A SHORT BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

BY JOHN. W. COUSIN

LONDON: PUBLISHED

by J.M. DENT & SONS. LTD

AND IN NEW YORK

BY E.P. DUTTON & CO

INTRODUCTION

The primary aim of this book is to give as much information
about English authors, including under this designation American
and Colonial writers, as the prescribed limits will admit of.
At the same time an attempt has been made, where materials
exist for it, to enhance the interest by introducing such details
as tend to illustrate the characters and circumstances of the respective
writers and the manner in which they passed through
the world; and in the case of the more important, to give some
indication of the relative place which they hold and the leading
features of their work.

Including the Appendix of Living Writers, the work contains
upwards of 1600 names; but large as this number is, the number
of those who have contributed something of interest and value
to the vast store of English Literature is larger still, and any
attempt to make a book of this kind absolutely exhaustive
would be futile.

The word “literature” is here used in a very wide sense,
and this gives rise to considerable difficulty in drawing the line
of exclusion. There are very many writers whose claim to
admission may reasonably be considered as good as that of
some who have been included; but even had it been possible
to discover all these, their inclusion would have swelled the
work beyond its limits. A line had to be drawn somewhere,
and the writer has used his best judgment in making that line
as consistent as possible. It may probably, however, be safely
claimed that every department of the subject of any importance
is well represented.

Wherever practicable (and this includes all but a very few
articles), various authorities have been collated, and pains have
been taken to secure accuracy; but where so large a collection
of facts and dates is involved, it would be too sanguine to
expect that success has invariably been attained.

J.W.C.

January, 1910.

The following list gives some of the best known works of Biography:—

LIST OF CONTRACTIONS USED THROUGHOUT THE WORK

ABBOTT, JACOB (1803-1879).
—Educationalist and miscellaneous
author, b. at Hallowell, Maine, ed. at Bowdoin Coll. and
Andover, entered the ministry of the Congregational Church, but
was best known as an educationist and writer of religious and other
books, mainly for the young. Among them are Beechnut Tales and
The Rollo Books, both of which still have a very wide circulation.

ABBOTT, JOHN STEVENS CABOT (1805-1877).
—Historian,
etc., b. Brunswick, Maine, and ed. at Bowdoin Coll. He studied
theology and became a minister of the Congregational Church at
various places in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Owing to the
success of a little work, The Mother at Home, he devoted himself,
from 1844 onwards, to literature, and especially to historical writing.
Among his principal works, which were very popular, are: History of
Napoleon Bonaparte (1852-55), History of the Civil War in America
(1863-66), and History of Frederick the Great (1871).

À BECKETT, GILBERT ABBOTT (1811-1856).
—Comic
writer, b. in London, the s. of a lawyer, and belonged to a family
claiming descent from Thomas à Becket. Destined for the legal
profession, he was called to the Bar. In addition to contributions
to various periodicals and newspapers, including Punch, The Illustrated
London News, The Times, and Morning Herald, he produced
over fifty plays, many of which attained great popularity, and he also
helped to dramatise some of Dickens’ works. He is perhaps best
known as the author of Comic History of England, Comic History
of Rome, Comic Blackstone, etc. He was also distinguished in his
profession, acted as a commissioner on various important matters,
and was appointed a metropolitan police magistrate.

ABERCROMBIE, JOHN (1780-1844).
—Physician and writer
on mental science, s. of a minister, was b. at Aberdeen, and ed. at
the Grammar School and Marischal College there. He studied
medicine at Edinburgh, in which city he practised as a physician.
He made valuable contributions to the literature of his profession,
and pub. two works, Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual Powers
(1830) and The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings (1833), which,
though popular at the time of their publication, have long been
superseded. For his services as a physician and philanthropist
he received many marks of distinction, including the Rectorship of
Marischal College.

ABERCROMBIE, PATRICK (1656-1716).
—Antiquary and
historian, was physician to James II. in 1685; he was a Jacobite
and opposed the Union in various pamphlets. His chief work was
Martial Achievements of the Scots Nation (1711-16).

