and Welsby), 1844 ; 22nd (adapted by Stewart), 1844-9; 23rd (adapted by Stewart), 1854. Other adaptations : (by Stephen, ' partly founded on Blackstone ') 1st ed. 1848-9 ; 9th ed. 1883 ; (by Kerr) 1st ed. 1857, 4th ed. 1876 : (by Broom and Hadley) 1869. The abridgments and volumes of selections are numerous. Among them are Curry's, 1796 and 1809 ; Gifford's, 1821 ; Bayly's, 1840 ; Warren's, 1855 and 1856. Also < The Comic Blackstone,' by G. A. a Beckett, 1867. The American editions nearly equal in number the English. The first edition is the Phila- delphia reprint of 1771-2 ; the last and test are Sharswood's, 2 vols. 1878, and Cooley's, 2 vols. 1884. There are also American adaptations, including an edition of Broom and Hadley, by Wait (1875), and abridg- ments, the last being Ewell's (1883). Trans- lations (French) : From the 4th ed. by I). G . . . (de Gomicourt), 6 vols. 1774-6, a translation ' qui n'est ni exacte ni francaise * (CAMUS, Biblioth. des livres de draft) ', it omits the notes and references. From the 15th ed. by N. M. Chompre, 6 vols. 1822. ' Coinmentaires sur le code criminel,' by the Blackstone 140 Blackwall Abbe Coyer, 2 vols. 1776, is & free transla- tion of Blackstone's 4th volume. Other translations of parts of the same volume ap- peared at the end of the century (see QUE- KARD'S La France Litter air e). (German) : A translation of Giffard's abridgment by ; H. F. C. von Colditz, with preface by Falck, ! 2 vols. 1822-3. (Italian) : The first 2 vols. | of ' Classici Criminalist! ' (1813) contain Blackstone's 4th vol. (Russian) : Cathe- j rine II is said to have caused a Russian trans- j lation to be made (NICHOLS, Lit. Anecd. ii. 553), but it is mentioned in no catalogue of I foreign law-books. (See bibliographies of MAE- \ VIN, SOULE, LOWNDES, BRUNEI, &c. and Cat . of Brit. Mus.) 12. < A Reply to Dr. Priestley's | Remarks on the fourth volume of the " Com- ! mentaries on the Laws of England." By the j author of the Commentaries,' 1769 (reprinted in a volume called ' An interesting Appendix to Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries, Ac.,' Philadelphia, 1773, another edition of | which appeared in 1774 with the further title of the ' Palladium of Conscience.' Besides Blackstone's reply, it contains Priestley's j and Furneaux's letters, and f The case of the late election, &c.') 13. The Wilkes Case. 4 An answer to the question stated,' 1769 ; published anonymously in answer to l The question stated, a pamphlet attributed to I Sir W. Meredith. To a new edition Black- stone added i A Postscript to Junius ' (see : JUNIUS'S letters of 29 July and 8 Aug. 1769). j ' The case of the late election of the County j of Middlesex considered on the principles of j the constitution and the authorities of law,' probably by Blackstone (reprinted in ' The Interesting Appendix, &c.'). *A speech with- out-doors upon the subject of a vote given on the 9th day of May, 1769 ; ' it appeared in the ' Public Advertiser' of 28 July 1769 ('see letter of PniLO-JuNirs of 1 Aug. 1769). ! 14. i Reports of cases determined in the seve- j ral courts of Westminster Hall from 1746 to 1779/ 2 vols. fol. 1781 ; Dublin edition, | 2 vols. 8vo, 1781 ; with notes by Elsley, 2 vols. 8vo, 1828. His reports have never been held in high esteem (see WALLACE'S Reporters, but see the testimony of Best, ; C. J., to their accuracy, 1 Moore and Payne, 553). 15. ' A memoir in answer to the late Dean of Exeter, now Bishop of Carlisle ;' I read before Society of Antiquaries in 1762. When Blackstone was preparing his edition of the Great Charter, Dean Lyttelton lent j him an ancient parchment roll containing the I Great Charter and Charter of the Forest of 9 Henry III. Blackstone considered it a copy, and now, in answer to a communica- tion made by the dean to the society, he gives his reasons in detail (in GUTCH'S Col- lect. Cur. ii. 357, and in Bioy. Hist, of Black- stone). 16. 'A letter from Sir William Blackstone Knt., to the Hon. Daines Bar- rington, describing an antique seal, &c. ; ' read before Society of Antiquaries in 1775. He discusses the seals directed by 1 Ed- ward VI, cap. ii. to be used by persons having ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the circum- stances of their disuse (in Archceol. iii. 414, and in Bioy. Hist, of BLACKSTONE). 17. ' Ac- count of the Quarrel between Pope and Addi- son' (in Bioy. Brit. 2nd ed. i. 56 n.). 18. < An Argument in the Exchequer Chamber on giving judgment in the case of Perrin and another v. Blake' (in HARGKAVE'S Law Tracts, p. 487). [Life by Clitherow, prefixed to reports ; The Biographical History of Sir W. Blackstone, &c., by a gentleman of Lincoln's Inn (Dr. Dou- glns), 1782 a rambling expansion of Clitherow's Life ; Life in Law. Mag. vol. xv., reprinted in Welsby's Judges; article by Marquardsen in Bluntschli-Brater's Staats-Wo'rterbuch ; Glas- son's Hist, du Droit et des Instit. de 1'Angle- terre ; Burrow's Worthies of All Souls ; Prior's Malone; Chalmers's Oxford; Junius.] G. P. M. BLACKWALL, ANTHONY (1674- 1730), classical scholar, was born at Black- wall, a hamlet for many generations the seat of his family in the parish of Kirk Ireton, and the hundred of Wirksworth, Derbyshire, in 1674, educated at Derby grammar school, admitted sizar at Emmanuel College, Cam- bridge, on 30 Sept. 1690, took the degree of B.A. in 1694, and that of M.A. in 1698, and was shortly afterwards appointed headmaster of the Derby School, and lecturer of All Saints' Church, Derby. In 1706 he distinguished himself in his first literary venture by the publication of 'Oeoyvidos IVai/Aat : Theognidis Megarensis Sententiee Morales ' the original Greek, with a Latin translation, notes, &c.,8vo, to which was prefixed an address in Greek to Joshua Barnes [q. v.] , the well-known Greek professor. In 1718 he published ' An Introduction to the Classics, containing a short discourse on their Excellencies, and Directions how to study them to advantage ; with an Essay on the Nature and use of those Emphatical and beautiful figures which give strength and ornament to Writing,' London, 12mo. This work gives the beauties of the ancient writers in a clear and concise manner, illustrated from the author's rich stores of knowledge, and with sound criticism. In 1719 appeared the second edition, with additions and an index, London, 12mo, and there were other London editions in 12mo (3rd ed. 1725, 4th ed., 5th ed. 1737, 6th ed. 1746), issued both be- Blackwall 141 Blackwall fore and after the author's death in 1730 ; and Dr. William Mayor, while at Woodstock in 1809, reissued the work as i BlackwaH's Introduction to the Classics,' London, 12mo, with an ' Essay on Rhetoric/ and a ' Biblio- graphy of the best English Translations of Greek and Roman Classics,' and describes it as a work most invaluable to those who have not received a sound education. In 1722 Blackwall was appointed head master of the grammar school of Market Bos- worth, Leicestershire, a school founded in the time of Henry VIII, but much increased in revenue by endowments of the Dixie family. Here, in the quiet of a thoroughly pastoral district, he produced his most cele- brated work, ' The Sacred Classics defended and illustrated, or an Essay humbly offered towards proving the Purity, Propriety, and True Eloquence of the Writers of the New Testament ; ' in two parts, 4to, London, 1725 ; 2nd ed. 8vo, London, 1727. ' Not with- out very great labour and pains, though ac- companied with pleasures,' as he says, he completed the second and last volume of this work a few weeks before his death in 1730, and it was published under the same title in 1731, London, 8vo, with his portrait by Vertue. The two volumes were reprinted at Leipsic by Christopher Wollius, 4to, 1736, with Bernigeroth's copy of the portrait. The third London edition appeared in 2 vols. 8vo, 1737. This work is chiefly on the plan of Raphelius, and is of very fair merit in its fund of general learning and its useful obser- vations. Words and phrases in the New Testament long considered to be barbarisms or solecisms are shown to have been used by the old Greek writers of the best reputation, but the critics thought he had failed to prove the general purity and elegance of the lan- guage of the Testament. Orme, Bickersteth, Dr. Williams, and especially his great oppo- nent, Dr. Clarke, make light of his work ; while, on the other hand, Dr. Doddridge and T. H. Home speak highly of its value. In any case, his work can claim the merit of leading the w r ay to sounder biblical criticism. At both Derby and Bosworth he had the happiness to bring up a number of excellent scholars, among whom were the well-known Richard Dawes, author of ' Miscellanea Cri- tica,' and Budworth, the master of Bishop Hurd. One of his pupils, Sir Henry Atkins, presented him to the rectory of Clapham, Surrey, on 12 Oct. 1726. About this time he went up for ordination and waited upon Dr. Gibson, then bishop of London, when a young chaplain of the bishop began to ex- amine Blackwall in the Greek Testament. The bishop, whom Blackwall had known well in the see of Lincoln, on entering the room, good-naturedly asked what the chaplain was about. ' Mr. B. knows more of the Greek Testament than you do, or I to help you.' The Latin grammar which Blackwall made use of in the Derby and Market Bosworth schools was of his own composition, and he was pre- vailed upon to publish it, but anonymously, as he did not wish to appear to prescribe rules to other instructors of youth. It was entitled * A new Latin Grammar, being a short, clear, and easy introduction of young Scholars to the Knowledge of the Latin Tongue, &c., r London, 12ino, 1728. Although the Clapham living was the only preferment received by l the good old school- master,' as Gilbert Cooper calls him in his 'Letters on Taste,' he relinquished it by 1729, when he was again master of Bosworth gram- mar school, with an income of less than a third of that yielded by the clerical living. About this time Samuel Johnson became his ' usher, r .but the dates of the association are very diffi- cult to unravel. Blackwall returned to Bos- worth early in 1729 ; Johnson left college about December 1729, and even if he went direct to assist Blackwall it could only have been for a few months, as the latter died at the schoolhouse on 8 April 1730. After the master's death, the usher may have continued to teach, and when we study Johnson's his- tory, and read of his going on foot to the school in a forlorn state of circumstances on 16 July 1732, that can only refer to his last attendance at Bosworth, probably at the close of the summer holidays. He left the house of Sir Wolstan Dixie, a patron of the school, eleven days after, and thus- we may conclude he taught in the school for two and a half years, of which only a few months were under Blackwall. The dis- tressing experiences of which we read so- much in Boswell's memoir and elsewhere must therefore be referred to the time subse- quent to Blackwall's death, and when the control of the Dixies as 'patrons of the school ' seems to have weighed very heavily upon Johnson. The present writer, when under-master of this school, 1854-1863, was unable to find any records of the association of Johnson with Blackwall. Blackwall was twice married. The only child by the first wife, named Toplis, was An- thony, who was B.A. of Emmanuel College in 1721 ; by the second wife, who was widow of Cantrell, his predecessor in the Derby school, and mother of Henry Cantrell [q.v.] r he had four sons : Henry, B.A. Emmanuel College 1721 ; Robert, a dragoon; John, at- torney at Stoke Golding, near Bosworth, who died in 1762 ; and William, who died Blackwall 142 Blackwell young. He had also one daughter, who married Mr. Pickering. The daughter of John Blackwall married William Cantrell, bookseller, Derby. [Nichols's Leic. iv. 2, 509 ; Glover's Derby- shire, i. 106 ; Boswell's Johnson (Croker's). pp. 18, 20; Cooper's Letters on Taste, p. 119; Home's Introd. 10th ed. iv. 22; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 130, ii. 551, iii. 332, ix. 809; and Blackwall's works.] J. W.-GK BLACKWALL, JOHN (1790-1881), zoologist, was born at Manchester 20 Jan. 1790. After some years' partnership with his father, an importer of Irish linen, he re- tired in 1833 to North Wales, settling ulti- mately at Llanrwst. As early as 1821 he published, in Thomson's l Annals of Philo- sophy,' observations on diurnal mean tempe- rature, and in 1822 some notes by him on migratory birds appeared in the * Memoirs of the Manchester Philosophical Society.' This was followed by observations on the notes of birds. Fifteen of his first twenty-five papers were ornithological. Being attracted to the study of spiders and their webs, he was surprised to find scarcely any available authorities, and this determined his choice of a principal lifework. His first paper on spiders appeared in 1827 in the ' Transactions of the Linnean Society,'. on the means by which gossamer spiders effect their aerial ex- cursions. In 1830 he published, in the >l Zoological Journal,' a paper on the manner m which the geometric spiders construct their nets. His papers were collected in 'Researches in Zoology,' 1834; the second -edition, 1873, was not brought up to date. Blackwall pursued the study of the spiders of his own neighbourhood and their habits with extreme painstaking, almost wholly un- aided by any British or foreign worker. His great work, ' A History of the Spiders of "Great Britain and Ireland,' 1861-4, published by the Ray Society, was unfortunately in the hands of the society ten years before its publication. It is full of minute detail, giv- ing an almost photographic picture of the object. Nearly all his work was done with- out any aid but that of a pocket lens. Some of his type-specimens are lost, owing to their having been kept indiscriminately with others. His writing for the press was most remarkably clear, and scarcely a single cor- rection was needed in his proof-sheets. He died 11 May 1881. [Obit, notice in the Entomologist, xiv. 145-50, "'by Rev. 0. Pickard-Cambridge ; see also xiv. 190, and Entomologist's Monthly Mag. xviii. 45.] GK T. B. BLACKWELL, ALEXANDER (d. 1747), was an adventurer, whose career is for the most part enveloped in mystery and contradiction. It is admitted that he was born in Aberdeen early in the eighteenth cen- tury; Fryxell, the Swedish historian of the intrigue which brought him to the scaffold, says in 1709, but this seems too late. Ac- cording to a contemporary memoir, his father was a petty shopkeeper ; but this production, although professedly written at Stockholm, was to all appearance fabricated in London to serve a political object ; and there seems no reasonable doubt that he was the brother of Dr. Thomas Blackwell [q. v.], and conse- quently the son of another Thomas Blackwell [q. v.] According to the anonymous bio- graphy referred to, he studied medicine at Leyden, under Boerhaave, and he may very probably have represented himself to have done so. As, however, we find him practis- ing the trade of a printer in London about 1730, there is far more probability in the statement of an apparently well-informed correspondent of the f Bath Journal,' ab- stracted in ' The Gentleman's Magazine ' for September 1747, that Blackwell, urged by ambition and restlessness, left the university of Aberdeen without taking a degree, and ! came up to seek his fortune in the metropo- lis. Having obtained employment from the printer Wilkins as corrector of the press, he married an excellent wife with a consider- able portion, and set up as a printer on his own account. He seemed on the high road to prosperity, when he was ruined by a com- bination of the London printers, who opposed him as an interloper who had never been ap- prenticed to the trade. He spent two years in a debtor's prison, from which he was de- ! livered by the enterprise of his wife [see ! BLACKWELL, ELIZABETH] He then took up i the study of medicine and agriculture, and was frequently cor suited respecting the manage- | ment of estates. Being introduced to the Duke of Chandos, he obtained employment as the director of that nobleman's improve- ments at Cannons, which situation he for- feited under circumstances not explained, but apparently little to his credit. ' It kept him/ says the editor of the ' Gentleman's Magazine/ annotating the article in the 'Bath Journal/ 'from other employment.' The printer of the magazine was probably one of Blackwell's persecutors, yet this may have been the reason why, as stated in Chalmers's 'Dictionary/ 'Mr. Blackwell's family were not very desirous of preserving his memory/ and allowed the circulation of erroneous statements which have hitherto entirely misled his biographers. In 1741, Blackwell 143 Blackwell while still in the duke's service, he had heir, was to have been poisoned, that ' a cer- published ' A New Method of improving tain young prince,' the Duke of Cumberland, Cold, Wet, and Clayey Grounds,' of which was to have been set upon the throne, and there is no copy in the British Museum or | that Adolphus Frederick's son, afterwards the Bodleian. It may have attracted atten- tion abroad, for the indomitable adventurer next turns up in Sweden in 1742. Here he represented himself as a phvsician, prescribed Gustavus III,was to have been indemnified bv a principality in Germany. On these charges, of most if not of all of which he was unques- tionably innocent, Blackwell was condemned successfully for the king, and was actually , without any public trial to be broken on the appointed one of his physicians in ordinary, j wheel, a punishment commuted into decapita- but soon incurred the suspicion of quackery, j tion. He met his fate on 9 Aug. 1747 with and fell back upon his old trade of practical I remarkable fortitude, apologising for laying agriculturist. He published in 1745 ' An Essay ; his head on the wrong side of the block on the on the Improvement of Swedish Agriculture,' I ground that it was the first time he had ever which was suspected of being a translation been beheaded. The speech he endeavoured to from the English ; and was entrusted with j address to the bystanders was drowned in the direction of a model farm at Allestad. I the roll of drums, and a paper published in This was alleged to have deteriorated under j his name is probably spurious. The real his management, and the precariousness of j object and secret springs of his intrigue re- his appointment may perhaps have driven main a mystery. Some have thought that it him to engage in political intrigue. Sweden, was a device of his own to gain the king's under the weak rule of King Frederick, j favour and magnify his own importance, and was at the time distracted by the contending j that the alleged anonymous letter was a factions of the ' Hats ' and the ' Caps,' the figment. Others deem him the instrument former under French influence, the latter ! of a foreign court, probably England. The inclining to England. An unquiet spirit j ' Hats ' regarded him as an agent of their ad- like Blackwell would be prone to fish in these troubled waters, and as his political re- lations were chiefly with the English party, the representatives of his own country might well seek to make a tool of him. In March 1747 he presented himself to the king with a mysterious verbal communication purporting to come from the Queen of Denmark (Louisa, George II's daughter), vaguely hinting at a large sum of money to be bestowed on con- dition of altering the succession to the ex- | most plausible, but for the evident pains taken elusion of the infant crown prince. The king by the English government to vindicate itself at first referred Blackwell to two of his con- at his expense. According to the corre- versaries ; the ' Caps ' insisted that he had been made the stalking-horse of a fictitious plot. Not a few suspected that he had been ensnared by the minister Tessin, who was supposed to be jealous of his influence, and certainly took the leading part in his torture and execution. Blackwell is universally repre- sented as meddlesome, pragmatical, and lo- quacious, and the theory that his plot was wholly concocted by himself would appear the fidants, but on the following day, becoming alarmed, disclosed the incident to his minis- ters, who immediately arrested Blackwell. The latter admitted making the communica- tion, and declared that he had been prompted to do so by an anonymous letter which he had destroyed, and the source of which was un- known to him. To extract further revelations he was cruelly tortured. He long with- stood his sufferings with the greatest con- stancy, and although he ultimately suc- cumbed, he revoked his confession, and it is difficult to ascertain what it really was. It certainly implicated no other person, for no one else was proceeded against. The sentence of his judges, if correctly cited, condemned him for ' designing to alter the present con- stitution, and to render the crown absolute ; to set aside the present established succession ; and to procure large sums of money to enable him to execute these schemes.' It was in- sinuated that Adolphus Frederick, the next spondent of the ( Bath Journal ' Blackwell was an excellent scholar in his youth. His eminent talents were marred by want of prin- ciple and unsoundness of judgment, but he must have possessed enterprise, courage, and versatility. [Gent. Mag. 1747, pp. 424-6 ; A Genuine Copy of a Letter from a Merchant in Stockholm to his Correspondent in London (London, 1747) ; Chal- mers's Dictionary, art. ' Blackwell (Elizabeth) ; Credercreutz, Srerige under Ulrica, Eleonora, och Fredric I (1821); Fryxell, Berattelser ur Svenska Historien, pt. xxxvii., Stockholm, 1868. The proceedings of the tribunal which condemned Blackwell were sealed up by order of Count Tes- sin, and remained unexamined for thirty-three years, when Gustavus III deposited them in the public archives. Their contents were first di- vulged in 1846, in an essay contributed to the newspaper Frey, by N. Arfvidsson, upon which Fryxell's circumstantial and interesting narra- tive is mainly founded.] B. G. Blackwell 144 Blackwell BLACKWELL, ELIZABETH (ft. 1737), wife of Alexander Blackwell [q. v.], is posi- tively asserted by James Bruce (Lives of Emi- nent Men of Aberdeen, p. 307) to have been the daughter of a stocking merchant in Aber- deen, and to have eloped with her husband to London before he found employment as a corrector of the press. No authority is given for these statements. Blackwell's biographer in the ' Bath Journal,' who seems to write with a knowledge of the family, asserts on ; the other hand that the marriage took place ! subsequently, and describes Elizabeth as ' a j virtuous gentlewoman, the daughter of a \ worthy merchant,' who gave his daughter a handsome portion. ' Virtuous ' and ' worthy ' j were unquestionably epithets applicable to Elizabeth herself, who extricated her hus- ! band from his pecuniary difficulties by apply- ing her talent for painting to the delineation i of medicinal plants with the colours of nature. She was encouraged by Sir Hans Sloane, Dr. Mead, and Mr. Rand, curator of the botanical , garden at Chelsea. By his advice she took lodgings close by the garden, where she was supplied with plants, which she depicted with extreme skill and fidelity, while Blackwell himself supplied the scientific and foreign nomenclature, and, with the original author's i consent, abridged the descriptions in Philip I Miller's ' Botanicum Officinale.' After finish- ing the drawings, Elizabeth engraved them on copper herself, and coloured the prints with her own hands. The work at length appeared in 1737, in 2 vols. folio, under the title of ' A Curious Herbal, containing five j hundred cuts of the most useful plants which ! are now used in the practice of Physic.' It j was accompanied by laudatory certificates j from the College of Physicians and College of Surgeons, and dedications to Drs. Mead, Pellet, and Stuart. As a monument of female devotion it is most touching and admirable, and its practical value was very great. l If/ says a writer in Chalmers's 'Dictionary,' ' there is wanting that accuracy which mo- dern improvements have rendered necessary in delineating the more minute parts ; yet, upon the whole, the figures are sufficiently | distinctive of the subject.' Rousseau com- I plains of its want of method, but it was not designed to accompany treatises on botany. Its merits received the most substantial re- cognition from the fine republication under- taken by Trew (Nuremberg, 1757-73), with the addition of a sixth century of plants, and j a preface pointing out its superiority to the more scientific work of Morandi alike in ac- curacy and delicacy of colouring and in the copiousness of representations of exotic plants. Having performed her task of delivering her husband and temporarily re-establishing his affairs, Elizabeth Blackwell disappears from observation. According to the contemporary pamphlet on her husband's execution, she was then in England, but had been upon tha point of joining him in Sweden. The date of her death is not recorded. She must have left children if, as has been stated, descend- ants from her exist at the present day. [Gent. Mag. vol. xvii. ; Chalmers's Diet. ; Br uce's Eminent Men of Aberdeen, 1841.1 E.G. BLACKWELL, GEORGE (1545 P-1613), archpriest, was born in Middlesex in or about 1545. A secular priest, in a controversial letter addressed to him, says : ' Your father was indeed a pewterer by Newgate in Lon- don, a man of honest occupation it is most true, but not the best neighbour to dwell by/ He was admitted scholar of Trinity College,. Oxford, 27 May 1562, graduated B.A. in 1563, became probationer of his college in 1565, per- petual fellow in the following year, and M.A. in 1567. ' But his mind being more addicted to the catholic than to the reformed religion he left his fellowship and retired to Gloucester Hall for a time, where he was held in good repute by Edm. Rainolds and Thomas Allen, the two learned seniors ' (WooD, Athence Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 122). Leaving the uni- versity he went over to the English college at Douay, where he was admitted in 1574, and being already far advanced in learning was ordained priest in 1575. He took the degree of B.D. the same year in the university of Douay, and returned to England upon the mission in November 1576. As early as 1578 he was in prison (J)oua\f Diaries, 147). To this occasion perhaps the secular priest already mentioned refers when he says : l About twenty years since, to my remembrance, you were imprisoned in Lon- don : but your brother, being the bishop of London's register, procured your release very shortly after.' Blackwell lodged for seven or eight years in the house of Mrs. Meany in Westminster, and was constantly in fear of" arrest and imprisonment. Once he owed his deliverance from impending danger to the in- tervention of the Countess of Arundel and Surrey, whose anonymous biographer informs - us that < he being forced for his own and the gentlewoman's security he liv'd with to hide himself in a secret place of the house when search was made after [him] by the hereticks : and being in great danger of being taken or famish'd by reason that all the catholicks of the house were cariy'd away to prison, and heretick watchmen put into the house to keep it and hinder any from helping him. She- Blackwell 145 Blackwell haveing notice of his distress dealt so with the officer who had the principal charge of that business that after three dayes he was content two of her servants should come to that house at the time when the guard was chang'd, take Mr. Blackwell out of the hideing-place, and convey him away, as they speedily did, bring- ing him betwixt them, he not being able to go alone, to their lady's house, where, after some dayes for refreshing he had stay'd, she sent him safe to the place he desir'd to go ' (Lives of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, and of Anne Dacres, his wife, 216, 217). It would seem that he sometimes visited the continent, as he is said to have formed a per- sonal acquaintance with Cardinal Bellarmin And other eminent writers, who give an ex- ; cellent character of his learning and capacity which they discovered while he had occasion to reside in Rome (DoDD, Church Hist. ii. 380). j After the decease of Cardinal Allen the at- \ fairs of the English catholic clergy fell into a state of confusion, owing to the absence of j any means of enforcing regular discipline. The petitions for the appointment of a bishop were not favourably received at Rome, but on 7 March 1597-8 Cardinal Cajetan, the pro- j tector of the English nation, addressed a letter to Blackwell, announcing to him the command of the pope, Clement VIII, that he should be archpriest over the secular clergy. Unlimited power was given to Blackwell to restrain or revoke the faculties of the clergy, to remove them from place to place at his pleasure, and to punish the refractory by deprivation or j censures. The cardinal named six persons to be his assistants, and empowered him to ap- point six others. ' The Jesuits,' the cardinal continues, ' neither have nor pretend to have any jurisdiction or authority over the clergy, -or seek to disquiet them ; it seemeth, there- fore, a manifest subtlety and deceit of the devil, complotted for the overthrow of the whole English cause, that any catholic should practice or stir up emulation against them.' This letter was accompanied by private in- structions, which prohibited the archpriest j and his twelve assistants from determining \ any matter of importance without advising i with the superior of the Jesuits and some j others of the order. The appointment of Blackwell gave rise to i serious and protracted dissensions among the I .clergy, which were secretly fomented by the I English government (FoLEY, Records, i. 12 v-et seq.) Thirty-one secular priests, headed by Dr. Bishop, sent an appeal to Rome, and on 6 April 1599 the pope issued a bull, fully .recognising and sanctioning the letter of Car- dinal Cajetan, and the appointment of the arch- | Driest and his acts, declaring the letter to have j VOL. V. been valid from the first, and explicitly or- dering it to be obeyed and its regulations to be complied with. The appellant priests at once submitted to the bull without any linii- : tation. It was contended, however, that the actual submission of the appellants did not undo or atone for the criminality of their former appeal, and on this ground the arch- priest and his adherents continued to treat them as schismatics. They again appealed to i Rome, and the pope addressed to the arch- priest a brief (17 Aug. 1601), recommending him to temper severity with mildness, and exhorting all parties to a general oblivion of the offence. This letter, however, did not entirely pacify the troubles ; the clergy sent a third deputation to Rome, and a second letter was addressed by the pope to the arch- priest (6 Oct. 1602). His holiness blamed him for proceeding by suspension and censures against the appellant priests, and commanded him to communicate no business of his office to the provincial of the Society of Jesus, or to any members of the society in England, lest it should be a cause of animosity and dis- cord between the society and the appellants ; and with the same view he revoked the con- trary injunctions given by Cardinal Cajetan. Thus the matters in dispute were finally set- tled by papal authority. For some time after this Blackwell exer- cised his authority as archpriest without opposition ; but he eventually got entangled in a controversy of another kind, and drew upon himself the censures of the holy see. In 1606 the government of King James I im- posed on catholics a new oath, which was to be the test of their civil allegiance. The wording of the oath was entrusted to Arch- bishop Bancroft, who, with the assistance of Sir Christopher Perkins, a ' renegado Jesuit/ so framed it as to give to the designs of the ministry the desired effect, ' which was first to divide the catholics about the lawfulness of the oath ; secondly, to expose them to daily prosecutions in case of refusal, and, in con- sequence of this, to misrepresent them as dis- affected persons, and of unsound principles in regard of civil government ' (Dors, Church Hist. ii. 366). Blackwell told his clergy by a circular letter, dated 22 July 1606, that it was his holiness's pleasure that they should behave themselves peaceably with regard to all civil matters. ' Sua sanctitas nullo modo probat, tales tractatus agitari inter catholicos: imo jubet, ut hujusmodi cogitationes depo- nantur.' Previously, on 28 Nov. 1605, he had written a similar letter to the catholic laity. At several meetings of the secular and regu- lar clergy, convened to consider the oath, Blackwell advised them to take it. Cardinal Blackwell 146 Blackwell Bellarmin wrote to him an admonitory letter on this subject, to which he replied. Being apprehended near Clerkenwell on 24 June 1607, he was committed prisoner to the Gate- house in Westminster, and thence was re- moved to the Clink prison in Southwark, where he was frequently examined upon several articles, especially concerning the oath of allegiance. In fine, he took the oath, and several of the clergy and laity followed his example, notwithstanding the fact that the oath had twice been formally condemned by Pope Paul V in 1606 and 1607. Blackwell's conversion being despaired of, the sovereign pontiff deprived him of the office of archpriest in 1608, and appointed George Birket [q. v.] to supply his place. Blackwell died on 12 Jan. 1612-13, per- sisting to the last in his approbation of the oath. On being taken suddenly ill some priests attended him, and he assured them that he deemed it to be a lawful oath, and that in taking it he had done nothing con- trary to conscience (WIDDKINGTON, Dispu- tatio Theologica de Juramento Fidelitatis, 393-5). A large number of books were published against him, chiefly by Watson, Colleton, Dr. Bishop, Dr. Champney, and other catholic divines. The principal other works relating to the controversies in which he was engaged are : 1. ' The Hope of Peace, by laying open such doubts and manifest untruthes as are de- vulged by the Archpriest in his letter or an- swere to the Bookes which were published by the priestes,' Frankfort, 1601, 4to. 2. ' Mr. George Blackwel (made by Pope Clement 8, Archpriest of England), his Answeres vpon sundry his Examinations : together with his Approbation and taking of the Oath of Alle- geance : and his Letter written to his assis- tants and brethren, moouing them not onely to take the said Oath, but to aduise all Ro- mish Catholikes so to doe,' London, 1607, 4to. 3. ' A large Examination taken at Lambeth, according to his Maiesties direction, point by point, of M. George Blakwell, made Arch- priest of England, by pope Clement 8. Vpon occasion of a certaine answere of his, without the priuitie of the State, to a Letter lately sent vnto him from Cardinall Bellarmine, blaming him for taking the Oath of Allegeance. Together with the Cardinals Letter, and M. Blakwels said answere vnto it. Also M. Blakwels Letter to the Romish Catholickes in England, as well Ecclesiasticall as Lay,' London, 1607, 4to ; also printed in French at Amsterdam, 1609. 4. ' In Georgium Black- vellum Anglige Archipresbyterum a Clemente Papa Octavo designatum Quaestio bipartita : Cuius Actio prior Archipresbyteri iusiuran- dum de Fidelitate prestitum, Altera eiusdem iuramenti Assertionem, contra Cardinalis Bel- larmini Literas, continet,' London, 1609, 4to. 5. ' Relatio compendiosa turbarum quas le- suitae Angli, vna cum D. Georgio Blackwello Archipresbytero, Sacerdotibus Seminariorum populoq; Catholico cociuere ob schismatis & aliorum criminum inuidiam illis iniuriose impactam sacro sanctee inquisitionis officio exhibita, vt rerum veritate cognita ab inte- gerrimis eiusdem iudicibus lites & causse dis- cutiantur et terminentur,' Rouen, 4to. [Dodd's Church Hist. (1737), ii. 251-65, 366, 380, also Tierney's edit. iv. 70 et seq., App. 110. 142, 147, 148, 157, v. 8, 12 ; Wood's Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 122, Fasti, i. 162, 179 ; Berington's Memoirs of Panzani ; Ullathorne's Hist, of the Restoration of the Cath. Hierarchy, 7 ; Flana- gan's Hist, of the Church in England, ii. 265-69, 299, 301 ; Anatomie of Popish Tyrannie (1603), 177; Diaries of the English College, Douay; Morris's Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, 2nd ser. 23, 153, 154, 3rd ser. 116; MS. HarL 6809, art. 190; MS. Lansd. 983 f. 123; MS. Cotton. Titus B. vii. 468 ; MS. Addit. 30, 662 f. 726. ; Butler's Hist. Memoirs of the English Catholics (1822), ii. 204 et seq. 254 ; Lingard's Hist, of England (1849), vii. 91-95; Foley'& Records ; Calendars of State Papers.] T. C. BLACKWELL, JOHN (1797-1840), Welsh poet and prose writer, was born at Mold, in Flintshire, in 1797, and for many years followed the trade of a shoemaker in his native town. From an early age he showed the greatest avidity for books, and he carried off' several prizes offered for poems and essays in the Welsh language. By the liberality of friends he was enabled to enter Jesus College, Oxford, in 1824, and he took the degree of B.A. in 1828. In the autumn of the latter year, at the Royal Denbigh Eisteddvod, a prize was adjudged to him for his beautiful Welsh elegy on the death of Bishop Heber. In 1829 he was ordained to the curacy of Holy well. During his residence there he con- tributed largely to the columns of the t Gwy- liedydd,' a periodical conducted on the prin- ciples of the established church, and in 1832 he was presented with a prize medal at the Beaumaris Eisteddvod. In 1833 he was pre- sented by Lord-chancellor Brougham to the living of Manor Deivy, in Pembrokeshire. I Soon afterwards he became editor of an illus- trated magazine in the Welsh language, en- 1 titled ' Y Cylchgrawn,' and he conducted this j periodical with remarkable ability. He died on 14 May 1840, and was buried at Manor Deivy. t His poems and essays, with a memoir of his j life, were edited by the Rev. Griffith Edwards I of Minera, in a volume entitled 'Ceinion. ! Alun,' Ruthin, 1851, 8vo. Blackwell 147 Blackweli [Williams's Eminent Welshmen, 554 ; Gent. Mag. (New Set.), xiv. 100.] T. C. BLACKWELL, THOMAS, the elder (1660 P-1728), a learned Scotch minister, is sometimes confounded with his more cele- brated son of the same name. He was called to the charge as presbyterian minister at Pais- ley, Renfrewshire, on 5 April 1693, but his or- dination was delayed to 28 Aug. 1694 for various reasons, one being his own ' unclear- ness ' about accepting the call. He was trans- lated to Aberdeen on 9 Oct. 1700, and in 1710 he was elected professor of divinity in the Marischal College of the university of Aber- deen. In the same year he published * Ratio Sacra, or an appeal unto the Rational World about the reasonableness of Revealed Religion . . . directed against the three grand prevailing errors of Atheism, Deism, and Bourignonism/ Edin. 12mo. The same year his second work appeared : ( Schema Sacrum, or a Sacred Scheme of Natural and Revealed Religion, making a Scriptural-Rational Account of these Three Heads ... of Creation ... of Divine Predestination . . . and of the Wise Divine Procedure in accomplishing the Scheme/ Edin. 8vo, pp. 340. A second edi- tion in 12mo was published at Paisley in 1800. An American edition was brought out by a New Hampshire minister, with a list of over 700 names of subscribers, under the altered title of ' Forma Sacra, or a Sacred Platform of Natural and Revealed Religion ... by the pious and learned Thomas Black- well ' (with a lengthy introduction on the- position and prospects of religion in America), by Simon Williams, M.A.,' 12mo, Boston, 1774. The latter was minister of the gospel at Wyndham, New Hampshire, and he speaks of Blackwell as ' a minister much es- teemed in Peasley, North Britain/ his in- formant, the Rev. Dr. Witherspoon, then president of the college in the Jerseys, having been one of his successors in the church at Paisley. Blackwell appears to have taken a prominent part in the disturbed affairs of the Scottish church. The first of the ' Tracts con- cerning Patronage by some eminent Lairds ; with a candid inquiry about the constitu- tion of the Church of Scotland in relation to the Settlement of Ministers/ 8vo, Edin. 1770, is entitled, < Representation by Mr. William Carstairs, Thomas Blackwell, and Robert Baillie, Ministers of the Church of Scotland, offered by them in the name and by appoint- ment of the General Assembly against the bill for restoring patronages/ 1712. Another work of his was published in 1712 entitled 'Methodus Evangelica/ 8vo, London. Black well's appointment as professor of divinity in the Marischal College was by pre- sentation vested in the Marischal family George Keith, fifth Earl Marischal, being the founder but on the forfeiture of their rights consequent upon their adherence to the cause of the Stuarts, the patronage in 1715 was vested in the crown ; and the office of principal being vacant in 1717, George I re- cognised the merits of Blackwell by appoint- ing- him to the same, a position which, along with his previous professorship, he held until his death in 1728. The names associated with this famous institution in Blackwell's time and during his son's career, or early in the eighteenth century, are of great emi- nence. Among many others, there occur to us those of Bishop Burnet, Dr. Arbuthnot, Dr. Reid, the poet Beattie, Bishop Keith, Dr. Turnbull, the Fordyces (his grandsons), Gibbs the architect, and Professors Mac- laurin, Duncan, Stewart, Gerard, and George Campbell. Blackwell married a sister of Dr. Johnston, many years professor of medicine in the uni- versity of Glasgow, and by her had two sons, Alexander [q. v.] and Thomas [q. v.] ; and one daughter, married to Provost Fordyce of Aberdeen, by whom she had nineteen children , some of whom became well known : David Fordyce the professor, James Fordyce the popular preacher, and Sir William Fordyce the physician. [Blackwell's works ; Williams's Forma Sacra ; New Statist. H. of Scotland, vii. 235, xii. 11, 1190 ; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ii. 93] J. W.-G. BLACKWELL, THOMAS, the younger (1701-1757), classical scholar, born on 4 Aug. 1701 in the city of Aberdeen, was the son of the Rev. Thomas Blackwell [see BLACZWELL, THOMAS, the elder]. He was educated at the grammar school of Aberdeen, and studied Greek and philosophy in the Marischal College of the university of the same city, of which his father occupied the chair of divinity from 1 710, and had become principal in 1717. He took the degree of M.A. in 1718, a remarkable in- stance of proficiency in a young man of seven- teen, and in recognition of his ability he was presented on 28 Nov. 1723 to the professor- ship of Greek in the same college, and took office on 13 Dec. following. He soon made his mark as a successful teacher of the Greek language. It was not in his favourite Greek literature only, but also in the Latin classics, that he exerted himself. He was held in high estimation by the celebrated Berkeley, who selected him as a professor in the projected college at Bermuda. In 1735 Blackwell published in London an octavo volume, without bookseller's or L 2 Blackwell 148 Blackwell author's name, 'An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer/ arranged in twelve sections, as an answer to the question, ' By what fate or disposition of things it has hap- pened that no poet has equalled him for 2,700 years, nor any that we know ever sur- passed him before ? ' A second London edi- tion in octavo, and also anonymous, came out in 1736, followed soon after by ' Proofs of the Enquiry into Homer's Life and Writings, translated into English ; being a Key to the ^nquiry . . . .' With a curious Frontispiece, 8vo, London, 1747. This was merely a translation of the learned and co- pious notes originally given in Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, and French. The t Enquiry ' was considered a remarkable book at the time, and opinions on its merits have varied considerably. Gibbon, without any expla- nation of his assertion, speaks of it as ' by Blackwell of Aberdeen, or rather by Bishop Berkeley, a fine, though sometimes fanciful, effort of genius ! ' In 1748 appeared another work by Black- well, 'Letters concerning Mythology,' 8vo, London, without his name or the bookseller's (Andrew Millar) imprint. The preface in- timates that some of the first letters ' passed in correspondence written by a learned and worthy man, whose death prevented his pro- secuting his plan,' the additions to the seventh and eighth letters, and all following, being by the author of ' An Enquiry . . .^JEEomer/ &c. No clue is afforded to the original writer, whose letters are given in a very pleasant and lively style, and chiefly refer to the Homeric ' Enquiry.' The later writer continues throughout in the same vein, and makes a very readable book. The second edition, 8vo, London, 1757, appeared soon after the author's death, and gives his name. In the first volume of the ' Archseologia ' there is a letter, dated 18 Aug. 1748, ad- dressed by Dr. T. Blackwell to Mr. Ames, with an explanation of an ancient Greek inscription on a white marble found in the Isle of Tasso by Captain Hales. On 7 Oct. 1748 George II appointed Black- well principal of the Marischal College in Aberdeen, a position which he held, along with the Greek chair, till his death. Black- well is the only layman ever appointed prin- cipal of this college since the patronage was vested in the crown. When the well-known Glasgow printers, Robert and Andrew Foulis, projected an edition of Plato, Blackwell pro- posed to furnish them with critical notes, together with an account of Plato's life and philosophy ; his terms being too high, the design was relinquished. He then published in the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' for 1751 a Latin advertisement of a similar venture* of his own. This work was never published, however, and his manuscripts, after death, offered no traces of such a scheme. On 30 March 1752 he took the degree of doctor of laws, and in the following year ap- peared the first volume of his ' Memoirs of the Court of Augustus,' 4to, Edinburgh. The second volume was published, 4to, Edin- burgh, in 1755, and the third volume, which was posthumous and left incomplete by the author (whose text reached to p. 144 only), was prepared for the press, with additional pages, by Mr. John Mills, and published in 4to, London, 1764 (seven years after his death), along with the third edition of the two former volumes. This work contains fine impressions of heads of great personages from genuine antiques. It had a good recep- tion, but unfortunately it was written with so much parade and in such a peculiar style that it offered a wide field for adverse criticism. Johnson reviewed it sarcastically in the Literary Magazine,' 1756, but concludes : ' This book is the work of a man of letters ; it is full of events displayed with accuracy and related with vivacity.' A French translation by M. Feutry of this work was published in 12mo, 3 vols., Paris, 1781. Several years before his death Blackwell's health began to decline, and compelled him to take assistance in his Greek class. Even- tually he was forced to travel, and in February 1757 he reached Edinburgh, but could pro- ceed no further. In that city he died on 8 March, in his fifty-sixth year. During a protracted illness he had displayed an equable flow of temper, endearing him to all. Before he started on his journey he drew together all the professors of the col- lege and spent two hours of pleasant con- ference with them, and on the day of his death he wrote letters to several of his friends, and took leave of them in a cheerful and contented strain. In private life his habits were very agreeable ; his conversation ever instructive and affable, accompanied with a flow of good humour, even when pro- voked to some display of passion. Soon after his appointment as principal of his college he married Barbara Black, daugh- ter of an Aberdeen merchant, by whom he had no children. This lady survived him many years and died in 1793. She be- queathed her estates, partly to found a chair of chemistry in the college with which the names of her husband, her father-in-law, and the Fordyces (her nephews) had been so long associated, and partly for the premium of an English essay and for the augmenta- tion of the professorial salaries. Blackwood 149 Blackwood [Nichols's Lit. Illust. ii. 35, 69, 814, 820, 851, iv. 84; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. v. 641 ; Kames's H. of Man ; Beattie's Dissertations ; Stat. H. of Scot. xii. 1169 ; Archseologia, i. ; Gent. Mag. xvii. 298, xxi. 283 ; Lit. Mag. 1756 ; Johnson's Works, 1835, vi. 9 ; Warburton's Pamphlets; Blackwell's Works, &c.] J. W.-G. BLACKWOOD, ADAM (1539-1613), Scottish writer, was descended from a family in good circumstances, and was born at Dun- fermline in 1539. His father, William Black- wood, was slain in battle before the son reached his tenth, year, and his mother did not long survive the loss of her husband. Thereupon he was taken in charge by her uncle, Robert Reid, bishop of Orkney, who, recognising his excep- tional abilities, sent him to the university of Paris, where he enjoyed the tuition of the two celebrated professors, Turnebus, and Auratus or Dorat, from the latter of whom he acquired an ambition to excel in Latin poetry. After the death of Bishop Reid in 1558, Blackwood went to Scotland ; but finding, on account of the disquiet of the times, no prospect of con- tinuing his studies, he returned to Paris, where, through the munificence of Queen Mary, then residing with her first husband, the dauphin, at the court of France, he was enabled to resume his university course. After prosecuting the study of mathematics, philosophy, and oriental languages, he passed two years at Toulouse, reading civil law. On his return to Paris he began to employ him- self in teaching philosophy. In 1574 he pub- lished at Paris a eulogistic memorial poem on Charles IX of France, entitled l Caroli IX Pompa Funebris versiculis expressa per A. B. J.C.' (Juris Consultum), and in 1575, also at Paris, a work on the relation between religion and government, entitled ' De Vinculo ; seu Conjunctione Religionis et Imperil libri duo, quibus conjurationum traducuntur insidiee fuco religionis adumbratse.' A third book appeared in 1612. The work was dedicated to Queen Mary of Scotland, and, in keeping with his poem commemorating the author of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, was in- tended to demonstrate the necessity laid upon rulers to extirpate heresy as a phase of rebel- lion against a divinely constituted authority. The work was so highly esteemed by James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, that he re- commended Queen Mary to bestow on him the office of counsellor or judge of the parliament of Poictiers, the province of Poitou having by letters patent from Henry III been assigned to her in payment of a dowry. Some misunder- standing regarding the nature of this office seems to have given rise to the statement of Mackenzie and others that Blackwood was professor of civil law at Poictiers. He now collected an extensive library, and, encouraged by the success of his previous work, he set himself to the hard and ambitious task of grappling with George Buchanan, whose views he denounced with great bitterness and severity in ' Apologia pro Regibus, ad- versus Georgii Buchanani Dialogum de Jure Regni apud Scotos,' Pictavis, 1581 ; Parisiis, 1588. During Queen Mary's captivity in England he paid her frequent visits, and was untiring in his efforts to do her all the service in his power. After her death he published a long exposure of her treatment in imprison- ment, interspersed with passionate denuncia- tions of her enemies, especially Knox and Elizabeth. The work bears to have been printed 'a Edimbourg chez Jean Nafield. 