ACTON, JOHN EMERICH EDWARD DALBERG-ACTON, 1ST LORD (1834-1902).
—Historian,
s. of Sir Richard A., and grandson
of Sir John A., who was Prime Minister of Naples, was b. at Naples.
He belonged to an ancient Roman Catholic family, and was ed. first
at Oscott near Birmingham under Dr. (afterwards Card.) Wiseman.
Thence he went to Edinburgh, where he studied privately,
and afterwards to Munich, where he resided in the house of Dr.
Dollinger, the great scholar and subsequent leader of the Old
Catholic party, by whom he was profoundly influenced. While at
Edinburgh he endeavoured to procure admission to Cambridge, but
without success, his religion being at that time a bar. He early
devoted himself to the study of history, and is said to have been on
terms of intimacy with every contemporary historian of distinction,
with the exception of Guizot. He sat in the House of Commons
1859-65, but made no great mark, and in 1869 was raised to the
peerage as Lord Acton of Aldenham. For a time he edited The
Rambler, a Roman Catholic periodical, which afterwards became
the Home and Foreign Review, and which, under his care, became
one of the most learned publications of the day. The liberal
character of A.’s views, however, led to its stoppage in deference to
the authorities of the Church. He, however, maintained a lifelong
opposition to the Ultramontane party in the Church, and in 1874
controverted their position in four letters to The Times which were
described as the most crushing argument against them which ever
appeared in so condensed a form. A.’s contributions to literature
were few, and, in comparison with his extraordinary learning,
comparatively unimportant. He wrote upon Cardinal Wolsey
(1877) and German Schools of History (1886). He was extremely
modest, and the loftiness of his ideals of accuracy and completeness
of treatment led him to shrink from tasks which men of far slighter
equipment might have carried out with success. His learning and
his position as a universally acknowledged master in his subject
were recognised by his appointment in 1895 as Professor of Modern
History at Cambridge. Perhaps his most valuable services to
historical literature were his laying down the lines of the great
Cambridge Modern History, and his collection of a library of 60,000
vols., which after his death was purchased by an American millionaire
and presented to Lord Morley of Blackburn, who placed it in
the University of Cambridge.

ADAMNAN, ST. (625?-704).
—Historian, b. in Donegal,
became Abbot of Iona in 679. Like other Irish churchmen he was
a statesman as well as an ecclesiastic, and appears to have been sent
on various political missions. In the great controversy on the
subject of the holding of Easter, he sided with Rome against the
Irish Church. He left the earliest account we have of the state of
Palestine in the early ages of the Church; but of even more value is
his Vita Sancti Columbæ, giving a minute account of the condition
and discipline of the church of Iona. He d. 704.

ADAMS, FRANCIS, W.L. (1862-1893).
—Novelist, was b.
at Malta, and ed. at schools at Shrewsbury and in Paris. In 1882
he went to Australia, and was on the staff of The Sydney Bulletin.
In 1884 he publ. his autobiographical novel, Leicester, and in 1888
Songs of the Army of the Night, which created a sensation in Sydney.
His remaining important work is Tiberius (1894), a striking drama in
which a new view of the character of the Emperor is presented. He
d. by his own hand at Alexandria in a fit of depression caused by
hopeless illness.