1587,' but the name is fictitious, and it was in reality printed at Paris. It was reprinted at Antwerp in 1588, and again in 1589, and is also included in the collection of Jebb ' De Vita et Rebus gestis Mariee Scotorum Reginse Autores sedecim,' torn, ii., London, 1725. The title of the work is l Martyre de la Royne d'Escosse, Douairiere de France ; contenant le vray discours des trai'sons a elle faictes a la suscitation d'Elizabet Angloise, par lequel les mensonges, calomnies, et faulses accusations dressees contre ceste tresvertueuse, trescatho- lique et tresillustre princesse son esclarcies et son innocence averee.' At the end of the volume there is a collection of verses in Latin, French, and Italian, on Mary and Elizabeth. A fragment of a translation of the work into English, the manuscript of which belongs to the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century, was published by the Maitland Club in 1834. The work contains no contribution of importance towards the settlement of the vexed question regarding the character of the unhappy queen, but is of special interest as a graphic presentment of the sentiments and feelings which her piti- able fate aroused in her devoted adherents. In 1606 Blackwood published a poem on the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne, entitled ' Inauguratio Jacobi Magnse Britanniae Regis,' Paris, 1606. He was also the author of pious meditations in prose and verse, entitled ' Sanctarum Preca- tionum Prooemia, seu mavis, Ejaculationes Animse ad Orandum se preeparantis,' Aug. Pict. 1598 and 1608 ; of a penitential study, 1 In Psalmum Davidis quinquagesimum, cujus initium est Miserere mei Deus, Adami Blac- vodaei Meditatio,' Aug. Pict. 1608 ; and of miscellaneous poems, * Varii generis Poemata,' Pictavis, 1609. He died in 1613, and was buried in the St. Porcharius church at Poic- tiers, where a marble monument was erected to his memory. By his marriage to Catherine Blackwood Blackwood Court inier, daughter of the ' procureur de roi ' of Poictiers, he left four sons and seven daughters. His collected works in Latin and French appeared at Paris in 1644, with a life and eulogistic notice by Gabriel Naud6. The volume contains a portrait of the author by Picart, in his official robes. [Life by Naud in collected ed. of his Works ; Mackenzie's Writers of the Scots Nation, iii. 487-513; Irving's Scottish Writers, i. 161-9; Chambers's Biog. Diet, of Eminent Scotsmen, i. 142-3.] T. F.H. BLACKWOOD, GEORGE FREDE- RICK (1838-1880), major, was second son of Major William Blackwood, of the Bengal army, and grandson of the founder of the firm [see BLACKWOOD, WILLIAM]. He was born in 1838 ; was educated at the Edinburgh academy and at Addiscombe : and was gazetted a second lieutenant in the Bengal artillery on 11 Dec. 1857. He ar- rived in India "in the midst of the Indian mutiny, and was at once appointed to com- mand two guns in Colonel Wilkinson's Ro- hilcund movable column. He was promoted first lieutenant on 27 Aug. 1858, and filled the post of adjutant first to the Bareilly and Gwalior divisions, and then to the twenty-second and nineteenth brigades of royal artillery from 1859 to 1864. He was promoted captain on 20 Feb. 1867, and in 1 872 was appointed to command the artillery attached to General Bourchier's column in the Looshai expedition. In that capacity he was present at the attacks on Tipar-Mukh, Kiing-Is iing and Taikooni, and he gave such satisfaction that his services were specially mentioned in the general's despatch of 19 March 1872, and he was promoted major by brevet on 11 Sept. following. He gave further evidence of his ability as an artillery officer by his very able report on the use of guns in such country as that in which he had been recently engaged, with hints on the calibre best suited for mountain guns, which was printed by the Indian government and circulated by it among its officers. Black- wood was promoted major on 10 Feb. 1875, and after temporarily commanding a battery of royal horse artillery came to England on sick leave. He thus missed the first Afghan campaign of 1878-79, but was in India when on the news of Cavagnari's death it was determined to once more occupy both Cabul and Candahar. Blackwood was posted to the command of the E battery B brigade of royal horse artillery, and ordered to join the force destined for Candahar. While stationed there the news arrived of the advance of Ayoub Khan, and a column was ordered out under the command of Brigadier-general Burrows to assist the wali placed in command by Ab- dur-rahman Khan, and to investigate the strength of the enemy. To that column Black- wood's battery was attached ; the column was cut to pieces in the terrible battle of Maiwand on 27 July 1880, where Blackwood was killed and two of his guns lost. [Times, 2 Oct. 1880.] H. M. S. BLACKWOOD, HENRY, M.D. (d. 1614), physician, was descended from a family of good position in Fifeshire, and was a brother of Adam Blackwood [q. v.], judge of the par- liament of Poitiers. He was born at Dun- fermline, and after studying belles lettres and philosophy was sent by his uncle, Robert Reid, bishop of Orkney, to the university of Paris, where he taught philosophy about the year 1551. Having afterwards studied medi- cine he graduated M.D., was incorporated a member of the College of Physicians of Paris, and ultimately became dean of the faculty. He died in 1614. He edited < In Organum Aristotelis Commentaria,' * Collatio Philoso- phise atque Medicinae,' and 'De Claris Me- dicis ; ' and left in manuscript ' Animadversio in omnes Galeni libros,' ' Hippocratis quse- dam cum MSS. collata,' 'In Alexandrum Trallianum Comment.,' and ' Locorum quo- rumdam Plinii explicatio.' Mackenzie also attributes to him ' Hippocratis Coi Progno- sticorum libri tres, cum Latina interpreta- tione, ad veterum exemplarium fidem emen- dati et recogniti,' Paris, 1625, but the work was really edited by his son Henry, who was also a professor of medicine and surgery at Paris, and who died at Rouen, 17 Oct. 1634. George Blackwood, a brother of the father, taught philosophy at Paris about the year 1571, but subsequently took holy orders, and , obtained considerable preferment in the French Church. [Dempster's Hist. Eccles. Scot. Gent. (1627), 116-17; Biographie Universelle, iv. 549 ; Moreri's Dictionnaire Historiqne, ii. 489 ; Mackenzie's Writers of the Scots Nation, iii. 479-87 ; Irving's Scottish Writers, i. 168-9.] T. F. H. BLACKWOOD, SIB HENRY (1770- 1832), vice-admiral, fourth son of Sir John Blackwood, bart., of Ballyleidy, co. Down, and of Dorcas, Baroness Dufferin, and Clane- boye, was born on 28 Dec. 1770. In April 1781 he entered the navy as a volunteer on board the Artois frigate, with Captain Mac- bride, and in her was present at the battle on the Doggerbank. He afterwards served with Captains Montgomery and Whitshed, and for four years in the Trusty with Commodore Cosby in the Mediterranean. In 1790 he Blackwood Blackwood was signal midshipman 011 board the Queen Charlotte with Lord Howe, by whom he was made lieutenant 3 Nov. 1790. In 1791 he was in the Proserpine frigate with Captain Curzon, and towards the close of that year obtained leave to go to France in order to improve himself in the French language. During the greater part of 1792 he was in Paris, and on one occasion was in consider- able danger, having been denounced as a spy, and eventually had to fly for his life. He was almost immediately appointed to the Active frigate, from which, a few months later, he was transferred to the Invincible at the special request of Captain Pakenham. Of this ship Blackwood was first lieutenant on 1 June 1794, and as such was promoted, along with all the other first lieutenants of the ships of the line, on 6 July. He was immediately appointed to the Megaera, and continued in her, attached to the fleet under Lord Howe and afterwards Lord Bridport, until he was promoted to the rank of captain 2 June 1795. After a few months in com- mand of the guardship at Hull he was ap- pointed to the Brilliant frigate, of 28 guns, which for the next two years was attached to the North Sea fleet under the command of Admiral Duncan. Early in 1798 the Brilliant was sent out to join Admiral Wal- degrave on the Newfoundland station : and on 26 July, whilst standing close in to the bay of Santa Cruz, in quest of a French privateer, she was sighted and chased by two French frigates of the largest size. By admirable seamanship, promptitude, and courage, Black- wood succeeded in checking -the pursuit and in escaping (JAMES, Naval History, ed. I860, ii. 250). His conduct at this critical time was deservedly commended. Early in 1799 the Brilliant returned to England, and Black- wood was appointed to the Penelope frigate, of 36 guns, in which, after a few months of Channel service, he Avas sent out to the Mediterranean, and employed during the winter and following spring in the close blockade of Malta. On the night of 30 March 1800 the Guillaume Tell, of 80 guns, taking advantage of a southerly gale and intense darkness, weighed and ran out of the har- bour. As she passed the Penelope, Black- wood immediately followed, and, having the advantage of sailing, quickly came up with her : then in the words of the log ' luffed under her stern, and gave him the larboard broadside, bore up under the larboard quarter and gave him the starboard broadside, receiv- ing from him only his stern-chase guns. From this hour till daylight, finding that we could place ourselves on either quarter, the action continued in the foregoing manner, and with such success on our side that, when day broke, the Guillaume Tell was found in a most dis- mantled state' (Log of the Penelope, kept by Lieutenant Charles Inglis). At five o'clock the Lion, of 64 guns, and some little time afterwards the Foudroyant, of 80 guns, came up, and after a determined and gallant resistance the Guillaume Tell surrendered ; j but that she was brought to action at all was entirely due to the unparalleled brilliancy of i the Penelope's action. Nelson wrote from Palermo (5 April 1809) to Blackwood him- self: ' Is there a sympathy which ties men together in the bonds of friendship without 1 having a personal knowledge of each other ? If so (and I believe it was so to you), I was your friend and acquaintance before I saw you. Your conduct and character on the late glorious occasion stamps your fame be- yond the reach of envy. It was like your- i self; it was like the Penelope. Thanks: and I say everything kind for me to your brave j officers and men' (Blackwood 's Magazine, j xxxiv. 7). On the peace of Amiens the Penelope was | paid off; and in April 1803, when war again j broke out, Blackwood was appointed to the | Euryalus, of 36 guns. During the next two | years he was employed on the coast of Ire- land or in the Channel, and in July 1805 was sent to watch the movements of the allied fleet under Villeneuve after its de- feat by Sir Kobert Calder. On his return with the news that Villeneuve had gone to Cadiz, he stopped on his way to London to see Nelson, who went with him to the Ad- miralty, and received his final instructions to resume the command of the fleet without delay. Blackwood, in the Euryalus, accom- panied him to Cadiz, and was appointed to the command of the inshore squadron, with the duty of keeping the admiral informed of every movement of the enemy. He was offered a line-of-battle ship, but preferred to remain in the Euryalus, believing that he would have more opportunity of distinc- tion ; for Villeneuve, he was convinced, would not venture out in the presence of Nelson. When he saw the combined fleets outside, Blackwood could not but regret his decision. On the morning of 21 Oct., in writing to his wife, he added : ' My signal just made on board the Victory I hope to order me into a vacant line-of-battle ship/ This signal was made at six o'clock, and from that time till after noon, when the shot were already flying thickly over the Victory, Blackwood remained on board, receiving the admiral's last instructions, and, together with Captain Hardy, witnessing the so shamefully disregarded codicil to the admiral's will Blackwood 152 Blackwood (Nelson Despatches, vii. 140). He was then ordered to return to his ship. ' God bless wrote it) i not only gave me the command of all the frigates, for the purpose of assisting disabled ships, but he also gave me a latitude j seldom or ever given, that of making any , use I pleased of his name in ordering any of the sternmost line-of-battle ships to do what struck me as best' (ibid. vii. 226). Immediately after the battle Collingwood j hoisted his flag on board the Euryalus, but j after ten days removed it to the Queen, and the Euryalus was sent home with despatches ' and with the French admiral. Blackwood was thus in England at the time of Lord Nelson's funeral (8 Jan. 1806), on which occasion he acted as train-bearer of the chief mourner, Sir Peter Parker, the aged admiral of the fleet. After this Blackwood was appointed to the Ajax, of 80 guns, in which he joined Lord Collingwood off Cadiz on the first an- niversary of Trafalgar, and early in the fol- lowing year was detached with the squadron under Sir John Duckworth in the expedi- tion up the Dardanelles. At the entrance of the straits, on the night of 14 Feb., the Ajax caught fire through the drunken care- lessness of the purser's steward, and was totally destroyed, with the loss of nearly half the ship's company. Blackwood himself was picked up hanging on to an oar, well nigh perished with the cold, after being nearly an hour in the water. During the following operations in the straits he served as a volunteer on board the flagship, and arrived in England in May. He was now offered the situation of pay-commissioner at the navy board, which he declined, prefer- ring to be appointed to the command of the Warspite, of 74 guns. In this, after some uneventful service in the North Sea, he again went out to the Mediterranean, where the principal duty of the fleet was the very harassing blockade of Toulon. Here, for some time during the summer of 1810, Blackwood had command of the inshore squadron, and on 20 July had the credit of driving back a sortie made by a very superior French force. He returned to Eng- land at the end of 1812, but remained in command of the Warspite for another year. In May 1814, on the occasion of the visit of the allied sovereigns, he was appointed captain of the fleet under the Duke of Clarence, a special service which was nomi- nally rewarded by a baronetcy. On 4 June 1814 he attained the rank of rear-admiral, and in August 1819 was nominated aK.C.B.,. and appointed commander-in-chief in the East Indies, from which station he returned in December 1822. He became vice-admiral on 19 July 1821, and from 1827 to 1830 he commanded in chief at the Nore ; and still in the full vigour of life he died after a short ill- ness, differently stated as typhus or scarlet fever, on 17 Dec. 1832, atBallyleidy,theseatof his eldest brother, Lord Dufferin and Clanboye. He was married three times, and left a large family, the descendants of which are now numerous. His portrait, presented by one of his sons, is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich. [Blackwood's Magazine, xxxiv. 1 ; Marshall's, Eoyal Naval Biog. ii. (vol. i. part ii.) 642.] J. K. L. BLACKWOOD, JOHN ' (1818-1879), publisher, editor of ' Blackwood's Magazine/' sixth surviving son of its founder [see BLACK- WOOD, WILLIAM], was born at Edinburgh on 7 Dec. 1818. Educated at the high school and university of Edinburgh, he early dis- played literary tastes, which procured for him the nickname of l the little editor.' At the close of his college career he spent three years in continental travel. Soon after his return, his father having meanwhile died and been succeeded by two of his elder brothers, he- entered, in 1839, to learn business, the house- of a then eminent London publishing firm. In 1840 he was entrusted with the superin- tendence of the branch which his brother's Edinburgh house was establishing in Lon- don. He occupied this position for six years,, during which his office in Pall Mall became a literary rendezvous, among his visitors being Lockhart of the ' Quarterly Review/ Delane- of the l Times/ and Thackeray, with the last two of w r hom he formed an intimate friend- ship. One of his functions was to procure recruits for 'Blackwood's Magazine/ then edited by his eldest brother, and to him was due the connection formed with it by the first Lord Lytton, who began in 1842 to con- tribute to it'his translation of the poems and ballads of Schiller. In 1845 he returned to Edinburgh on the death of his eldest brother, whom he succeeded in the editorship of 1 Blackwood's Magazine.' In 1852, by the death of another elder brother, he became virtual head of the publishing business also, and he retained both positions until his death. As an editor he was critical and suggestive, as well as appreciative. As a publisher he preferred quality to the production of quan- tity ; in both capacities he displayed heredi- tary acumen and liberality. He quickly dis- cerned the genius of George Eliot, forthwith Blackwood 153 Blackwood accepting and publishing in his magazine the first instalment of her earliest fiction the ; Scenes of Clerical Life/ which had been sent to him without the name of the author, for whom thus early he predicted a great career as a novelist. This commencement of a busi- ness connection was soon followed by a per- sonal acquaintance between author and pub- lisher, which ripened into intimacy. In her husband's biography of George Eliot there are many indications of her readiness to ac- cept Blackwood's friendly criticisms and sug- gestions, and of her grateful regard for him. On hearing of the probably fatal termination of his last illness she wrote : ' He will be a heavy loss to me. He has been bound up with what I most cared for in my life for more than twenty years, and his good qualities have made many things easy to me that with- out him would often have been difficult.' All her books, after the l Scenes of Clerical Life/ were, with one exception, first published by his firm. Although Blackwood was a staunch conservative and the conductor of the chief monthly organ of conservatism, he always wel- comed, whether as editor or publisher, what he considered to be literary ability, without regard to the political or religious opinions of its possessors. A genial and convivial host and companion, he delighted to dispense, at his house in Edinburgh, and his country house, Strathtyrum, near St. Andrews, a libe- ral hospitality to authors with whom he had formed a business connection. To his maga- zine he contributed directly only occasional obituary notices of prominent contributors. A fragmentary paper of his, entitled ' Suther- landia/ described as ( racy/ was published in Mr. Clark's work on l Golf/ a game to which he was devoted. He died at Strathtyrum on 29 Oct. 1879. [A selection from the Obituary Notices of the late John Blackwood, editor of Blackwood's Magazine, printed for private circulation, Edin- burgh, 1880 ; George Eliot's Life, as related in her Letters and Journals, arranged and edited by her husband, J. W. Cross, 1885.] F. E. BLACKWOOD, WILLIAM (1776- 1834), publisher, founder of 'Blackwood's Magazine/ was born at Edinburgh in Novem- ber 1776. The circumstances of his parents were very moderate, but he received a sound education. Intelligent and fond of reading, he was apprenticed at fourteen to a bookselling firm in Edinburgh, and while in their service was a diligent student of the historical and archaeological literature of Scotland. At the early age of twenty he was thought worthy by an Edinburgh publishing firm of some eminence to be entrusted with the manage- ment of a branch of their business which they were establishing in Glasgow. There he re- mained a year, and then resumed for another year his connection with his first employers. Entering afterwards into partnership with an Edinburgh bookseller and auctioneer, he found this conjunction of vocations distasteful, and migrating to London he completed his biblio- graphical education in the antiquarian de- partment of a bookseller noted for his cata- logues of old publications. Having acquired through industry and frugality some capital, he returned to Edinburgh in 1804 and be- gan business on his own account, dealing chiefly in old books. He soon became the head of that branch of the trade in Scotland, and his catalogue of old books, published in 1812, is said to have been the first in which classification was attempted, and to have long remained a standard authority. Meanwhile he had begun to exhibit some enterprise and judgment as a publisher. In or about 1810 he took a principal part in founding the elabo- rate and costly 'Edinburgh Encyclopaedia/ edited by Mr. (afterwards Sir) David Brew- ster. In 1811 he published what remains the standard biography of John Knox by Dr. McCrie, and it was, it is said, at Blackwood's instance that the university of Edinburgh conferred on its author, though not a minister of the Scottish establishment, the degree of D.D. Having become the Edinburgh agent of the first John Murray of Albemarle Street, Blackwood published, in conjunction with him, the first series of Sir Walter Scott's * Tales of my Landlord.' In this transaction he showed his reliance on his own literary judgment by suggesting an alteration in the finale of the ' Black Dwarf.' Scott indig- nantly rejected the suggestion, in making which, it must be added, Blackwood had been fortified by the opinion of Murray's chief literary adviser, William Gifford. In 1816 Blackwood took what was con- sidered the bold step of removing his business from the old town of Edinburgh to Prince's Street, at that time a fashionable thoroughfare of the new town. Soon afterwards he resolved to establish a monthly periodical which would combat the influence, in politics and litera- ture, of the ' Edinburgh Review/ then still published in the city from which it derived its name. On 1 April 1817 he issued No. 1 of the * Edinburgh Monthly Magazine/ But , probably through precipitancy in his selection of its two editors [see CLEGHOEN, WILLIAM ; PKISTGLE, THOMAS], the tone and tenor of the new periodical w T ere calculated to strengthen instead of to counteract the influence of the 1 Edinburgh Review/ The June number ac- cordingly contained an intimation that in Black wood Bladen three months from that date it would be dis- continued ; but on 1 Oct. following was is- sued as No. 7 ' Blackwood's Edinburgh Maga- zine,' Its publisher was, and until his death continued to be, its sole editor. John Wilson and John Gibson Lockhart were the chief contributors to the magazine under its new name. Its first issue produced a considerable sensation from the appearance in it of the Chaldee Manuscript, which was chiefly their composition. In style and phraseology a some- what audacious imitation of the Old Testa- ment, this piece satirised the chief contributors to and the publisher of the * Edinburgh Re- view,' and the leading Edinburgh whigs, while giving a glowing description of the parentage and prospects of * Blackwood's Magazine.' Probably its apparent profanity offended in presbyterian Scotland many who would have relished its personalities. With the caution which, as w r ell as enterprise, characterised him, Blackwood excluded the Chaldee Manu- script from the second edition, immediately | called for, of the number in which it had appeared. With Wilson and Lockhart among its prin- cipal contributors, and its sagacious publisher to edit it, l Blackwood's Magazine ' prospered and took a leading position among British periodicals. New contributors of mark or likelihood were always welcomed and libe- rally treated. Blackwood was the first to re- cognise the merits of John Gait as a novelist : his i Ayrshire Legatees,' the earliest