ADDISON, JOSEPH (1672-1719).
—Poet, essayist and
statesman, was the s. of Lancelot Addison, Dean of Lichfield. B.
near Amesbury, Wilts., A. went to the Charterhouse where he made
the acquaintance of Steele (q.v.), and then at the age of fifteen to
Oxford where he had a distinguished career, being specially noted
for his Latin verse. Intended at first for the Church, various circumstances
combined to lead him towards literature and politics.
His first attempts in English verse took the form of complimentary
addresses, and were so successful as to obtain for him the friendship
and interest of Dryden, and of Lord Somers, by whose means he
received, in 1699, a pension of £300 to enable him to travel on the
continent with a view to diplomatic employment. He visited Italy,
whence he addressed his Epistle to his friend Halifax. Hearing of
the death of William III., an event which lost him his pension, he
returned to England in the end of 1703. For a short time his circumstances
were somewhat straitened, but the battle of Blenheim
in 1704 gave him a fresh opportunity of distinguishing himself.
The government wished the event commemorated by a poem; A.
was commissioned to write this, and produced The Campaign,
which gave such satisfaction that he was forthwith appointed a
Commissioner of Appeals. His next literary venture was an account
of his travels in Italy, which was followed by the opera of Rosamund.
In 1705, the Whigs having obtained the ascendency, A. was
made Under-Secretary of State and accompanied Halifax on a
mission to Hanover, and in 1708 was appointed Chief Secretary for
Ireland and Keeper of the Records of that country. It was at this
period that A. found his true vocation and laid the foundations of
his real fame. In 1709 Steele began to bring out the Tatler, to
which A. became almost immediately a contributor: thereafter he
(with Steele) started the Spectator, the first number of which appeared
on March 1, 1711. This paper, which at first appeared
daily, was kept up (with a break of about a year and a half when
the Guardian took its place) until Dec. 20, 1714. In 1713 the
drama of Cato appeared, and was received with acclamation by
both Whigs and Tories, and was followed by the comedy of the
Drummer. His last undertaking was The Freeholder, a party paper
(1715-16). The later events in the life of A., viz., his marriage in
1716 to the Dowager Countess of Warwick, to whose son he had
been tutor and his promotion to be Secretary of State did not contribute
to his happiness. His wife appears to have been arrogant
and imperious; his step-son the Earl was a rake and unfriendly to
him; while in his public capacity his invincible shyness made him
of little use in Parliament. He resigned his office in 1718, and, after
a period of ill-health, d. at Holland House, June 17, 1719, in
his 48th year. Besides the works above mentioned, he wrote
a Dialogue on Medals, and left unfinished a work on the Evidences
of Christianity. The character of A., if somewhat cool and unimpassioned,
was pure, magnanimous, and kind. The charm of his
manners and conversation made him one of the most popular and
admired men of his day; and while he laid his friends under obligations
for substantial favours, he showed the greatest forbearance
towards his few enemies. His style in his essays is remarkable for
its ease, clearness, and grace, and for an inimitable and sunny humour
which never soils and never hurts. The motive power of these
writings has been called “an enthusiasm for conduct.” Their
effect was to raise the whole standard of manners and expression
both in life and in literature. The only flaw in his character was a
tendency to convivial excess, which must be judged in view of the
laxer manners of his time. When allowance has been made for
this, he remains one of the most admirable characters and writers
in English literature.

SUMMARY.—B. Amesbury, ed. Charterhouse and Oxford; received
travelling pension, 1699; Campaign (1704) leads to political office;
goes to Ireland, 1708; assists Steele in Tatler, 1709; Spectator
started, 1711; marries Lady Warwick, 1716; Secretary of State,
1716-18; d. 1719.

Lives in Biographica Britannica, Dict. of Nat. Biog., Johnson’s Lives
of Poets, and by Lucy Aikin, Macaulay’s Essay, Drake’s Essays
Illustrative of Tatler, Guardian, and Spectator; Pope’s and Swift’s
Correspondence, etc.

The best edition of the books is that in Bohn’s British Classics
(6 vols., 1856); others are Tickell’s (4 vols., 1721); Baskerville edit.
(4 vols., 1761); Hurd’s (6 vols., 1811); Greene’s (1856); Dent’s
Spectator (1907).

ADOLPHUS, JOHN (1768-1845).
—Historian, studied law
and was called to the Bar in 1807. He wrote Biographical Memoirs
of the French Revolution (1799) and History of England from 1760-1783
(1802), and other historical and biographical works.