pub- lished of his prose fictions, was at once ac- cepted, and speedily appeared in the magazine. While encouraging and rewarding his con- tributors, Blackwood kept in check the exu- berance of some of them. The restraining influence which he exercised over Wilson him- self, the most powerful and prolific of them all, is shown in those of Blackwood's letters to him published in Mrs. Gordon's ' Christo- pher North.' Among the latest and most telling of his editorial acquisitions was Samuel Warren's l Diary of a Late Physician,' the first chapter of which, declined by the editors of the principal London magazines, was at once accepted by Blackwood. As a publisher Blackwood was largely, but by no means exclusively, occupied with the reissue, in book form, of prominent contribu- tions to his magazine. In 1818 he published 4 Marriage,' the earliest of Miss Ferrier's fic- tions. He lived to see completed in 1830 the publication, begun by him twenty years before, of the ' Edinburgh Encyclopaedia.' The publication of the voluminous and valu- able ' New Statistical Account of Scotland ' he undertook more from patriotic motives than with a view to profit. One of the latest and most spirited of his enterprises he did not live to see completed, Alison's l History of Europe,' which he at once undertook to publish on a perusal of the first volume in manuscript, though he foresaw that it would be a voluminous work. In spite of his en- grossing business avocations he found time to attend, as an active member of the town coun- cil of Edinburgh, to the interests of his native city, and, while as a staunch tory opposed to parliamentary reform, he is said to have been a zealous promoter of all civic improve- ments. He died at Edinburgh on 16 Sept. 1834, after an illness of some months, during which he was attended by D. M. Moir, poet and physician, the l Delta ' of his magazine. To the last John Wilson was a visitor to his sick room. In * Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk ' Lockhart has described him in his prime among the literary loungers in his Prince's Street shop as ( nimble, active-looking, with a complexion very sanguineous.' ' Nothing,' it is added, ' can be more sagacious than the expression of his whole physiognomy the grey eyes and eyebrows full of locomotion.' He is said to have contributed three papers to his magazine, but their subjects and dates have not been specified. [Obituary Notice (by Lockhart) in Black- wood's Magazine for October 1834 ; Christopher North, a Memoir of John Wilson, by his daugh- ter Mrs. Gordon (edition of 1879); Chambers's Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen ; Histories of Publishing Houses : the House of Blackwood, in (London) Critic for July-August I860.] F.E. BLADEN, MAKTIN (1680-1746), sol* ^ dier and politician, was the son of Nathaniel - ' ! - e p Bladen of Hemsworth, Yorkshire, by Isabella, daughter of Sir William Fairfax of Steeton, and was born in 1680. He is said to have passed a short time at a small private school in the country with the great Duke of Marl- borough, and from 1695 to 1697 was at West- minster School. He went into the army, and served in the low countries and in Spain, becoming aide-de-camp to Lord Galway, and rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. When he determined upon adopting a parlia- mentary career, he contested the Cornish con- stituency of Saltash in 1713 and 1715 in the whig interest, but was rejected on both occa- sions. For nineteen years (1715-34) he sat for Stockbridge in Hampshire, from 1734 to 1741 he represented Maldon in Essex, and from the latter year until his death he sat for Portsmouth. In 1714he was appointed comp- troller of the mint, and from 1717 to 1746 he was a commissioner of trade and plantations. So complete a sinecure was the latter post Blagden 155 Blagden that \vlien the colonel applied himself to the business, such as it was, of his office, he went by the name of l trade,' while his colleagues were called the 'board.' He refused in 1717 the appointment of envoy extraordinary to Spain, but accepted the post of first commis- sary and plenipotentiary to the conference at Antwerp in 1732 for drawing up the tariffs between this country, the Emperor of Ger- many, and the States General. He ranked among the steadiest supporters of Sir Robert Walpole, and often spoke in the debates on fiscal, naval, or military matters, his adhe- rence being so marked that Horace Walpole says (Letters, i. 130) that it was proposed to impeach him for his share in the Antwerp conference. Bladen died 15 Feb. 1746, and was buried in the chancel of Stepney Church, the inscription on the tomb being preserved in Lysons s l Environs.' His first wife was Mary, daughter of Colonel Gibbs; the second, whom he married in 1728, was Frances, niece and heir of Colonel Joseph Jory, and widow of John Foche of Aldborough Hatch, Essex. With her he acquired a considerable estate, and on it he built a new house, now de- stroyed, at a considerable cost. She died 14 Aug. 1747. His sister was the mother of Lord Hawke, the great admiral, in whose ad- vancement he materially aided. The colonel composed adulltragl-comedy, ' Solon, or Phi- losophy no Defence against Love. With the masque of Orpheus and Euridice ' (1705), and translated ' Caesar's Commentaries of his Wars in Gaul, and Civil War with Poinpey, with supplement commentaries and life.' The lat- ter work, which was dedicated to the Duke of Marlborough, originally appeared in 1712, and the seventh edition was published in 1770. To an issue which was brought out in 1750, Bowyer, the learned printer, added many notes signed 'Typogr.' These were in- cluded, with manv additional observations, in BoAvyer's 'Miscell. Tracts' (1785), pp. 189- 222. A person of the name of Bladen is satirised in the fourth book of Pope's i Dun- ciad,' line 5GO, and this ifi sometimes sup- posed to have referred to Martin Bladen. [Welch's Westminster Scholars, p. 230 ; Ly- sons's Environs, iii. 430-1, iv. 86; Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, ii. "222-3 ; Morant's Essex, i. 7 ; Blore's Entland, 180-1 ; Burro ws's Lord Hawke, 77, 110-32; Notes and Queries, 2nd series, vii. 326, 1865.] W. P. C. BLAGDEN, SIB CHARLES (1748- 1820), physician, was born on 17 April 1748. In 1768 he graduated M.D. at the university of Edinburgh, selecting as the subject of his thesis for the occasion ' De Causis Apoplexise.' This treatise was afterwards published. Blag- den then entered the army as a medical officer, and remained in the service till 1814, in which year he was present in Paris with the allied armies, as a physician of the British forces. During his military career he is said to have acquired a considerable fortune, and this was augmented by a legacy of 16,000/. bequeathed to him by the celebrated chemist, Cavendish, with whom he was on intimate terms. Blag- den also enjoyed for fifty years the friendship of Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, and to this circumstance he owed his election as secretary of the society at a disturbed period in its history. Blagden was elected fellow on 25 June 1772, and was ad- mitted 12 Nov. of the same year. In 1784 arose the quarrel between Banks and his op- ponents [see BANKS, SIR JOSEPH], in conse- quence ol which Mr. Maty resigned the secre- taryship, and Sir Joseph Banks proposed Blagden for the vacant post. In the result he was elected on 5 May 1784 by a large majority in a crowded meeting. Blagden was a careful worker in physical research, and contributed many papers to the ' Philoso- phical Transactions,' besides publishing several papers on medical subjects. Perhaps the most noteworthy of his physical papers is that on the i Cooling of Water below its Freezing Point,' read on 31 Jan. 1788. He would seem also to have interested himself to some extent in antiquarian matters, as we find him mentioned in a letter of the Rev. Sam. Denne (1799) as inspecting, in company with Lord Palmerston, the ancient Clausenturn at Southampton (NICHOLS'S Il- lustrations of Literature, vol. vi.) Among the ' Johnson iana ' which Langton commu- nicated to Boswell is the statement that, talking of Blagden's copiousness and pre- cision of communication, Dr. Johnson said : ' Blagden, sir, is a delightful fellow ' (Bos- WELL'S Johnson, vii. 377). Hannah More describes him as so modest, so sensible, and so knowing, that he exemplifies Pope's line : 'Willing to teach, and yet not proud to know' (Life, ii. 98). Blagden travelled a good deal abroad, and for the last six years of his life always passed six months of the year in France. He was elected in 1789 a correspondent of the Aca- demie des Sciences of Paris. He died sud- denly on 26 March 1820 at the house of his friend Berthollet, the renowned chemist, at Arcueil, near Paris. Blagden was author of the following : 1. ' Experiments and Observations in a Heated Room' (Phil. Trans. 1775). 2. < On the Heat of the Water in the Gulf Stream ' (ib. 1781). 3. * History of the Congelation of Quicksilver ' (ib. 1783). 4. ' An Account of Blagge 156 Blagrave some late Fiery Meteors ' (Phil. Trans. 1784). 5. ' On the Cooling of Water below its Freez- ing Point' (ib. 1788). 6. < On the Effect of various Substances in lowering the Point of Congelation of Water ' (ib. 1788). 7. ' Re- port on the best Method of proportioning the Excise on Spirituous Liquors' (ib. 1790). 8. < On the Tides of Naples *(tb. 1793). 9. < On Vision' (ib. 1813). 9. adventurer, John Blair of Windyedge, a younger brother of the ancient family of Blair of that ilk ; his mother was Beatrix Muir (of the house of Rowallan), who lived for nearly a century. From the parish school at Irvine Blair pro- ceeded to the university of Glasgow, where he took his degree of M.A. He is stated to have acted as a schoolmaster in Glasgow. In his twenty-second year he was appointed a regent or professor in the university. In 1616 he was licensed as a preacher of the gospel in connection with the established church (presbyterian) of Scotland. In 1622 he resigned his professorship, ' in conse- quence/ it is alleged, ' of the appointment of Dr. Cameron, who favoured episcopacy, as principal of the university ' (ANDEKSON, Scottish Nation). This reason seems im- probable, for having gone over to Ireland he was called to Bangor there and ordained by the Bishop of Down on 10 July 1623. But he was suspended in the autumn of 1631, and deposed in 1632 for nonconformity. By the interposition of the king (Charles I) he was restored in May 1634. Yet the former sen- tence was renewed, with excommunication, by Bramhall, bishop of Derry, the same year. M 2 Blair 164 Blair It would appear that even in Scotland [see WILLIAM BIBNIE] and in Ireland presby- terians were received into the episcopal church without subscription. Excommunicated and ejected, Blair, along with a company of others, ' fitted out a ship,' intending to go to New England in 1635. But the weather proved so boisterous that they were beaten back, and, returning to Scotland, he lived partly in that country and partly in England. Orders were issued in England for his apprehension in 1637, but he escaped to Scotland, and preached for some time in Ayr. He was invited to go to France as chaplain to Colonel Hepburn's regi- ment, but alter embarking at Leith he was threatened by a soldier whom he had reproved for swearing, and thereupon went ashore again. He also petitioned the privy council 'for liberty to preach the gospel,' and re- ceived an appointment at Burntisland in April 1638. He was nominated to St. An- drews in the same year, and was admitted there on 8 Oct. 1639. In 1640 he accom- panied the Scottish army into England on its famous march. He assisted in the negotia- tions for the treaty of peace presented by Charles I, 8 Nov. 1641. After the Irish re- bellion of 1641 he once more proceeded to Ireland with several other clergymen of the ' kirk,' the Irish general assembly (presby- terian) having petitioned for supplies for their vacant charges. He afterwards returned to St. Andrews. In 1645 he attended the lord president (Spottiswoode) and others to the scaffold. In the same year he was one of the Scottish ministers who went to Newcastle to speak very plainly to the king. In 1646 he was elected to the highest seat of honour in his church, that of moderator of the general assembly (3 June 1646). Later, on the death of Henderson, he was appointed chaplain- in-ordinary to the king, ' being paid by the revenues of the Chapel Royal.' The com- mission of the general assembly, in 1648, named him one of those for ' endeavouring to get Cromwell to establish a uniformity of religion in England.' The endeavour was a valorous one to impose presbyterianism on England. At the division of the church, in 1650, into resolutioners and protesters, he leaned to the former, ' but bitterly lamented the strife.' Summoned with others to London in 1654, that l a method might be devised for settling affairs of the church,' he pleaded ill- health and declined to go. In the same year he was appointed by the council of England ' one of those for the admission to the ministry in Perth, Fife, and Angus.' At the Restoration he came under the lash of Archbishop Sharp. He had to resign his charge in September 1661, and was con- fined to certain places, first of all to Mussel- burgh, afterwards to Kirkcaldy (where he remained three and a half years), and finally to Meikle Couston near Aberdour. As a covenanter he preached at the hazard of life in moor and glen. He died at Aberdour on 27 Aug. 1666, and was buried in the parish churchyard. He left behind him a manu- script commentary on the book of Proverbs, and manuscripts on political and theological subjects. None were printed, and they appear to have perished. Fortunately his ' Autobiography was preserved, and has been published by the Wodrow Society (1848) ; fragments were published in 1754. He married first Beatrix, daughter of Robert Hamilton, merchant, in right of whom he became a burgess of Edinburgh on 16 July 1626 ; she died in July 1632, aged 27. Their issue were two sons and a daughter : James, one of the ministers of Dysart, Robert, and Jean, who married William Row, minister of Ceres. His second wife was Katherine, daughter of Hugh Montgomerie of Braidstane, afterwards Viscount Airds. Their issue were seven sons and a daughter. One of these sons, David, was father of Robert Blair [q. v.], the poet of the t Grave,' and another, Hugh, grandfather of Dr. Hugh Blair [q. v.] [Autobiography, 1593-1636 ; Reed's Presbyte- rianism of Ireland, i. ; Row and Stevenson's Hist. ; Rutherford's and Baillie's Letters; Kirkcaldy Presb. Reg. ; Connolly's Fifeshire ; Chambers's Biogr. ; Scott's Fasti, ii. 91 ; Hill's Life of Hugh Blair.] A. B. G. BLAIE, ROBERT (1699-1746), author of the ' Grave/ was born in Edinburgh in 1699, the eldest son of the Rev. David Blair, a minister of the old church of Edinburgh, and one of the chaplains to the king. His mother's maiden name was Euphemia Nisbet, daughter of Alexander Nisbet of Carfin. Hugh Blair, the writer on oratory, was his first cousin. David Blair died in his son's infancy, on 10 June 1710. Robert was edu- cated at the university of Edinburgh, and took a degree in Holland. Nothing has been discovered with regard to the details of either curriculum. From about 1718 to 1730 he seems to have lived in Edinburgh as an un- employed probationer, having received license to preach, 15 Aug. 1729. In the second part of a miscellany, entitled ' Lugubres Cantus/ published at Edinburgh in 1719, there occurs an 'Epistle to Robert Blair,' which adds nothing to our particular information. He is believed to have belonged to the Athenian Society, a small literary club in Edinburgh, which published in 1720 the 'Edinburgh Blair 165 Blair Miscellany.' The pieces in this volume are anonymous, but family tradition has attri- buted to Robert Blair two brief paraphrases of scripture which it contains, and Callender, its editor, is known to have been his intimate friend. In 1728 he published, in a quarto pamphlet, a < Poem dedicated to the Memory of William Law,' professor of philosophy in Edinburgh. This contained 140 lines of elegiac verse. In 1731 Blair was appointed to the , living of Athelstaneford in East Lothian, to | which he was ordained by the presbytery of j Haddington on 5 Jan. of that year. In 1738 ; he married Isabella, the daughter of his de- ceased friend, Professor Law ; she bore him five sons and one daughter, and survived him until 1774. He possessed a private for- tune, and he gave up so much of his leisure as his duties would grant him to the study of botany and of the old English poets. Before he left Edinburgh he had begun to sketch a poem on the subject of the * Grave.' At Athelstaneford he leisurely composed this poem, and about 1742 began to make arrange- j ments for its publication. He had formed the i acquaintance of Dr. Isaac Watts, who had j paid him, he says, ' many civilities.' He sent j the manuscript of the l Grave ' to Dr. Watts, | who offered it ' to two different London book- I sellers, both of whom, however, declined to j publish it, expressing a doubt whether any j person living three hundred miles from town could write so as to be acceptable to the fashionable and the polite.' In the same j year, however, 1742, Blair wrote to Dr. Dod- ; dridge, and interested him in the poem, which , was eventually published, in quarto, in 1743. i It enjoyed an instant and signal success, but i Blair was neither tempted out of his solitude nor persuaded to repeat the experiment which had been so happy. His biographer says : i ' His tastes were elegant and domestic. Books , and flowers seem to have been the only rivals I in his thoughts. His rambles were from his | fireside to his garden : and, although the only record of his genius is of a gloomy character, < it is evident that his habits and life contri- : buted to render him cheerful and happy.' He ! died of a fever on 4 Feb. 1746, and was buried under a plain stone, which bears the initials R. B., in the churchyard of Athel- staneford. Although he had published so little, no posthumous poems were found in his possession, and his entire works do not amount to one thousand lines. His third son, Ro- bert [q. v.], was afterwards judge. The < Grave ' was the first and best of a whole series of mortuary poems. In spite of the epigrams of conflicting partisans, * Night Thoughts' must be considered as contem- poraneous with it, and neither preceding nor following it. There can be no doubt, how- ever, that the success of Blair encouraged Young to persevere in his far longer and more laborious undertaking. Blair's verse is less rhetorical, more exquisite, than Young's, and, indeed, his relation to that writer, though too striking to be overlooked, is superficial. He forms a connecting link between Otway and Crabbe, who are his nearest poetical kinsmen. His one poem, the ' Grave,' con- tains seven hundred and sixty-seven lines of blank verse. It is very unequal in merit, but supports the examination of modern criticism far better than most productions of the second quarter of the eighteenth century. As philosophical literature it is quite with- out value ; and it adds nothing to theology ; it rests solely upon its merit as romantic poetry. The poet introduces his theme with an appeal to the grave as the monarch whose arm sustains the keys of hell and death (110) ; he describes, in verse that singularly reminds us of the seventeenth century, the physical horror of the tomb (11-27), and the ghastly solitude of a lonely church at night (28-44) . He proceeds to describe the church- yard (45-84), bringing in the schoolboy 1 whistling aloud to keep his courage up,' and the widow. This leads him to a reflection on friendship, and how sorrow's crown of sorrow is put on in bereavement (85-110). The poetry up to this point has been of a very fine order ; here it declines. A con- sideration of the social changes produced by death (111-122), and the passage of persons of distinction (123-155), leads on to a homily upon the vain pomp and show of funerals (156-182). Commonplaces about the de- vouring tooth of time (183-206) lead to the consideration that in the grave rank and precedency (207-236), beauty (237-256), strength (257-285), science (286-296), and eloquence (297-318) become a mockery and a jest ; and the idle pretensions of doctors (319-336) and of misers (337-368) are ridi- culed. At this point the poem recovers its dignity and music. The terror of death is very nobly described (369-381), and the mad- ness of suicides is scourged in verse which is almost Shakespearian (382-430). Our igno- rance of the after world (431-446), and the universality of death, with man's unconscious- ness of his position (447-500), lead the poet to a fine description of the medley of death (501-540) and the brevity of life (541-599). The horror of the grave is next attributed to sin (600-633), and the poem closes some- what feebly and ineffectually with certain timid and perfunctory speculations about the mode in which the grave will respond to the Resurrection trumpet. Blair 166 Blair [The ' Grave ' was constantly reprinted after Blair's death, but with no authoritative details about the author. Dr. William Anderson, in 1796, exactly half a century after Blairs death, I collected from surviving members of his family | such particulars as could still be recovered, and \ prefixed them to an edition of the ' Grave ' pub- ! lished that year in a prefatory biography which contains all of a biographical nature which has been preserved about Robert Blair. Various brief accounts of his life which had appeared previous to that date had been entirely apocry- phal.] E. G. BLAIR, EGBERT, of Avontoun (1741- 1811), judge, was the third son of the Rev. Robert Blair, the author of the 'Grave' I [q. v.], and Isabella his wife, the daughter I of Mr. William Law of Elvingston, East i Lothian. He was born in 1741 at Athel- ! staneford, where his father was the minister, i Young Blair commenced his education at the j grammar school at Haddington, where he | formed a friendship with Henry Dundas, after- wards Viscount Melville, which only ended with their lives. From Haddington he was removed to the high school at Edinburgh, and thence was transferred to the university. In 1764 he was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates, and soon obtained a considerable practice at the bar, where he and Henry Erskine were often pitted against each other. In 1789 Blair was appointed by his friend Dundas one of the depute advocates, which office he continued to hold until 1806. For some years also he was one of the asses- sors of the city of Edinburgh. In 1789, at the age of forty-seven, Blair became solicitor- general for Scotland. This post he continued to occupy until the change of ministry which was occasioned by Pitt's death in 1806. During this period he twice refused the offer of a seat on the judicial bench, and both in 1802 and 1805 declined to accept the office of lord advocate. In 1801 he was elected dean of the faculty of advocates. Upon the return of his friends to power in 1807 he re- fused the offices of solicitor-general and lord advocate, but in the next year, upon the re- signation of Sir Hay Campbell, he accepted the presidency of the college of justice. This dignity, however, he did not long enjoy. He died suddenly on 20 May 1811. His old friend, Viscount Melville, who came to Edin- burgh purposely to attend the funeral, was taken ill, and died on the very day the presi- dent was buried. This singular coincidence gave rise to. a i Monody on the Death of the Right Hon. Henry Lord Viscount Melville, and Right Hon. Robert Blair of Avontown, Lord President of the College of Justice' (Edinburgh, 1811), written by an anonymous author. Blair married Isabella Cornelia, the youngest daughter of Colonel Charles Craigie Halkett of Lawhill, Fifeshire. His widow, one son, and three daughters, survived him ; but he left them so badly off that a pension was granted by the crown to his widow and daughters through the instrumentality of Mr. Perceval. He was a man of a very powerful understanding, with a thoroughly logical mind and a firm grasp of legal principles, but without any gift of eloquence or even of flu- ency of speech. He had such l an innate love of justice and abhorrence of iniquity,' and took so liberal and enlarged a view of law, that he was eminently qualified to fill the post which he held for so short a time. It is somewhat remarkable that Blair never sat in parliament. As a recreation he took much pleasure in agricultural pursuits, and he brought his small estate at Avontoun, near Linlithgow, to the highest state of cultivation. His statue by Chantrey stands in the first division of the inner house of the Court of Session. Two portraits of him were taken by Kay of Edin- burgh, one in 1793, and the other in 1799, etchings of which will be found in vol. i. of Kay's ' Portraits,' Nos. 127-8. [Law Eeview, ii. 341-52 ; Kay's Original Por-^ traits and Caricature Etchings, 1877, i. 313-6 ; Edinburgh Eeview, Ixix. 31-2, 281-3 ; Scots Magazine, 1811, pp. 403-7.] G. F. E. B. BLAIR, ROBERT, M.D. (d. 1828), in- ventor of the ' aplanatic ' telescope, was born (there is reason to believe) at Murchiston, near Edinburgh. He was, in all proba- bility, identical with the Robert Blair who wrote 'A Description of an accurate and simple Method of adjusting Hadley's Qua- drant for the Back Observation,' appended to the ' Nautical Almanac ' for 1788 (published 1783), and printed separately by order of the commissioners of longitude. But the first fact authentically known about him is his appointment by a royal commission, dated 25 Sept. 1785, to the chair of practical astro- nomy erected for his benefit in the university of Edinburgh, with a yearly salary of 120. Being unprovided with instruments or an ob- servatory, he held the post as a complete sinecure for forty-three years, eight of which he is said to have spent in London, where his only son, Archibald Blair, was established as an optician. When in Edinburgh he rarely entered the Senatus Academicus, and his name was even omitted from the list of professors furnished to the university commission, which began its sittings in 1826. In 1787 Blair undertook, with a view to finding a substitute for flint glass, the first systematic investiga- tion yet attempted of the dispersive powers Blair 167 Blair of various media, the results of which were lengthily detailed in a paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh 3 Jan. and 4 April 1791. He was the first to attempt the removal of the ; secondary spectrum/ and succeeded in his attempt by a triple combination of two essential oils, such as naphtha and oil of turpentine, with crown glass ; but his discovery of fluid media pos- sessing the same relative, though a different absolute dispersion from glass, gave a far more brilliant prospect of practical suc- cess. This valuable optical property he found to belong to metallic solutions, especially of antimony and mercury, mixed with chlorhy- dric acid, and to the absolutely colourless re- fraction thus rendered possible he gave the name of ' aplanatic/ or < free from aberration ' (Ed. Phil Trans, iii. 53). < Could solid media of such properties be discovered,' Sir John Herschel remarked (Encycl. Metr. iv. 429), 1 the telescope would become a new instru- ment.' Blair constructed object-glasses upon this principle, of which the performance was highly praised, in one case, at least, ventur- ing successfully upon the unexampled feat of giving to an aperture of three inches a focal length of only nine. He took out a patent for his invention, and entrusted the fabrication of the new instruments to a London optician, George Adams the younger [q. v.] ; but they never came into general use. An equally fruitless effort to establish a regular manu- facture and sale of them in Edinburgh was made by Archibald Blair, under his father's directions, in 1827 (Ed. Journ. of Science, vii. 336). The fluid used in the lenses appears, in course of time, to have lost its transparency by evaporation or crystallisation, and the difficulty offered by the secondary spectrum is, by modern art, rather evaded than overcome. Sir David Brewster relates (Encycl. llrit. art. ' Optics,' p. 586, eighth edition) that an instrument for magnifying by means of prisms, similar to the ' teinoscope ' invented by him- self in 1812 (Ed. Phil. Journ. vi. 334), was shown him by Archibald Blair as having been constructed by his father at an unknown date. The principle of the contrivance was arrived at independently by Amici of Modena in 1821. Blair became a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in January 1786, and at one period held the appointment of first commis- sioner of the board for the care of sick and wounded seamen. In this capacity he was instrumental in banishing scurvy from the navy by introducing the use of lime-juice, a method of preserving which for an indefinite time at sea he had previously ascertained (Ed. Journ. of Science, vii. 341). In 1827 he published at Edinburgh a small volume, en- ' titled ' Scientific Aphorisms, being the out- 1 line of an attempt to establish fixed principles of science, and to explain from them the gene- ral nature of the constitution and mechanism of the material system, and the dependence ! of that system upon mind.' The large pro- [ mise of the title-page is but imperfectly ful- filled by the contents. Extending Lesage's machinery for producing the effects of gravi- tation, he divided matter into three classes, distinguished by the size of the constituting ' projected,' ' jaculatory,' and ' quiescent ' par- ticles, in the mutual collisions of which he sought a universal explanation of phenomena of the material order, all motion being, how- ever, in the last resort, referred to the action of mind. His health was by this time much broken, and he died at Westlock, in Berwick- shire, 22 Dec. 1828. An abridgment of his l Experiments and Observations on the unequal Refrangibility of Light,' originally published in the ' Trans- actions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ' (iii. 3-76, 1794), appeared in Nicholson's ' Journal of Natural Philosophy ' with the title, ' The Principles and Application of a new Method of constructing Achromatic Telescopes ' (i. 1, 1797), and, in a German translation, in Gilbert's ' Annalen der Physik' (vi. 129, 1800). The best account of the principle of his * fluid lens,' or aplanatic tele- scopes, will be found in Sir John Herschel's article on Light in the * Encyclopaedia Me- I tropolitana ' (pars. 474-7). [Sir Alexander Grant's Story of the University 1 of Edinburgh (1884), i. 339, ii. 361 ; Cat, of Scientific Papers, i. 1867.] A. M. C. BLAIR,, WILLIAM (1741-1782), cap- tain in the royal navy, was the son of Daniel i Blair of Edinburgh, collaterally related to I the Blairs of Balthayock. He became a lieutenant in the navy on 9 Oct. 1760, but | did not attain his commander's rank till 6 Dec. 1777. He was posted on 18 April 1778, and commanded the Dolphin, of 44 guns, in the stubborn battle on the Dog- gerbank, 5 Aug. 1781. Notwithstanding her small force, the exigencies of the case com- pelled the Dolphin to take her place in the line of battle. Blair's conduct was worthy of the distinction thrust upon him, and won for him the special approval of the admiralty, and his appointment to the Anson, a new i 64-gun ship, then fitting for service in the West Indies. In the January following Blair sailed in company with Sir George Rod- ney, and on 12 April, when the French were completely defeated to leeward of Dominica, the Anson was in the leading squadron under the immediate command of Rear-admiral Blair 168 Blair Drake, and was warmly engaged from the | very beginning of the battle. Her loss was i not especially great in point of numbers, but j one of her killed was Captain Blair. A monu- ; ment to his memory, jointly with his brother j officers, Captains Bayne and Lord Robert i Manners, was erected in Westminster Abbey j at the public expense. [Beatson's Memoirs, v. 405, 475, 479 ; Gent, j Mag. (1782), lii. 337; Notes and Queries, 6th ser. vii. 122.] J. K, L. BLAIR, WILLIAM (1766-1822), sur- geon, youngest son of William Blair, M.D., and Ann Gideon, his wife, was born at La- venham in Suffolk 28 Jan. 1766. He qualified himself for surgical practice in London under Mr. J. Pearson of Golden Square, by whom he was introduced to the Lock Hospital, and on a vacancy was elected surgeon to that charity. Blair was a master of arts, but it is not stated at what university he graduated. He became very eminent in his profession, and was surgeon to the Asylum, the Finsbury Dispensary, the Bloomsbury Dispensary in Great Russell Street, the Female Peniten- tiary at Cumming House, Pentonville, and the New Rupture Society. He was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and of the medical societies of London, Paris, Brussels, and Aberdeen. For some time he was editor of the ' London Medical Review and Magazine.' Blair was a very earnest protestant of the methodist persuasion, and laboured zealously in the cause of the British and Foreign JBible Society, to which he pre- sented his valuable collection of rare and cu- rious editions of the Bible, and many scarce commentaries in different languages. Once or twice he attempted lectures on anatomy and other subjects, but with little success. On his wife's death in March 1822 he resolved to give up professional practice, and to retire into the country. He accordingly took a house in the neighbourhood of Colchester, but before the preparations for removing were completed he was seized with illness, and died at his residence in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, 6 Dec. 1822. His works are: 1. 'The Soldier's Friend, containing familiar instructions to the loyal volunteers, yeomanry corps, and military men in general, on the preservation and recovery of their health,' London, 1798, 12mo, 2nd edition 1803, 3rd edition 1804. 2. ' Essays on the Venereal Disease and its concomitant Effects,' London, 1798, 8vo, 3rd edition 1808. 3. ' Anthropology, or the Natural History of Man, with a comparative view of the structure and functions of animated beings in general,' London, 1805, 8vo. 4. ' The Vaccine Con- test, being an exact outline of the arguments adduced by the principal combatants on both sides respecting Cow-Pox inoculation, includ- ing a late official report by the medical council of the Royal Jennerian Society/ London, 1806, 8vo ; written in defence of vaccination in answer to Dr. Rowley. 5. ( Hints for the consideration of Parliament in a letter to Dr. Jenner on the supposed failure of vaccination at Ringwood, including a report of the Royal Jennerian Society, also remarks on the pre- valent abuse of variolous inoculation, and on the exposure of out-patients attending at the Small-pox Hospital,' London, 1808, 8vo. 6. ' Prostitutes Reclaimed and Penitents Pro- tected, being an answer to some objections against the Female Penitentiary,' 1809, 8vo. 7. 'Strictures on Mr. Hale's reply to the pamphlets lately published in defence of the London Penitentiary,' 1809, 8vo. 8. 'The Pastor and Deacon examined, or remarks on the Rev. John Thomas's appeal in vindication of Mr. Hale's character, and in opposition to Female Penitentiaries,' 1810, 8vo. 9. 'The Correspondence on the Formation, Objects, and Plan of the Roman Catholic Bible So- ciety,' 1814 ; this engaged him in a contro- versy with Charles Butler of Lincoln's Inn (vide Gent. Mag. Ixxxiv. pts. i. and ii.). 10. A long and elaborate article on ' Cipher/ in Rees's < Cyclopedia ' (1819), vol. viii. The engraved illustrative plates are erroneously inserted under the heading of f Writing by Cipher' in the volume of 'Plates/ vol. iv. This article is incomparably the best treatise in the English language on secret writing and the art of deciphering. It includes a cipher method invented by Blair, which he declared to be inscrutable ; but the key was discovered by Michael Gage, who published at Norwich in 1819 (though it is by a typographical error dated 1809) 'An Extract taken from Dr. Rees's New Cyclopaedia on the article Cipher, being a real improvement on all the various ciphers which have been made public, and is the first method ever published on a scientific prin- ciple. Lately invented by W. Blair, Esq., A.M. ; to which is now first added a Full Discovery of the Principle/ 8vo. 11. An ar- ticle on 'Stenography' in Rees's 'Cyclopaedia/ vol. xxxiv. 12. ' The Revival of Popery, its intolerant character, political tendency, en- croaching demands, and unceasing usurpa- tions, in letters to William Wilberforce/ London, 1819, 8vo. 13. 'A New Alphabet of Fifteen Letters, including the vowels/ in William Harding's ' Universal Stenography/ 2nd edit. 1824. 14. Correspondence respect- ing his method of Secret Writing, containing original letters to him on the subject from the Right Hon. W. Windham, G. Canning, the Blak 169 Blake Earl of Harrowby, J. Symmons of Padding- | ton, and Michael Gage of Swaft'ham, with the j whole of his system of ciphers. Manuscript | sold at the dispersion of William Upcott's I collection in 1846. [MS. Addit. 19170, ff. 23, 24; Page's Sup- | plement to the Suffolk Traveller, v. 946 ; Collet's Relics of Literature, 112 ; Notes and Queries, 1st j ser. xii. 384, 2ndser. iii. 17 ; Biog. Diet, of Living \ Authors (1816), 29 ; Some Account of the Death of William Blair, Lond. (1823), 12mo; Orthodox j Journal, iv. 139, 140 ; Cat. of William Upcott's MSS. and Autographs, art. 23 ; Gent. Mag. xcii. I (ii.) 646, xciii. (i.) 213 ; Cat. of Printed Books ! in Brit. Mus. ; Cotton's Rhemes and Doway, 78, ' 95, 98, 107, 115.] T. C. BLAK or BLACK, JOHN (d. 1563), a Dominican friar of Aberdeen, wrote 'De reali prsesentia Christ! in Sacramento Altaris;' ' Acta coltoquii cum Willoxio symmysta ; ' 1 Conciones pise ; ' and ' Monita ad Apostatas.' His public disputation with John Willox took place in Edinburgh in the summer of 1561. Bishop Lesley gives the three heads of their disputation, and adds that in the end nothing i was agreed. Indeed it would seem that the only important result of such discussions was to exasperate the temper of the people, for Blak was stoned to death by a protestant mob in Edinburgh on 7 Jan. 1562-3. [Camerarius, De Scot. Fort. p. 202; Collec- tions for the Shire of Aberdeen and Banff (Spald- ing Club, 1843), i. 202 ; Lesley's History of Scotland (Baimatyne Club, 1830), p. 295 ; Sir James Balfour's Annals (1824), i. 325; Wod- row's Biog. Collections, i. 110 ; Dempster's Hist. Eccles. Gent. Scot. (1627), p. 85 ; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 104.] T. F. H. BLAKE, CHARLES, D.D. (1664-1730), divine and poet, was born at Reading, Berk- shire, being the son of John Blake, ' gent.,' I of that town, and educated at the Merchant I Taylors' School and St. John's College, Ox- ! ford, of which he was scholar and afterwards ! fellow (B.A. 1683, MA. 1687-8, D.D. 1696). ! He was domestic chaplain to Sir William | Dawes, afterwards bishop of Chester and arch- I bishop of York, who was his close friend. Among his preferments were the rectory of St. Sepulchre's, London, of Wheldrake in ' Yorkshire, and of St. Mary's, Hull, and he was successively a prebendary of Chester, a pre- bendary of York (1716), and archdeacon of York (1720). He died 22 Nov. 1730. He published a small collection of Latin verses, consisting of a translation into Latin of the poem of Musaeus on Hero and Leander, and of part of the fifth book of Milton's l Paradise Lost;' and two original poems, one called 1 Hibernia Plorans/ written in 1689, the year of the siege of Londonderry, deploring Ire- land's woes, in the style of Virgil's Eclogues, and the other an elegy on the death, in 1688, of Frederick, the Great Elector of Branden- burg. These were all published together in a little sixpenny pamphlet, under the title of ( Lusus Amatorius, sive Musaei de Herone et Leandro carmen ; cui accedunt Tres Nugae Poeticae,' at London in 1693. [Wood's Athense Oxonienses ; Lists, &c. of Scholars of the Merchant Taylors' School, ed. Hessy ; Robinson's Eegister of Merchant Taylors' School, i. 296; Allen's History of Yorkshire; Ormerod's History of Cheshire.] R. B. BLAKE, SIR FRANCIS (1708-1780), first baronet, mathematician, born 1708, was descended from the house of Menlough, co. Galway. His father, Robert Blake, by his marriage with Sarah, third daughter of his kinsman, Sir Francis Blake, knight, of Ford Castle, Northumberland, became possessed of the Twisell estate, in the county of Durham. The son rendered active support to the go- vernment during the rebellion of 1745, and was created a baronet 3 May 1774. He de- voted much of his time to mechanics and experimental philosophy, and upon becoming a fellow of the Royal Society, in 1746, wrote some papers in the 'Philosophical Transactions.' Sir Francis died at Tilmouth 29 March 1780, and was buried at Houghton- le-Spring. [Raine's North Durham, pp. 314, 316 ; Betham's Baronetage, iii. 439.] G-. G. BLAKE, SIR FRANCIS (1738 P-1818), second baronet, political writer, was the eldest surviving son of Sir Francis, the first baronet [q. v.], by Isabel, his wife, second daughter and coheiress of Mr. Samuel Ayton of West Herrington, Durham. He was edu- cated at Westminster, whence he removed to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and proceeded LL.B. in 1763. He died at Twisell Castle 2 June 1818, at the age of 81. He wrote : 1. 'The Efficacy of a Sinking Fund of One Million per annum considered,' 8vo, 1786. 2. < The Propriety of an Actual Payment of the Public Debt considered,' 8vo, 1786. 3. ' The True Policy of Great Britain con- sidered,' 8vo, 1787. These, with other pieces, were republished collectively under the title of ' Political Tracts,' 8vo, Berwick, 1788, and again at London in 1795. His eldest son and successor, Francis, represented Berwick in several parliaments. He published some se- vere criticisms on the action of the House of Lords in regard to the corn laws, and died 10 Sept. I860, aged 85. Blake 170 Blake [Eaine's North Durham, pp. 3 1 3-1 4, 316-17 ; Cooper's Biog. Diet. p. 234 ; Biog. Diet, of Living >. Authors (1816), p. 29; Gent. Mag. Ixxxviii. i. 641 ! (1860), ix. 445-6.] GK G. BLAKE, JAMES (1049-1728), also known as JAMES CROSS, Jesuit, born in Lon- ; don in 1649, entered the Society of Jesus at Watten, in Belgium, in 1675, and was admitted a professed father 1 July 1675. He is named in Titus Oates's list of Jesuits in 1678 as Mr. Blake, alias Cross, living in Spain. On 3 April 1701 he was declared provincial of his brethren in England, and he held that i office for nearly four years. He was chaplain at Mr. Mannock's, Bromley Hall, Colchester, from 1720 till his death, on 29 Jan. 1728. His only published work is ' A Sermon of the Blessed Sacrament, Preach'd in the Chappel of his Excellency the Spanish Em- bassador on Corpus Christ! day, June 3, 1686,' London, 1686, 4to, reprinted in vol. ii. of 'A Select Collection of Catholick Ser- mons/ London, 1741, 8vo. [Foley's Eecords, v. 98, 108, 161, 537, vii. 64 ; Oliver's Collections S. J. ; Backer's Bibl. des Ecrivains de la Compagnie de Jesus (1869), i. 653.] T. C. BLAKE, JOHN BRADBY (1745-1773), naturalist, son of John Blake of Great Par- liament Street, Westminster, was born in Great Marlboro ugh Street, London, on 4 Nov. 1745, and received his education at West- minster School. In 1766 he was sent out to China as one of the East India Company's supercargoes at Canton. There he devoted all his spare time to the advancement of na- tural science, His plan was to procure the seeds of all the vegetables found in China which are used in medicine, manufactures, or food, or which are in any way serviceable to mankind, and to send to Europe not only such seeds, but also the plants by which they are produced. His idea was that they might be propagated in Great Britain and Ireland, or in some of our colonies. His scheme was attended with success. Cochin-China rice was grown in Jamaica and South Carolina ; the tallow-tree prospered in Jamaica, in Caro- lina, and in other American colonies ; and many of the plants the seeds of which he transmitted were raised in several botanical gardens near London. He likewise forwarded to England some specimens of fossils and ores. By attending too closely to these pursuits he contracted a disease, of which he died at Can- ton on 16 Nov. 1773, when he had just en- tered the twenty-ninth year of his age. '[Biog. Brit. (Kippis), ii. 359; Annual Reg. xviii. pt. ii. 30-5.] . T. C. BLAKE, MALACHI (1687-1760), dis- senting minister, was born at Blagdon, near Taunton, and was the son of the Rev. Malachi Blake. The family, a collateral branch of that of Admiral Blake, descends from Wil- liam Blake of Pitminster (died 1642), whose second son was John (1597-1645), the father of John (1629-1682), the father of Malachi (born 1651). This last-named, the presby- terian minister of Blagdon, and founder of the dissenting cause at Wellington, Somer- setshire, was implicated in Monmouth's re- bellion, and fled to London in disguise. His second son Malachi, born in 1687, was pres- byterian minister of Blandford, where he died in 1760. He published : ' A Brief Ac- count of the dreadful Fire at Blandford Forum in the county of Dorset, which hap- pened 4 June 1731. With sermons [4 June 1735] in remembrance, and serious address to the inhabitants of the town,' London [1735]. His younger brother, William (1688- 1772), a woolstapler, was father of Malachi (1724-1795), presbyterian minister of Whit- ney and Fullwood, and of William (1730- 1799), presbyterian minister of Crewkerne [see BLAKE, WILLIAM, 1773-1821]. [Blake pedigree, MS.; March's Hist. Presb. and Gren. Bapt. Churches in West of England, 1835, p. 244.] A. G-. BLAKE, ROBERT (1599-1657), admiral and general at sea, of a family formerly of Bishop's Lydiard, near Taunton, and after- wards merchants of Bridgwater, was born at Bridgwater in August 1599, the eldest of the twelve sons of Humphrey Blake and of Sarah, daughter and coheiress of Humphrey Williams of Plansfield. He received his early education at the grammar school of the town, and in 1615 was sent up to Oxford, where he matriculated as a member of St. Alban Hall, whence he removed shortly afterwards to Wadharn College, then recently founded. Here he remained for nearly ten years, gradu- ating in due course, and standing for a fellow- ship at Merton, though without success. Ac- cording to the tradition, the cause of his failure was his short, squat, ungainly figure, which offended the artistic sense of the war- den. In 1625 he left Oxford. His father had died intestate and far from wealthy. When Plansfield had been sold, and all avail- able property had been realised, there was little more than 200Z. a year. Two of the elder brothers went to push their fortunes in London, the younger ones were still at school ; Robert, with his second brother Humphrey, would seem to have continued the business, and not without success, for a few years later, and through the rest of his life he was in Blake 171 Blake easy circumstances. It is perhaps probable that at this time he himself made voyages to distant seas ; to do so was almost the common course for a pushing merchant. It is said that once, when Humphrey, as churchwarden, was censured by the bishop for conniving at certain irregularities in the service of the church, Robert signed a remonstrance against the bishop's conduct. The story is, however, very vague and uncertain. He was returned as member for his native place in the short parliament of 1640, but in the election of the following autumn he was unsuccessful ; he was not a member of the Long parliament till 1645, when, on the expulsion of Colonel Windham, he was again returned for Bridg- water. As a young man at Oxford he is said to have professed republican sentiments; he undoubtedly held republican opinions in his later years. v But these were, in the main, theo- retical preferences, which do not seem to have dictated his course of action ; that was ruled by his judgment of passing events, which, as he interpreted them, gave him but the choice between submission to arbitrary tyranny and a manly resistance. Even before the appeal to arms his mind was fully made up, and amongst the very first he joined the army raised by Sir John Homer in 1642. In July 1643 he commanded an important post in Bristol when it was besieged by the royalists; the town,however, was surrendered by Colonel Fiennes, the governor, after a very feeble de- fence, and though Blake, unwilling to believe this, held his post for twenty-four hours after the capitulation, he was at last compelled to accede to its terms. It is said, but without probability, that Rupert was with difficulty persuaded not to hang him. Blake's resolute conduct was warmly approved by the parlia- mentary leaders ; he was named one of the Somerset committee of ways and means, and was appointed lieutenant-colonel of Popham's regiment, fifteen hundred strong, in which also his brother Samuel, born 1608, had a com- pany. With a detachment of this regiment he made a dash at Bridgwater, hoping to sur- prise the castle. He failed in doing so, and, being quite unprepared for a more formal at- tack, at once drew off. There had been no fighting in the town, but straggling down the river Samuel Blake was killed in an acci- dental skirmish. We are told that when the loss was reported to the colonel, he said calmly, ' Sam had no business there;' but presently, retiring to a private room, he wailed aloud in a transport of grief, crying ' Died Abner as a fool dieth.' Samuel left a son Robert, whose fortunes were afterwards very closely linked with those of his uncle and godfather. After the fall of Bristol the royalists swept the west of England, and there were but few places which still held out for the parliament. | One of these was Lyme in Dorsetshire, little j more than a fishing village ; and though it ! was protected by a few earthworks hastily thrown up, Prince Maurice had no expecta- | tion of resistance when, at the head of some | five thousand men, he summoned it to sur- render. It happened, however, that Blake I had been stationed there with a detachment of about five hundred men, and had prepared ! himself as he best could to hold the post, had raised volunteers in the neighbourhood, ; and had strengthened the defences. The sum- I mons was rejected, and the assault which I immediately followed was bloodily repulsed. Maurice found that the place could not be ! taken without attacking in form, and accor- 1 dingly sat down before it ; but the defences ! grew as the siege' went on, and ' after he had lain before it a month it was much more like to hold out than it was the first day he came before it ' (CLARENDON) ; so that when, on 23 May 1644, the garrison was relieved by the fleet under Warwick, and Maurice had tidings of the near approach of the Earl of Essex, he hastily retired to Exeter, l with some loss of reputation for having lain so long, with such ! a strength, before so vile and untenable a [ place, without reducing it ' (ibid.} The stand at Lyme had been of very great I service to the parliamentary cause, and had given time for Essex to come into that part of the country. But Essex, by marching into Cornwall, lost the opportunity, and com- mitted a mistake which, had it not been for Blake's prompt action, might have been fatal. Among the many places in Somersetshire held by the royalists Taunton was one ; it was quite unfortified, and the garrison was small ; but it was the point on which all the main roads of the county converged, it com- manded the lines of communication, and had thus a peculiar strategic importance, which Blake alone seems to have understood. He had been promoted after his brilliant defence of Lyme, and had an independent command, with which, 8 July 1644, he suddenly threw himself on Taunton. It was held by only eighty men, who made no opposition, and in Blake's hands the place 'became a sharp thorn in the sides of all that populous country.' The position was one of extreme peril, for it was quite isolated ; and when Essex's army was overwhelmed in August no relief could be expected. Blake, however, determined to hold his ground as long as possible ; the roads were barricaded, breastworks thrown up, guns planted, houses loopholed, and when the royal- ists advanced on the place, which they had Blake 172 Blake judged it madness to defend, they received so rude a check that they contented themselves with investing it and waiting for famine to do their work. From time to time more ener- j getic attempts were made, but through all, | against sword and famine and repeated bom- bardments, the place was held for nearly a year, till after the battle of Naseby, 14 June, ; 1645, had left the parliament free to under- j take the subjugation of the west. When the | siege was finally raised, Blake continued to act as governor of Taunton. The town was j little more than a heap of rubbish, the land round about was desolate, the people were impoverished. Money was granted 'by the parliament to meet the immediate necessities, and public collections were made for rebuild- ing the ruined houses ; but through the au- tumn and winter Blake was fully occupied ! with the task of administering relief and re- storing order, and though returned to parlia- ment he did not at that time take any part in the parliamentary proceedings. His repu- tation in Somerset stood extremely high, and has been supposed to have excited the jealousy of Cromwell himself. Of this there is no evi- dence ; but it appears certain that Blake was not of Cromwell's party, and, unlike a large majority of the foremost men of the time, he was neither relation nor connection of Crom- well. It is said that he openly declared that ' he would as freely venture his life to save the king as ever he had done it to serve the parliament ' (History and Life, 28). This is utter nonsense, and would, had he said it, have been a strong condemnation of Blake, a dark stain on his character ; for it is per- fectly certain that he took no active measures, either in word or deed, to stay the king's exe- cution. It is probable enough that he con- sidered it as a blunder ; but his appointment 27 Feb. 1648-9, a very few days after the king's death, to share in the chief command of the fleet, is a proof that the dominant fac- tion had neither doubt of his goodwill nor jealousy of his reputation. The events of 1648 had indeed shown that it was necessary to have in command of the fleet a man whom the council of state could trust [see BATTEN, SIR WILLIAM] ; and it is very probable that some familiarity with ships and maritime af- fairs, gained as a merchant of Bridgwater, may have directed the appointment of Blake, as one of the admirals and generals at sea, to command the fleet during the summer of 1649. The duty immediately before them was to suppress Prince Rupert, who, with the re- volted ships and some others, had begun a naval war against the parliament on a system scarcely, if at all, distinguishable from piracy (WARBURTON, Prince Rupert, iii. 275 n.), and had meantime established his headquarters at Kinsale. Here Blake blockaded him, and the summer of 1649 slipped away without his being able to stir out of the port ; but so far was Cromwell from the jealousy with which he is commonly credited, that he suggested and procured for Blake the offer of a command with himself in the army in Ireland as major- general of foot. The choice was left with Blake (Calendar S. P., Dom. 2 Oct. 1649), who preferred the more adventurous service, and continued in command of the fleet. Towards the end of October a gale of wind blew Blake's squadron off shore, and Prince Rupert, taking hasty advantage of the chance, made good his escape to the coast of Portugal and the straits of Gibraltar, where he was on the main line of all foreign trade, and his pi- racies rapidly filled his treasury. A winter fleet was at once ordered to be got ready, and, Deane being sick, the sole command was, in the first instance, given to Blake (ibid. 4 Dec.), who was ordered to reside at Plymouth to expedite matters, and to get to sea as soon as possible ; while Popham, the third of the generals, was to follow with reinforcements. He was directed to hunt down the princes as public enemies, to seize or destroy them wherever he should come up with them, and to treat as enemies any foreign powers who might support them (17 Jan. 1649-50 ; THTJR- LOE, State Papers, i. 136). It was not till the beginning of March that Blake got to sea, and when he arrived at the mouth of the Tagus he found that the princes were in the river, and had obtained a promise of support from the king of Portugal. The English resi- dent in vain urged that these were pirates, in vain demanded satisfaction for the in- sults they received from the princes, whose men fought with, and even killed, the English sailors on shore ; whilst Rupert, always dis- tinguished for his mechanical genius, at- tempted to shorten matters by sending, 23 April, a species of torpedo not very dis- similar from those of our own time on board the vice-admiral, in hopes to set fire to his ship (WARBURTON, iii. 305: THTTRLOE,!. 146). Suspicion was excited, and the thing was not received on board ; but though the attempt was patent enough, and though the murder of some of the English seamen was publicly known, the king refused to give the English any satisfaction. The case was provided for j in Blake's instructions, and was rendered more I pressing by the belief that a French squadron j was expected, which was to act in concert I with the princes. Accordingly, on 21 May, | he seized nine ships going out of the river, bound for the Brazils with rich cargoes. i These ships were English, hired by the Por- Blake 173 Blake tuguese ; and Blake, taking out their officers and strengthening their crews, converted them into men-of-war. Five days later his fleet was reinforced by Popham with several large ships, and definite instructions to seize or de- stroy any ships or goods belonging to the king | of Portugal or his subjects. The king, on the I other hand, was enraged at the injury which | had been done him, and still more when the j homeward-bound Brazil fleet ran ignorantly ! in amongst the blockading squadron, and was captured ; he went on board Prince Rupert's ship, and besought him to go out at once, with his own squadron and all the Por- tuguese fleet, and drive aw r ay the English. Rupert was nothing loth to attempt this ; but a foul wind in the first place, and after- wards a want of cooperation on the part of the Portuguese, prevented his gaining any distinct success, though Blake had with him but a very small force, his ships being appa- rently distributed at Cadiz and along the coast (WARBURTON, iii. 313; THTJKLOE, i. 1 57). All the same, the blockade was raised ; and the Portuguese, determined to make peace with the parliamentary government, desired the princes to leave the Tagus. The latter accordingly set sail from Lisbon on 29 Sept. 1650, and ran through the straits into the Mediterranean, plundering as they went. They had already made several captures when, in the early days of November, Blake came up with the greater part of their squadron, which had been separated from the ships in which the princes sailed in a storm off Cape Gata. Blake chased the detached ships into Cartagena, and, without standing on any close observance of the rights of a neutral port, followed them in, drove them ashore, and set fire to them (WARBURTON, iii. 317 ; HEATH, 275). The princes, with three ships only, got to Toulon, and thither Blake followed them ; he at once sent in a protest against their being allowed the succour of a French port, and when this produced no effect he ordered reprisals against French ships. These measures of re- taliation cooled the warmth of the French wel- come, and the princes thought it best to quit the port, and to make what haste they could out of the Mediterranean. They did, in fact, sail to the West Indies, where, some eighteen months later, Maurice was lost in a hurricane (WARBURTON, iii. 324, 382). And meantime Blake, having instructions that Penn was on his way to relieve him [see PENN, SIR WIL- LIAM], returned to England, where he arrived towards the middle of February 1650-1. On his passage down the Mediterranean he met, it is said, a French ship of war, mounting forty guns, * whose captain he commanded on board, and asked him if he was willing to lay down his sword. The captain answered No! Then Blake bade him return to his ship and fight it out as long as he was able, which he did ; and after two hours' fight he came in and submitted, and kissing his sword delivered it to Blake, who sent him and his ship with the rest into England ' (WHITELOCKE'S Memorials, 16 Jan. 1650-1). The story is so evidently absurd in every particular that it would not be worth repeating were it not that it is strictly con- temporary, and, though resting on no autho- rity beyond mere gossip, is, so far, evidence of the peculiarly chivalrous character which popular opinion attributed to Blake. The official approval is better attested : the thanks of parliament were given him ' for his great and faithful service,' and a sum of 1,000/. as a mark of the parliament's favour (Calendar, 13 Feb. 1651). He was shortly afterwards (15 March) appointed to command the squa- dron designed for the Irish seas and the Isle of Man, and on news of a powerful Dutch fleet, commanded by Tromp, being in the neighbourhood of the Scilly islands, he was ordered (1 April) to proceed thither, with all his force, to demand of Tromp for what pur- pose he had come, and with what intentions ; and if the explanation should not be satisfac- tory, then to require him to desist, and, if necessary, ' to use the best ways and means to enforce him, and in all things to preserve the honour and interest of this nation.' The threatened collision with the Dutch passed over for the time, but the alarm was sufficient to point out to the parliament the necessity of subjugating the Scilly islands, which were held as strongholds of the royalist privateers. Blake was accordingly ordered to reduce them , no easy task, for the navigation w r as diffi- cult, the fortifications strong, and the garrison numerous. Negotiations proved unavailing ; but Blake, by seizing on Tresco, succeeded in establishing a strict blockade of St. Mary's, and having brought some of his smaller ships in front of the castle he effected a practicable breach, and compelled the governor to sur- render on easy terms (Calendar, 23 May, 6 June). There were indeed murmurings at the leniency shown to these very stiff-necked ! malignants ; but the council of state w r as quite well aware of the importance of the capture, : and approved of the whole business (28 June). Blake continued in the west, taking mea- I sures for the security of the Scilly islands j and refitting his ships. In August he received j a commission l to command in chief, in the absence of Major-general Disbrowe, all forces in the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Dorset ' (19 Aug.), a commission which was cancelled only three days later ; for Pop- ham had just died, Deane was with the army, Blake 174 Blake and Blake received pressing orders ' forthwith to go to sea in person, to keep those affairs in good order, and prevent any impressions that may be made on the seamen by misrepresen- tation of affairs,' and also ' to prevent any supplies being sent from foreign parts to the king of Scotland ' (22 Aug.) Accordingly, with his flag in the Victory, he took his station in the Downs, whence he effectually prevented any foreign assistance being sent to the king, or to any of the king's supporters. The hopes of the king were crushed at Wor- cester on 3 Sept. ; but all through the autumn attempts were made to carry arms and stores to his partisans in Ireland, and the watch from the Downs was continued till well into the winter. In September Colonel Heane was ordered to reduce Jersey, held, as the he bore up and ran down towards the Eng- lish, his fleet following without further signal. Blake, observing this sudden alteration of course, at once understood that Trornp meant to attack him, and prepared for battle. As the Dutchman drew near and came within musket-shot, without striking flag or lowering topsails, he ordered a gun to be fired as a summons. This was done and repeated ; the third shot Tromp answered with a broadside, and made the general signal to engage. The Dutch fleet consisted of between forty and fifty ships. Blake had with him only fifteen ; but these were, as a rule, larger and more powerful than the Dutch. On either side there was no attempt at formation; Tromp's fleet had come on in a straggling line, which would have closed round Blake's squadron Scilly islands had been, by an enterprising j had not Bourne, with his division, arrived in and piratical body of cavaliers. Blake was j the nick of time, and fallen heavily on the ordered to accompany him l with such ships ! Dutch rear. Thus reinforced the English fully as he thought fit, and to give his best advice , held their own. The battle raged for four and assistance for its reduction' (20 Sept.) ! hours, and ended only with the day, when Against an attack in force, Jersey, now com- Tromp, having lost two ships, drew off, and pletely isolated, could do very little, and be- \ the English anchored oft* Hythe. The next fore October was out this last of the royalist j day the Dutch were seen steering towards strongholds had surrendered to the parlia- the coast of France, and Blake, having col- mentary army. ! lected his fleet at Dover, went into the Downs. On 1 Dec. 1651 the council of state for the | The exact history of this battle and the trans- year began its sittings. Blake was for the first actions which preceded it is to be found in time a member, and during the next months an official pamphlet, entitled l The Answer attended with some regularity (Calendar, I of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of 1651-2, Introd., p. xlvii), which was brought j England to three papers delivered in to the abruptly to an end by the imminence of war Council of State by the Lords Ambassadors with Holland. On 10 March 1651-2 he at- ! Extraordinary of the States General of the tended the council for the last time j only i United Provinces.' It contains the letters of eleven members were present, when, probably j Blake, Bourne, and Tromp, as well as a num- at his own suggestion, he was ordered to re- j ber of depositions and other papers. The pair to Deptford, Woolwich, and Chatham, to I popular story, which has been repeated by Mr. hasten forth the summer fleet, f for which there I Dixon, is absurdly incorrect. It is unnecessary is extraordinary occasion' (11 March). The to examine it in detail, but it may be well to war broke out in May, and though there had been an accidental collision off the Start some days earlier, the first brunt of it fell on the fleet which had been got together in the Downs. Blake, with the bulk of his force, had gone along the coast to Rye, leaving Bourne, his rear-admiral, with only nine ships in the Downs, when, on 18 May, Tromp, with a large fleet, appeared outside, blown over, as he said, by stress of weather, from Dunkirk. His pro- fessions were amicable, but his bearing was most insolent ; he anchored off Dover, did not salute the castle, and during the rest of the day exercised his men with small arms, firing repeated volleys. The next day about noon Blake was seen approaching from the west- ward ; but the wind was foul, and his pro- gress slow. Tromp weighed and stood over towards the French coast, but afterwards, on getting news of the encounter off the Start, point out that Tromp's attack was certainly not a surprise to Blake ; that as his ship, the James, was lying to, whilst Tromp's, the Bre- derode, was coming down before the wind, the first broadside could not have been fired into the James's stern ; that as the James was cleared for action she had, for the time, neither cabin nor cabin windows ; that it is in the highest degree improbable that Blake, whilst ordering shotted guns to be fired on an in- sulting enemy, was below, either reading or drinking; and lastly, that as, according to every picture, tradition, and the custom of the age, he had a smooth, clean-shaven face, it is quite impossible that he could curl his whiskers in his anger. On the news of this battle the parliament took immediate measures for strengthening the fleet; but during the summer of 1652 Blake was alone in his office of general at sea, Blake 175 Blake Sir George Ayscue being subordinate to him, although employed in a distinct command. In the North Sea nothing of importance oc- curred, and after the check which Ayscue sustained from De Ruyter, 16 Aug., Blake, with the main fleet, cruised in the Channel, hoping to intercept De Ruyter on his home- ward voyage. Bad weather and fog, how- ever, enabled the Dutch fleet to escape with- out any serious difficulty, and De Ruyter joined fee With off Dunkirk on 22 Sept. He was closely followed by Blake, and the two fleets, each numbering about sixty-five ships, met off the mouth of the Thames on 28 Sept. The battle began about four o'clock in the afternoon, and raged with great fury where De With, De Ruyter, or Evertsen was ac- tually present ; but political intrigue had, for the moment, destroyed the usual spirit of the Dutch officers, and the approach of evening permitted them to draw on. No decisive ad- vantage was gained, but the next morning the Dutch were at some distance and would not renew the battle ; in the afternoon the wind was favourable, but on the English standing towards them they turned and fled. The victory was undoubted, but it was misunder- ! stood ; even Blake appears to have supposed that the battle had been fought out, and to ' have been led into something very like con- tempt for the enemy. The batteries which had been constructed to protect the anchorage in the Downs were dismantled and the fleet dispersed, either on different detached services or to refit ; Blake was left with not more than thirty-seven ships for the guard of the Chan- nel. In Holland, meanwhile, great exertions had been made. It was necessary for the life of the country that the trade which had been stopped for several months by the English fleet should be liberated, and towards the end of November Tromp, again in command, put to sea with some eighty ships of war and a convoy of about three hundred merchantmen. This last he left astern till he had cleared the way, and on the morning of 29 Nov. ap- peared with his fleet at the back of the Good- win, standing towards the southward. Blake, who was then lying in the Downs, held a hasty council of war, weighed, and stood out to meet him. It is impossible now to say what induced the council to recommend, or Blake to adopt, this extraordinary step, which, to us, seems rash to the verge of madness. All that can be said with certainty is that the commonly received story is incorrect, and that he was not influenced by any idea of covering the approach to London, which in- deed he left exposed, if Tromp had had any design against it. It is perhaps most pro- bable that he had not fully recognised the enemy's great superiority until he was well under way ; for the wind, which had been at south-west, veered almost suddenly, and blew very hard from the north-west. The Dutch were swept down to the southward, the Eng- lish avoided being carried in amongst them | only by hugging the shore, slipping close round the Foreland, and anchoring off Dover ; whilst Tromp, unable to withstand the force of the gale, anchored a couple of leagues dead to leeward. The next morning, 30 Nov., the two fleets weighed nearly together, and with a fresh wind at from N. to N.N.W. stood to the westward along the coast, Tromp unable, Blake, it may be, unwilling, to attack. But as they came near Dungeness the English were forced to the southward by the trend of the coast ; with or without their will they were obliged to close, and their leading ships were thus brought to action. Amongst the first the Triumph, carrying Blake's flag, sup- ported by Lane in the ^' ^ ictory, and Mildmay in the Vanguard, was closely engaged by De Ruyter and Evertsen. The Garland and Bonaventure attacked Tromp himself in the Brederode ; but other ships came up to their admiral's support, and the English ships were overpowered and taken after a gallant resistance, in which both their captains were slain. By those ships that did engage, the fight was stoutly maintained, though against tremendous odds ; but a great many, whether fearing the superiority of the enemy, or cor- rupted, as it was thought, by the emissaries of the king in Holland, persistently remained to windward ; whilst fortunately, on the side of the Dutch, several which had fallen too far to leeward were unable to get into the action. Towards evening the English had lost, besides the Garland and Bonaventure, one ship burnt and three blown up ; the Triumph had lost her foremast, and was unmanageable : the other ships that had engaged had suffered se- verely, and those that had not engaged still kept aloof. With a sorrowful heart Blake drew back, and under cover of the darkness anchored off Dover ; the next day he went into the Downs. Tromp, unable by the force and direction of the wind to follow him in, crossed over to the French coast, and anchored off Boulogne, whence he sent word to the convoy to pass on. For the next three weeks the Channel was alive with Dutch ships, and Tromp, having remained at Boulogne till the trade had all passed, proceeded to the ren- dezvous in the Basque roads. It was at this time that, according to the popular story, he wore the broom at the masthead, as signify- ing that he had swept, or was going to sweep, the English from the seas. There is no reason to believe that he ever did anything of the Blake 176 Blake sort ; the statement is entirely unsupported by contemporary evidence ; not one writer of any credit, English or Dutch, mentions it even as a rumour ; but months afterwards an anony- mous and unauthenticated writer in a news- paper wrote : ' Mr. Trump, when he was in France, we understand, wore a flag 1 of broom ' (Daily Intelligencer, No. 113, 9 March 1652- 3). The story was probably invented as a joke in the fleet, without a shadow of foundation. Blake had meantime written to the council of state a narrative of his defeat, complain- ing that ' there was much baseness of spirit, not among the merchant men only, but many of the state's ships.' He was sick at heart, and prayed that he might be discharged from his employment, but before everything he made it his earnest request that commissioners might be sent down to take an impartial and strict examination of the deportment of several commanders.' The council, however, refused to supersede him, although they as- sociated two others with him as generals of the fleet, his old colleague, Deane, and Monck, now for the first time appointed to a naval command. Blake they thanked for his con- duct, and instituted the commission he had desired, to investigate both the conduct of the officers and the internal economy of the fleet. Many improvements were ordered, and the organisation of the navy began to approach more nearly to that which after- wards prevailed ; but most of all were efforts made to increase the number and effective force of the ships. It was determined that Tromp should not return through the Channel unchallenged, and every nerve was strained to get together a fleet equal to the work before it. By the middle of February 1652-3 a fleet of between seventy and eighty ships was as- sembled at Portsmouth, and sailed to cruise to the westward ; it was known that Tromp was approaching with a fleet about equal in point of numbers, and a convoy of some 200 mer- chant ships. On the morning of the 18th they were sighted coming up Channel with : a leading wind. Blake was then off Port- j land and standing to the south ; his fleet in i no formation, but gathered in squadrons ac- ! cording to the several flag-officers. Penn, I with the blue squadron, was well to the southward ; Monck, with the white squadron, was a long way to leeward ; neither of them was in a position to help the red squadron, commanded by Blake and Deane together on board the Triumph. Tromp was not slow to understand this, though it seems altogether to have escaped Blake ; he saw that it was im- | possible for him to pass without doing battle ] or endangering his convoy, and, at once taking advantage of Blake's gross tactical blunder, threw himself in force on the red squadron. The Triumph was the very centre of the attack, and round her the battle raged fiercely. Blake was severely wounded ; Ball, her captain, was killed ; so also was Sparrow, the admiral's secretary, and very many other brave men. The fight seemed likely to prove disastrous to the English, when Penn with the whole blue squadron, and Lawson with the van of the red, who had struggled to windward and tacked, bore in amongst the Dutch. Later on, too, Monck with the white squadron came up, and the battle continued on equal terms till nightfall, when Tromp, seeing some of the English threaten- ing his convoy, drew off to its support. Neither side could as yet claim the vic- tory, and the loss of both, though very great, was fairly equal. During the night Tromp passed with his whole convoy ; when morn- ing dawned they were off St. Catharine's, and running freely up Channel. The Eng- lish followed ; but Tromp ranged his fleet astern of the merchant ships, so that they could not be got at but by passing through the ships of war ; and though many severe partial actions occurred, nothing very de- cisive was done. The chase continued during that day and the next ; five Dutch ships of war were sunk, four were captured, and some thirty or forty merchant- ships ; but Tromp kept up a semblance of order and protection to the last, and got the re- mainder away safely. The advantage was very markedly with the English ; but the Dutch, though worsted, were not dismayed, and immediately began preparing for a further struggle. Blake's wound proved more serious than was at first expected. He was put on shore at Portsmouth, but his recovery was slow, and a month afterwards his surgeon, Dr. Whistler, wrote : ' General Blake, I hope, mends, but my hopes are checked by the maxim " De senibus non temere sperandum." I trust the Great Physician's protection may be on him and on all public instruments of our safety ' (21 March). A few weeks later he went to London, where he attended to admiralty business (Col. 12 May) ; but it was only the news of the Dutch fleet being again at sea that impelled him, weak as he was, to resume the command. He hoisted his flag on board the Essex, then in the river (Cal. 2 June), but before he could get to the fleet the great battle of 3 June 1653 had been fought. He, with his squadron, did not arrive till late in the afternoon, and, coming fresh on the field, contributed largely to render the victory more complete. Deane had been slain in the battle, and for the next few weeks Blake shared the Blake 177 Blake command with Monck ; but his health gave way under the strain, and he was compelled to go on shore at Southwold. ' We found him/ wrote the secretary of the admiralty, who had visited him, ' in a very weak con- dition, full of pain both in his head and left side, which had put him into a fever, besides the anguish he endures by the gravel, inso- much that he has no rest night or day, but continues groaning very sadly. This place affords no accommodation at all for one in his condition, there being no physician to be had hereabouts, nor any to attend him with necessary applications' (0 July). He had thus no share in the final victory of the war, 31 July, but equally with Monck was pre- sented with a gold chain worth 300/. ' as a mark of favour for his services against the Dutch ' (6 Aug.) ; Penn and Lawson were also at the same time presented each with a chain of TOO/, value ; and all four with a large gold medal (VAX LOON, Hist. Met. ii. 367). One of these medals, believed to be Blake's, was bought for William IV in 1832 (Gent. Mag. cii. i. 352), and is now kept at Windsor. The junior flag officers received chains of value 40/., and smaller medals, one of which is now in the British Museum. A few weeks' rest happily restored Blake's health so far as to permit him to return to the fleet (Gal. 20 Sept.) ; but the press of work was over, and during the winter his time was divided between admiralty business in London and his executive duties at Ports- mouth(Ca/.19Nov.;2,31Dec;4,25Feb.,&c.) After the peace with Holland in April 1654, he still continued the senior commissioner of the admiralty, and in July was appointed to command the fleet, which sailed on 29 Sept. for the Mediterranean, where, during the war, English interests had been very inadequately represented. His instructions seem to have been to carry on reprisals against the French, to repress the African pirates, to demand re- dress for injuries done to English ships, and, in general terms, to visit the different ports -of the Mediterranean, in order as it is now called to show the flag. In this way he visited Cadiz, Gibraltar, Alicant, Naples, and Leghorn (14 March 1654-5, Add. MS. 9304) ; but his earlier letters have unfor- tunately not been preserved, and there is no authentic account of his proceedings at this time. It is said that he also visited Malaga, and that whilst there he compelled the go- vernor to make reparation for an outrage inflicted on an English seaman. The man liad committed a gross offence : he had insulted the procession of the host. If complaint had been made, he should have been punished ; ' but,' said Blake, ' I will have you know, VOL. v. and the whole world know, that none but an Englishman shall chastise an English- man.' The story is extremely doubtful. It i rests only on the evidence of Bishop Burnet (Hist, of Own Times (Oxford edit.), i. 137), whose testimony is by no means unimpeach- able ; it is told in a very hearsay sort of manner, without any date ; and it is difficult to believe that had any such thing occurred, it would not be referred to in some of the existing official correspondence. It is, how- ever, a story which has been very generally accepted, and, together with that of his cap- ture of the French frigate already referred to, has perhaps done more than the whole of his historical career to fix the popular idea of Blake's character. At Leghorn he is said (LuDLOw's Memoirs, ii. 507) to have de- manded and obtained from the Grand Duke of Tuscany and from the pope reparation for the countenance shown to Prince Rupert, and for the loss sustained at the hands of Van Galen (see APPLETON, HENRY ; BADILEY, RICHARD) ; and 60,000/. is said to have been actually paid (CAMPBELL, ii. 43). The state- ment is, however, entirely unsupported by exact evidence, and is virtually contradicted by Blake's silence in his extant letters from Leghorn, and his reference to others from the same place, as of little importance (12 Jan. 1654-5, Add. MS. 9304). From Leghorn he went on to Tunis, where, according to his instructions, he demanded restitution or satisfaction for piracies com- mitted on English subjects. This was posi- tively refused, and finding negotiations vain and the Turks insolent, Blake finally resolved to reduce them by force to terms of civility. On the morning of 4 April 1655, his fleet sailed into Porto Farina, and anchored under the castles. As the fight began, a light wind off the sea blew the smoke over the town and shielded the English, so that after some hours' cannonade, having set on fire all the ships, to the number of nine, they re- | treated into the roadstead with no greater I loss than twenty-five killed and about forty wounded. Blake was doubtful whether, in thus attacking the Tunis pirates in their stronghold, he had not exceeded his instruc- tions, and in his official report expressed a hope that ' his highness will not be offended at it, nor any who regard duly the honour of our nation' (18 April; THURLOE, in. 232). Crom- well's reply was most gracious (13 June ; ibid. iii. 547) ; at the same time he sent orders to proceed off Cadiz, and carry on hostilities against Spain, with an especial view to inter- cept the Plate ships, or to prevent reinforce- ments being sent to the West Indies. In May Blake had visited Algiers, where the Jf Blake 178 Blake dey, convinced by the arguments put in I Spanish ship was burnt, blown up, or sunk, force at Tunis, entered into a friendly agree- [ and by seven o'clock the English ships had ment ; and, in anticipation of his later in- all drawn off ; not one was lost. ' We had structions, he was, by the beginning of June, not above fifty slain outright and 120 wounded, at Cadiz, off which he cruised during the rest and the damage to our ships was such as of the summer. The strain on his ships and in two days' time we indifferently well re- the health of his ships' companies was very ' - great ; and as winter approached he deter- mined, in accordance with the discretion en- trusted to him (THTJRLOE, i. 724) to return to England, where he arrived on 9 Oct. In the following spring, as soon as the season permitted, he returned to the same cruising ground in company with Colonel Edward Mountagu, appointed also general at sea. Mountagu remained during the sum- mer, and with Blake and the bulk of the fleet had gone to Aveiro in September, when Stayner [see STAYNER, SIR RICHARD], in com- mand of the light squadron, fell in with, cap- tured, and destroyed the Plate fleet (8 Sept.), with a loss to Spain estimated at nearly two millions sterling in treasure alone, exclusive of the ships and cargoes (Narrative of the paired for present security. "Which we had no sooner done, but the wind veered to the south-west, which is rare among those islands, and lasted just to bring us to our former station near Cape Santa Maria, where we arrived 2 May following' (Narrative, fyc., by order of parliament, 28 May 1657). The news of this great victory, of the daring and success of this extraordinary attack, which compares with the most brilliant of naval achievements, excited the greatest enthusi- asm in England. A public thanksgiving was ordered for 3 June, and the Protector wrote (10 June) : ' We cannot but take notice how eminently it hath pleased God to make use of you in this service, assisting you with wisdom in the conduct and courage in the execution ; and have sent you a small jewel late Success, fyc., published by order of par- j ps a testimony of our own and the parlia- liament, 4 Oct. 1656). After this severe ment's good acceptance of your carriage in blow to the enemy, several of the larger ships, this action ' (TnuRLOE, vi. 342). The jewel referred to was a portrait set in gold and diamonds, the cost of which amounted to 575/. (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. vi. 444). We may suppose that it reached Blake in safety, but nothing further is known of it. A story has been told and repeated that Blake's with Stayner and Mountagu, went home for the winter. Blake continued on the station, and early in April 1657 he had news that a large fleet from America had arrived at Santa Cruz of Teneriffe. In a council of war he announced his resolution of going thither and attacking it. They sailed on the 13th, i brother, Benjamin, commanded a ship at made the land on the 18th, and on the morn- ; Santa Cruz, was there guilty of cowardice, ing of the 20th by daybreak were off Santa Cruz. By signal from a frigate ahead they learned that the West India fleet was still in the bay. l Whereupon,' says the official report, * after a short conference how to order the attempt and earnest seeking to the Lord for his presence, w r e fell in amongst them, and by eight of the clock were all at an anchor, some under the castle and forts, and others by the ships' sides, as we could berth ourselves was tried by court martial at Blake's order, was sentenced to death, with a recommenda- tion to mercy, to which the general yielded, and sent the culprit home with an order ' he shall never be employed more.' The story is utterly false. Benjamin Blake went out to the West Indies with Penn, and was ap- pointed by him vice-admiral of the fleet left there. under Goodsonn as commander-in- chief. Between these two a quarrel arose, to keep clear one of another and best annoy apparently as to the right of command. The the enemy. They had there five or six galeons details are not known, but the result was that and other considerable ships, making up the \ Goodsonn sent his second in command home number of sixteen; most of them were fur- : (25 June 1656; THURLOE, v. 154). From nished with brass ordnance, and had their | beginning to end the general had nothing to full companies of seamen and soldiers, kept \ do with the matter, except indeed that, out continually on board. They were moored of respect to him, the case was not pressed close along the shore, which lies in a semi- \ as it otherwise might have been. circle, commanded as far as the ships lay by the castle, and surrounded besides with six or seven forts, with almost a continued line for musketeers and great shot.' This was the position which Blake, with a fleet barely superior in nominal force to that of the enemy, had attacked at the very closest quarters, with the result that before evening every With the destruction of the Spanish fleet, Blake's work before Cadiz was finished. He was ordered to return to England. He did not live to reach it. His health had long been extremely feeble ; and worn out by the fatigues and excitement of the campaign and by what the doctors called ' a scorbutic fever,' he died on board his ship, the George, at the Blake '79 Blake very entrance of Plymouth Sound, 7 Aug. j 1657. His body was embalmed ; was carried i round by sea to Greenwich, where it lay in state for some days ; was taken in procession | up the river on 4 Sept. and placed in a vault in Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey. | Out of this royal burial-place it was removed | after the Restoration, and, with a score of j others, was cast into a pit dug on the north side of the abbey (STANLEY, Historical Me- morials of Westminster, 5th edit., 209). The peculiar and especial distinction which attaches to the name of Blake is by no means due solely to the brilliance of his achieve- ments in the command of fleets, nor yet to that exceeding care and forethought in their organisation and government to which his constant success must be mainly attributed, j Where he led or ordered them his men were | willing and able to go ; the work was done j heartily and well ; but the tactics of a fleet | were still in their infancy, and in this respect | Blake was unquestionably inferior to his j great Dutch rival, Martin Tromp. But more even than by his glory and by his success, the memory of Blake is dear to the English people by the traditions of his chivalrous character and of his unselfish patriotism. These cannot be proved by historical evidence, | but all indications tend to the same purpose, j and compel us to believe that his object was, j before everything, to uphold the honour and the interests of England. It is said that when urged to declare against Cromwell's assumption of supreme power, he replied, ' It is not for us to mind state affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us.' The reply is traditional; but its sentiment agrees with what he wrote on hearing of the dissolution of parliament, 22 Jan. 1654-5 : ' I cannot but exceedingly wonder that there should yet remain so strong a spirit of prejudice and animosity in the minds of men who profess themselves most affectionate patriots as to postpose the necessary ways and means for the preservation of the Commonwealth' (THURLOE, iii. 232). It is in this spirit that he commanded our fleets even to the end. Except by tradition we know nothing of his political bias ; but if in truth opposed to the government and the usurpation of Cromwell he never allowed his opposition to become manifest, and, irrespective of party, devoted his life to the service of his country. No undoubted portrait of Blake is known to exist. The portrait at Wadham College, and that formerly in the possession of Joseph Ames, are possibly originals; but the evidence is defective. The same must be said of the picture by Hanneman, which in 1866 was exhibited at South Kensington, lent by Mr. Fount aine of Narford Hall ; it may be Blake, but proof is quite wanting. The picture in the Painted Hall at Greenwich is a work of modern imagination, based apparently on a memoiy of the Ames portrait. [Calendars of State Papers, Domestic, 1649- 1657 ; Granville Penn's Memorials of Sir Wil- liam Penn ; Thurloe's State Papers. There are many so-called lives of Blake : in Lives English and Foreign (1704), ii. 74 the author of which claims to have known some of the members of Blake's family; by Dr. Johnson a paraphrase of the preceding ; by Campbell, in Lives of the Ad- mirals, ii. 62 ; History and Life, &c., by a Gentle- man bred in his Family an impudent and men- dacious chap-book ; and by Mr. Hepworth Dixon (1852). From the historian's point of view they are all utterly worthless. Mr. Dixon's notices of Blake's family, so far as they are drawn from parish and private records, may possibly be correct, but his account of Blake's public life is grossly inaccurate, and much of it is entirely false ; he betrays throughout the most astonishing igno- rance of naval matters, and a very curious inca- pability of appreciating or interpreting historical evidence.] J. K. L. BLAKE, THOMAS (1597P-1657), puri- tan, was a native of Staffordshire. As he entered Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1616 in his nineteenth year, he must have been born about 1597. He proceeded B.A. and M. A., and having obtained orders, Wood tells us, he had* some petit employment in the church bestowed on him.' ' At length/ con- tinues the historian, ' when the presbyterians began to be dominant, he adhered to that party,' and ' subscribed to the lawfulness of the covenant in 1648 among the ministers of Shropshire, and soon after, showing himself a zealous brother while he was pastor of St. Alkmond's in Shrewsbury, he received a call to Tamworth in Staffordshire and Warwickshire, where also being a constant preacher up of the cause, he was thought fit by Oliver and his council to be nominated one of the assistants to the commissioners of Staffordshire for the ejecting of such whom they called ignorant and scandalous ministers and schoolmasters.' Blake published a large number of books on puritan theology, but his attacks on Ri- chard Baxter damaged his reputation with many nonconformists. His arguments indi- cate a narrow, if subtle, intellect. The follow- ing are his chief works : 1. ' Birth Privilege, or the Right of Infants to Baptism,' 1644. 2. f Infant's Baptism freed from Antichris- tianisme. In a full Repulse given to Mr. Ch. Blackwood in his Assault of that Part of Christ's Possession which he holds in his Heri- tage of Infants, entitled " The Storming of N2 Blake 180 Blake Antichrist," ' 1645 Wood misnames Black- wood /Charles' for 'Christopher.' 3. onrl *>Yn9nsirn. i\ec Blakey 190 Blakiston uncle in gardening, after which he was ap- prenticed to the fur trade at Alnwick. Much of his spare time was devoted to reading, and in the evenings he received private instruction from, a schoolmaster in geometry, physical geography, and astronomy. At an early pe- riod he acquired a strong love of abstract speculation, and latterly this absorbed his chief interest. In 1815' he left Alnwick for Morpeth, and soon afterwards began to eon- tribute to the 'Newcastle Magazine/ the ' Black Dwarf/ ' Gobbet's Register/ and the * Durham Chronicle.' In 1831 he published a ' Treatise on the Divine and Human Wills/ and in 1833, in two volumes, a ' History of Moral Science.' In the beginning of 1838 he purchased the l Newcastle Liberator/ which, in 1840, was amalgamated with the ' Cham- pion/ a London weekly paper under the title of ' The Northern Liberator and Champion/ and published both at Newcastle and London. For the publication in his paper of an essay on the natural right of resistance to consti- tuted authorities, he was prosecuted by the government, and bound over to keep the peace. Shortly afterwards he sold the paper at a considerable loss, and on the failure of an attempt to start in London a paper called ' The Politician/ he went to France with the resolution to devote 'all his time and energies to philosophical literature.' In order to ob- tain a more thorough knowledge of the scho- lastic and middle-age literature, he visited the principal libraries of Belgium. The earliest results of his studies were seen in ' Christian Hermits/ published in 1845. For some time he also, for a stipulated sum, assisted a gen- tleman in preparing a work on the ' History of Social and Political Philosophy from the time of Charlemagne to the French Revolu- tion.' The work never appeared, but the line of research into which it led him was of great service in the preparation of his l History of Political Literature from the Earliest Times/ two volumes of which were published in 1855. Previous to this he had brought out his prin- cipal work, 'History of the Philosophy of Mind, embracing the opinions of all Writers on Mental Science from the Earliest Times to the Present Day/ four vols. 1848 ; and ' Historical Sketch of Logic from the Earliest Times to the Present Day/ 1851. In philo- sophical speculation he was an orthodox fol- lower of the intuitive school, and his works are popular rather than profound, but they are characterised by close reasoning, clear and correct statement, and comprehensive know- ledge. In 1848 he was appointed professor of logic and metaphysics in Queen's College, Belfast, and in 1860 he received a pension of IQQL from the civil list. The later years of his life were spent in London, where he died 26 Oct. 1878. In addition to the more elaborate treatises above mentioned, Blakey was the author of a number of minor works, including, along with the Rev. Daniel Paterson, a ' Life of Dr. James Seattle/ the poet ; f Cottage Politics, or Letters on the New Poor Law Bill/ 1837 ; 'Temporal Benefits of Christianity/ 1849 ; ' Old Faces in New Masks/ 1859 ; and, under the pseudonym of Nathan Oliver, ' A few Remarkable Events in the Life of Rev. Josiah Thompson/ a fictitious biography intended to illustrate the evils and inconveniences of dis- sent. It is, however, by his books on angling that he will be remembered with pleasure and gratitude by the largest circle of readers. In early life he found opportunity to become a great proficient in the art, and it was his chief recreation till his infirmities made it no longer possible for him to follow it. In 1846 he published, under the pseudonym of Hackle Palmer, ' Hints on Angling, with suggestions for angling excursions in France and Belgium, to which are appended some brief notices of the English, Scotch, and Irish waters ; ' in 1853, ' The Angler's Complete Guide to the Rivers and Lakes of England ; ' in 1854 a similar work on Scotland ; in the same year 'Angling, or How to angle and where to go;' in 1855, 'Historical Sketches of the Angling Literature of all Nations ; ' and in the same year ' The Angler's Song Book.' The knowledge he obtained in early life of the kindred branch of sport, through the libe- rality of the Duke of Northumberland of that day, who allowed any one who chose to shoot over a large extent of his property, he also turned to account by publishing, in 1854, ' Shooting ; a Manual of practical Informa- tion on this Branch of British Field Sports.' [The Memoirs of Dr. Robert Blakey, edited by the Kev. H. Miller, and published in 1879, con- tain interesting reminiscences of many of the most eminent persons of his time.] T. F. H. BLAKISTON, JOHN (1603-1649), regi- cide, was the son of Marmaduke Blakiston, prebendary of Durham. He was baptised on 21 Aug. 1603, and married in November 1626 Susan Chamber. He became a mercer in Newcastle, and prospered so well in his business that he was able to subscribe 900/. for the reconquest of Ireland (1642). Al- though his father was a strong high church- man, the friend and father-in-law of Cosin, and a noted pluralist (see COSIN'S Correspond- ence, i. 185), John Blakiston became a puritan, and was, in 1636, cited before the High Com- mission Court for nonconformity, and for defaming the vicar of Newcastle (Records of Blamire 191 Blamire High Commission Court in the Diocese of Durham (Surtees Society), p. 155). He was fined lOOA and excommunicated till he sub- mitted. On 30 Jan. 1641 lie was voted member for Newcastle in place of Sir J. Melton, whose election was annulled. When the Scots captured Newcastle he was also appointed mayor, in place of Sir John Marlay (BKAND, p. 469). He suffered losses during the war, and was accordingly, on 3 June 1645, voted an allowance of 4Z. a week, which was continued till 20 Aug. 1646. According to Noble he was also granted the sum of 14,0007. and given the post of coal meter at Newcastle, worth 200/. a year. Holies in his ' Memoirs ' describes Blakiston as one of the ' little northern beagles ' set on to stir up public feeling against the Scots by ex- aggerating the contributions they had levied on the country. He was appointed one of the king's judges, was present at every sitting during the trial, and signed the death-war- rant. In April 1649 the corporation of New- castle found it necessary to write to the speaker to vindicate their representative from the charges brought against him in the 'hum- ble remonstrance ' of George Lilburn. They praise Blakiston as * unapt to cram himself with the riches of his ruined country, or seek after great things ' ( Tanner MSS. Ivi. 22). He died shortly afterwards, for his will is dated 1 June 1649, and he is spoken of as deceased in the Commons Journals of 6 June. On 16 Aug. 1649 the house voted 3,000/. to provide for his widow and children. [Brand's History of Newcastle ; Surtees' His- tory of Durham, iii. 165-402 ; Noble's account in his Lives of the Kegicides is full of errors.] C. H. F. BLAMIRE, SUSANNA (1747-1794), the t Muse of Cumberland/ was the daughter | of a Cumberland yeoman, and was born in ! 1747 at Cardew Hall, about six miles from ' Carlisle. At the age of seven she lost her mother, and on her father's second marriage was committed to the charge of her widowed aunt, Mrs. Simpson of Thackwood. Mrs. Simpson seems to have been an excellent ex- ample of the qualities engendered by the life of a yeoman farmer. With an independent character, strongly marked individuality, and great practical sense, she led a busy life in the management of her farm and household. Su- sanna Blamire's education was conducted ac- cording to these principles. She went to the village school at Raughton Head, where the fee was a shilling a quarter. There she learned the rudiments of knowledge, and her own taste for reading enabled her to grow up -with a cultivated mind. She was fond of poetry, and began to write in imitation of her fa- vourite authors. Her earliest poem, written at the age of nineteen, was suggested by Gray's ^ Elegy/ as is shown by its title : ' Written in a Churchyard, on seeing a number of cattle grazing in it.' Susanna Blamire's life was uneventful, and there are scarcely any records of it left. She lived in an obscure part of England amongst her own relatives, and her correspondence has not been preserved. Her poems were fugi- tive pieces, some of which appeared in maga- zines, but were never signed by her name. They were not collected till long after her death, when her memory had almost faded away, and personal details were vague. She is described as of ' graceful form, somewhat above the middle size, and a countenance, though slightly marked with the smallpox, beaming with good nature ; her dark eyes sparkled with animation.' Her country neigh- bours called her a 'bonnie and varra lish young lass.' She lived among the rustics, entered into their enjoyments, and sympathised with their troubles. She was fond of society, and was in great request at the l merrie-neets/ or social gatherings, where she mixed with every class. A good farmer said sadly after her death : ' The merrie-neets won't be worth going to since she is no more.' The genuine gaiety and sprightliness of her disposition may be judged by the fact that if she met a wan- dering musician on the road she was known to dismount from her pony, ask for the music of a jig, and dance, till she was weary, on the grass. Susanna's eldest sister married Colonel Gra- ham, of Gartmore, in 1767. A Graham of Gartmore was the author of the song, ' Oh, tell me how to woo thee/ and the traditions of culture were common to the family of Gra- ham. Through her sister's marriage Susanna was introduced into a circle which sympa- thised with her poetical tastes. She often paid visits to Scotland. Once she went, to see a relation who lived at Chill ingham, and while there she attracted the attention of Lord Tankerville and his family. At his re- quest she wrote one of her most characteristic sketches of rustic life, a dialogue beginning, 'Why, Ned, man, thou luiks sae down- hearted.' Her poems were mostly written in this way, on the spur of the moment, and very few were revised with a view to publication. Her poetical gift was, in fact, regarded by her as an accomplishment which she sometimes used to please her friends. It was the cus- tom for the wealthier families in Cumberland to take lodgings in Carlisle for the winter months. There Susanna Blamire made the acquaintance of one like-minded with herself, Blamire 192 Blamire Catharine Gilpin of Scaleby Castle, a member of the family which produced Bernard Gilpin, the apostle of the north. Catharine Gilpin was also a poet. The two ladies lodged to- gether in Carlisle, and wrote poems in com- mon, so that it is difficult in all cases to dis- tinguish the authorship. What little else is known about Susanna Blamire is gathered from her poems. ' Stoklewath, or the Cum- brian Village,' a poem which recalls Gold- smith's 'Deserted Village,' gives a faithful picture of the surroundings of her ordinary life. A poetical ' Epistle to Friends at Gart- more ' describes the homely occupations of her days at Thackwood. In it she speaks of keen suffering from rheumatism, and her poems bear increasing signs that they were written in the intervals of bodily pain. Her ailments gained upon her, and she died in Carlisle on 5 April 1794 in her forty-seventh year. Susanna Blamire was a true poet, and de- serves more recognition than she has yet re- ceived. Her sphere is somewhat narrow, but everything that she has written is genuine and truthful . She has caught the peculiar humour of the Cumbrian folk with admirable truth, and depicts it faithfully so far as was consis- tent with her own refinement. As a song- writer she deserves to rank very high. She preferred to write songs in the Scottish dia- lect, and three at least of her songs are ex- quisite, 'What ails this heart o' mine ? ' t And ye shall walk in silk attire,' and ' The Travel- ler's Return.' Another beautiful song, ' The Waefu' Heart,' is, with great probability, at- tributed to her. Susanna Blamire did not write for fame, and fame was slow in coming to her. Her song, ' The Traveller's Return,' or * The Nabob,' as it was sometimes called, was printed with her name in various col- lections of Scottish songs. It fell into the hands of a gentleman in India, Mr. Patrick Maxwell, and fascinated him by its appropri- ateness to his own thoughts. When he re- turned to England he devoted himself to the discovery of Miss Blamire's writings. In 1829 he found that Robert Anderson, the author of ' Cumberland Ballads,' possessed a few of her poems in manuscript and a few materials for a memoir. He continued his search among the members of Susanna Blamire's family and the families of her friends. He filled with like enthusiasm a medical student whom he met in Edinburgh, Dr. Lonsdale, a native of Carlisle. By their combined energy what re- mained of Susanna Blamire's manuscripts were gathered together, and such records of her life as still survived were collected. The fruit of their labours was at length published : 'The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Bla- mire, "The Muse of Cumberland," now for the first time collected by Henry Lonsdale, M.D., with a preface, memoir, and notes by Patrick Maxwell,' Edinburgh, 1842. To this collection a few additions have been made in 'The Songs and Ballads of Cumberland,' edited by Sidney Gilpin, London, 1866. [Authorities cited above.] M. C. BLAMIRE, WILLIAM (1790-1862), tithe commissioner, was the nephew of Su- sanna Blamire [q. v.], being the only son of her brother William, who, in his early days, was a naval surgeon, but later in life settled down on his ancestral estate, The Oaks, near Dalston, in Cumberland. The vicar of Dalston was j the famous William Paley, and by him Wil- ! liam Blamire was baptised. In later life he ! attributed to his early intercourse with Paley, j and his consequent knowledge of Paley's ' Moral and Political Philosophy,' the origin of those ideas which he was enabled to carry ! out in practical politics. He received a good , education, first at Westminster School, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, where ! he graduated in 1811. To the disappointment of his father he refused to follow any of the j learned professions, and preferred to settle on one of his father's farms at Thackwood Nook, j about three miles distant from his home. On : his mother's side William Blamire was a i nephew of John Christian Curwen [q. v.], of Workington Hall, who was the great promoter of agricultural improvements in Cumberland. William Blamire imbibed his uncle's zeal for agricultural science, and made many experi- ! ments in the breeding of stock, which cost him | dear ; but his experience was always at the ser- vice of his neighbours. He was well known at agricultural dinners,where his wise advice and ! his personal geniality made him deservedly ' popular amongst the sturdy and independent yeomen of his county. When, in 1828, he was nominated high sheriff of Cumberland, the yeomanry of the neighbourhood, to the number of several hundred, mounted their horses and escorted him to Carlisle, as a token of their desire to do him honour. In politics William Blamire was a strong whig, and had taken an active part in par- liamentary elections in behalf of his uncle, John Christian Curwen, who, in 1820, was elected both by the city of Carlisle and by the county of Cumberland. In the excite- ment about the Reform Bill the whigs in Cumberland resolved to run two candidates for the election of 1831. The personal popu- larity of William Blamire marked him out as the colleague of Sir James Graham against Lord Lowther, who sat as a conservative. The Cumberland election of 1831 is one of the most exciting in the annals of parliamentary Blamire 193 Blamire contests. The sole polling-place was at Cocker- mouth, at one corner of the county, in the neighbourhood where the Lowther interest was strongest. It needed the personal en- thusiasm which Blamire inspired to induce voters to incur the expense of so long a jour- ney. But his yeoman friends rode in such an imposing cavalcade towards Oockermouth that Lord Lowther felt it better to retire on the third day's polling than to be ignominiously defeated. In 1834 Blamire married his cousin, Doro- thy Taubman. In parliament he showed great knowledge of matters concerning land tenures, and was useful on committees ; but his reputation was made by a speech on the Tithe Commutation Bill, which was intro- duced by Lord John Russell in 1836. He was complimented by Sir Robert Peel on his consummate knowledge of the subject. His suggestions were listened to by the govern- ment, and the adoption of a seven years' ave- rage of the price of corn as the basis of com- mutation was the result of his practical expe- rience in farming matters. When the bill became law, Blamire was appointed the chief commissioner for carrying it into effect. He resigned his seat in parliament and devoted himself exclusively to the adjustment of de- tails which concerned every landowner and every clergyman in England. He had able colleagues in Colonel Wentworth Buller and Rev. R. Jones. The work was enormous in its extent, and beset with difficulties. First, the sum to be paid in lieu of tithe had to be fixed for each parish, then the rent-charge so fixed had to be apportioned on the different properties in the parish. There was need of strong common sense and great power of con- ciliation to carry out so complicated a pro- cess. The absence of proper maps was another difficulty, and the commissioners had fre- quently to investigate and decide upon the exact boundaries of parishes. It was owing to Blamire's suggestion while engaged in this work that the ordnance survey was under- taken in 1842, in accordance with the report of a committee of which Blamire was a chief member. The work of the tithe commission lasted from 1836 to 1851, when it was prac- tically completed. Few reforms of such mag- nitude, involving so many interests, have given such universal satisfaction, and have stood the test of time so well. The work of the tithe commissioners has needed no amendment. Blamire's energies, however, were not en- tirely absorbed by the work of tithe commu- tation. He was interested in all questions af- fecting land tenure, and his suggestions were of great use to Lords Lansdowne and Brougham in framing their ; Copyhold Enfranchise- VOL. v. j ment Act.' When this act came into force in 1841, Blamire was made a commissioner for the purpose of carrying it out. At first the enfranchisement was voluntary, but the commissioners pressed that it should be made compulsory, which was practically, done by the acts of 1852 and 1858. Moreover, Blamire was of great service to the government in pre- paring the t Commons Enclosure Act/ passed in 1845, by means of which large tracts of waste land were divided and enclosed, so that they could be brought under cultivation. The evidence given by Blamire before the com- mittee of the House of Commons on ' Com- monable Lands and Enclosure Acts ' (1843) is one of the most important sources of infor- mation concerning the tenure and incidents of commons. After the passing of the act it was felt that the tithe commissioners could not be saddled with any fresh duties; but Blamire's assistance was considered to be so necessary that he was requested to assume the post of enclo&ure commissioner without any salary. It was at his suggestion that the act embodied clauses allowing the exchange of lands of equal value by a simple process. In 1846 the scope of the labours of the enclosure commissioners was still further extended by an l Act authorising the Advance of Public Money to promote the Drainage and Im- provement of Land in Great Britain.' Besides attending to these important ad- ministrative measures Blamire was constantly consulted by ministers on all matters con- cerned with farming, such as the remedy for the potato blight, and the measures necessary to check the cattle plague. He prepared, in 1846, a Highway Act, which was postponed at the time ; but his labours prepared the way for future legislation, and his principles prac- tically prevail at present in regard to the ad- ministration of the highways. In all this work Blamire was unsparing of himself, and often was in his office till midnight. For months his horse was brpught daily to the office door, in hopes that he might find time for a ride ; but the horse was never used. His stalwart frame enabled him to endure much hard work ; but in 1847 he was affected by paralysis of the right arm. He soon recovered, and worked as hard as before. His wife's death in 1857 took him back to Cumberland, where he had not visited his home for seventeen years. His last work was the completion of the Drainage Act by an < Outfall Bill,' which was necessary to enable the drainage of low- lying and swampy ground. In the summer of 1860 his health entirely broke down. His mental and bodily powers slowly declined, and he died at Thackwood Nook on 12 Jan. 1862. Blamire is a conspicuous example of Blanchard 194 Blanchard practical capacity in an official position. His .thorough knowledge of agriculture, combined with his good education and sound sense, enabled him to suggest practical solutions for many questions of complicated detail. His labours are of a kind that meets with small recognition; they are embodied in statutes and official reports. The working of the Eng- lish parliamentary system put him in a posi- tion where his voice could be heard. He became an official without any previous train- ing, and devoted to the public service remark- able powers of business and untiring industry. [Lonsdale's Life of William Blamire in the Worthies of Cumberland, vol. i. 1867.] M. C. BLANCHARD, SAMUEL LAMAN, commonly known as LAMAN BLANCHAKD (1804-1845), author, born at Great Yarmouth on 15 May 1804, was the only son of Samuel Blanchard, by his wife Mary Laman, the widow of a Mr. Cowell. His father settled in Southwark in 1840 as a painter and glazier, and in 1809 young Blanchard entered St. Olave's School, where he made rapid progress. His parents declined the offer of the school trustees to send him to a university, and he became clerk to Mr. Charles Pearson, a proctor of Doctors' Commons. His tastes from an early period were literary, and the occupa- tion proved distasteful to him. He made the acquaintance of Douglas Jerrold, then a youth of about his own age, and through Jerrold of Buckstone, the actor. After abandoning a notion of going to fight under Lord Byron in Greece, Blanchard resolved to devote him- self to the stage. He contributed dramatic sketches, after Barry Cornwall's example, to a paper called the ' Drama,' and joined for a very short time a travelling troop of actors formed by the manager of the Margate theatre. Subsequently he became a proof- reader in the printing office of Messrs. Bayliss, of Fleet Street, and contributed prose and verse to the ' Monthly Magazine.' In 1823 he married Miss Ann Gates. In 1827, through the influence of N. A. Vigors, M.P. for Carlow, a relation of his wife, he was appointed secretary to the Zoological Society. He held the post for three years, and in that interval largely increased his literary acquaintance and influence. In 1828 William Harrison Ainsworth, then a pub- lisher in Old Bond Street, published for him his ' Lyric Offerings,' a collection of verse, which he dedicated to Charles Lamb. The volume was highly praised by Lamb and Allan Cunningham. In 1831 Blanchard be- came acting editor of the ' Monthly Magazine ' under Dr. Croly, and during the next year he began to edit the 'True Sun/ a daily liberal paper. But the 'True Sun' failed in 1836, and Blanchard was appointed editor of the ' Constitutional,' an advanced liberal organ, which soon died. During 1837 Blan- chard edited the * Court Journal,' and from 1837 to 1839 he edited the 'Courier,' a liberal evening newspaper, which under his management proved of service to his party. He retired from the paper in 1839 in conse- quence of a change in its proprietorship and politics, and a vain attempt was made by Sir Edward Bulwer and other friends to obtain for Blanchard a government clerkship or the editorship of the 'London Gazette.' From 1841 till his death he was closely connected with the ' Examiner.' In 1842 he edited a monthly magazine called 'George Cruik- shank's Omnibus,' to which he contributed several poems. In February 1844 Mrs. Blan- chard was seized with paralysis, and, after a painful illness, died on 15 Dec. following. Blanchard's health, long weakened by his un- interrupted journalistic work, gave way under the shock, and he died by his own hand in a fit of delirium on 15 Feb. 1845. He left three children, his eldest son being Sidney Laman Blanchard. Blanchard's personal character was sin- gularly attractive, and his friends were very numerous. Douglas Jerrold, J. B. Buckstone, E. Chatfield, and John Ogden he came to know in very early life, and in later years he was on terms of intimacy with Serjeant Talfourd, Charles Dickens, Leigh Hunt, John Forster, B. W. Procter, Robert Browning, George Cruikshank, and W. C. Macready. In 1831 he directed, at the father's request, the arrangements for the funeral of William Godwin's only son, who died of cholera. He was the firm friend of L. E. L.[andon] throughout her literary life, and published her 'Life and Literary Remains' in 1841. With William Harrison Ainsworth, the novelist, he was long in intimate relations, and he contributed a laudatory memoir of Ainsworth to the ' Mirror ' in 1842, which has been frequently reprinted as a preface to i Ainsworth's collected works. In 1832 he made the acquaintance of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, who had re viewed, his 'Lyric Offer- i ings ' very favourably in the ' New Monthly j Magazine,' and the friendship lasted till \ Blanchard's death. Blanchard was in his own day a very popu- lar writer of light literature, but he wrote nothing of lasting merit. His ' Sonnets ' and his ' Lyric Offerings ' show the influence of Wordsworth, but are commonplace in senti- ment and versification. His vers de soci6t6 run easily, but are less readable now than those of many of his contemporaries. His Blanchard 195 Blanchard prose'essays take an invariably cheerful view of life, but they are not to be classed in the same category as the 'Essays of Elia,' which Blanchard clearly took as his model. Bul- wer-Lytton warned Blanchard in early life that ' periodical writing is the grave of true genius,' and Blanchard's literary career proves the wisdom of the warning. Bulwer-Lytton collected many of Blan- chard's prose essays in 1846 under the title of ' Sketches of Life ' (3 vols.) His poetical works were collected in 1876 by Blanchard Jerrold. The former work contains a por- trait after a drawing by Maclise, and wood engravings by George Cruikshank, Kenny Meadows, and Frank Stone. The latter con- tains a portrait from a miniature by Louisa Stuart Costello. A series of amusing essays by Blanchard entitled l Corporation Charac- ters,' illustrated by Kenny Meadows, was published in 1855. [Bulwer-Lytton contributed a memoir of Blan- chard to his edition of the ' Sketches from Life,' 1846, which embodies some interesting reminis- cences by J. B. Buckstone. Blanchard Jerrold wrote a memoir in the Poetical Works, 1876, and printed a series of interesting letters from many well-known literary men to Blanchard. Thacke- ray contributed an article on Blanchard to Fraser's Magazine, March 1846, which is reprinted in vol. xxv. of the Standard edition of Thackeray's Works, pp. 103-19.] S. L. L. BLANCHARD, WILLIAM (1769- 1835), comedian, was born at York 2 Jan. 1769, and for a few years was educated at a private school in that city. Losing both his father, John Blanchard, and his mother, whose maiden name was Clapham, while he was yet a child, he was left to the care of his uncle, William Blanchard, long well known as the proprietor of the ' York Chronicle,' by whom he was reared with a tenderness seldom dis- played even by a parent. In 1782 he was placed in his uncle's office. He took such delight in Shakespeare that in 1785 he re- solved to become an actor. He joined Mr. Welsh's company of travelling comedians at Buxton. His first appearance was as Allan- a-Dale in M'Nally's < Robin Hood.' For four years he played under the name of Bentley, but from 1789 in his own name. He took the parts of Achmet, Douglas, and even Ro- meo. Asperne, of the ' European Magazine,' wrote of him at that period : ' I knew John Kemble in 1779, and he was not then half so promising a performer as William Blanchard appeared to me in 1790. Blanchard had more fire, more nature, and more knowledge of the stage.' He next became a manager, opening theatres at Penrith, Hexham, Barnard Castle, and Bishop Auckland. He lost money, and joined Mr. Brunton's company of players on the Norwich circuit, and took to comic parts. His first appearance in London was made at Covent Garden 1 Oct. 1800 as Bob Acres, in which he succeeded remarkably, and as Crack in the musical farce of the ' Turnpike Gate.' By the middle of his second season Mr. Harris cancelled the original arrangement for five years by re-engaging him for seven, with an increased salary. In certain classes of cha- racter he secured a position of recognised pre- eminence. Oxberry (p. 278) calls him ( un- questionably the best drunken man on the stage.' At Covent Garden Theatre, saving only for a brief professional visit to America in 1832, Blanchard remained continuously for thirty-four years. He was especially noted for his Shakespearian impersonations of Flu- ellen, Sir Hugh Evans, Menenius, and Polo- nius. According to Leigh Hunt, his best performance was the Marquis de Grand-Cha- teau in the musical toy show of the * Cabinet.' Leigh Hunt also praises highly his Russett in Colman's ' Jealous Wife.' Similar testi- mony to his skill is borne by all the best dra- matic critics of the time. The last character created by him was that of Counsellor Crows- foot in Douglas Jerrold's comedy of ' Nell G wynne,' produced at Covent Garden Theatre 9 Jan. 1 833, which was warmly spoken of in the < Athenaeum,' 12 Jan. 1833.' Blanchard's death occurred very suddenly on 8 May 1835. He died in his sixty-sixth year, and was buried in the graveyard of St. Luke's Church, Chelsea. His widow, Sarah Blanchard, who was left with two sons, survived her husband nearly forty years, dying at the age of eighty- nine on 15 Feb. 1875. Among the best known portraits of Blanchard in character are two by De Wilde, one representing him as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in ' Twelfth Night/ and the other as the Marquis de Grand-Chateau. Better known, through engravings of them, are two famous theatrical paintings. In the ' Scene from Love, Law, and Physic,' by George Clint, A.R.A., the original of which is ^reserved at the Garrick Club, lifelike por- traits are introduced of Listen as Lubin Log, Mathews as Flexible, Blanchard as Dr. Cam- phor, and John Emery as Andrew; while in the scene from the ' Beggar's Opera ' the same artist has given all but speaking like- nesses of William Blanchard as Peachum, of Mrs. Davenport as Mrs. Peachum, and of Miss Maria Tree as Polly. Exactly a year