ÆLFRED (849-901).
—King of the West Saxons, and writer
and translator, s. of Ethelwulf, b. at Wantage. Besides being the
deliverer of his country from the ravages of the Danes, and the
restorer of order and civil government, Æ. has earned the title of
the father of English prose writing. The earlier part of his life was
filled with war and action, most of the details regarding which are
more or less legendary. But no sooner had he become King of
Wessex, in 871, than he began to prepare for the work of re-introducing
learning into his country. Gathering round him the few
scholars whom the Danes had left, and sending for others from
abroad, he endeavoured to form a literary class. His chief helper
in his great enterprise was Asser of St. David’s, who taught him
Latin, and became his biographer in a “life” which remains the
best original authority for the period. Though not a literary artist,
Æ. had the best qualities of the scholar, including an insatiable
love alike for the acquisition and the communication of knowledge.
He translated several of the best books then existing, not, however,
in a slavish fashion, but editing and adding from his own stores.
In all his work his main desire was the good of his people. Among
the books he translated or edited were (1) The Handbook, a collection
of extracts on religious subjects; (2) The Cura Pastoralis, or
Herdsman’s book of Gregory the Great, with a preface by himself
which is the first English prose; (3) Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of
the English; (4) The English Chronicle, which, already brought up
to 855, he continued up to the date of writing; it is probably by his
own hand; (5) Orosius’s History of the World, which he adapted for
English readers with many historical and geographical additions;
(6) the De Consolatione Philosophiæ of Boethius; and (7) a translation
of some of the Psalms. He also made a collection of the best
laws of his predecessors, Ethelbert, Ine, and Offa. It has been said
“although King Alfred lived a thousand years ago, a thousand years
hence, if there be England then, his memory will yet be precious to
his country.”

ÆLFRIC (955-c. 1022).
—Called Grammaticus (10th century),
sometimes confounded with two other persons of the same
name, Æ. of Canterbury and Æ. of York, was a monk at Winchester,
and afterwards Abbot of Cerne and Eynsham successively. He has
left works which shed an important light on the doctrine and
practice of the early Church in England, including two books of
homilies (990-94), a Grammar, Glossary, Passiones Sanctorum
(Sufferings of the Saints), translations of parts of the Bible with
omissions and interpolations, Canones Ælfrici, and other theological
treatises. His writings had an influence on the formation of English
prose. He filled in his age somewhat the same position that Bede
did in his, that of a compiler and populariser of existing knowledge.

AGUILAR, GRACE (1816-1847).
—Novelist and writer on
Jewish history and religion, was b. at Hackney of Jewish parents of
Spanish descent. She was delicate from childhood, and early
showed great interest in history, especially Jewish. The death of
her f. threw her on her own resources. After a few dramas and
poems she pub. in America in 1842 Spirit of Judaism, and in 1845
The Jewish Faith and The Women of Israel. She is, however, best
known by her novels, of which the chief are Home Influence (1847)
and A Mother’s Recompense (1850). Her health gave way in 1847,
and she d. in that year at Frankfort.

AIKIN, JOHN (1747-1822).
—Miscellaneous writer, s. of Dr.
John A., Unitarian divine, b. at Kibworth, studied medicine at
Edinburgh and London, and received degree of M.D. at Leyden.
He began practice at Yarmouth but, one of his pamphlets having
given offence, he removed to London, where he obtained some
success in his profession, devoting all his leisure to literature, to
which his contributions were incessant. These consisted of
pamphlets, translations, and miscellaneous works, some in conjunction
with his sister, Mrs. Barbauld. Among his chief works are
England Delineated, General Biography in 10 vols., and lives of
Selden and Ussher.

AIKIN, LUCY (1781-1864).
—Historical and miscellaneous
writer, dau. of above and niece of Mrs. Barbauld (q.v.). After
pub. a poem, Epistles on Women, and a novel, Lorimer, she began
the historical works on which her reputation chiefly rests, viz.,
Memoirs of the Courts of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. (1818-33)
and a Life of Addison. She also wrote lives of her father and
of Mrs. Barbauld. She was remarkable for her conversational
powers, and was also an admirable letter-writer. Like the rest of
her family she was a Unitarian.

AINGER, ALFRED (1837-1904).
—Biographer and critic, s.
of an architect in London, grad. at Cambridge, entered the Church,
and, after holding various minor preferments, became Master of the
Temple. He wrote memoirs of Hood and Crabbe, but is best
known for his biography of Lamb and his edition of his works in 6
vols. (1883-88).

AINSWORTH, WILLIAM HARRISON (1805-1882).
—Novelist,
s. of a solicitor, was b. in Manchester. He was destined for the
legal profession, which, however, had no attraction for him; and
going to London to complete his studies made the acquaintance of
Mr. John Ebers, publisher, and at that time manager of the Opera
House, by whom he was introduced to literary and dramatic circles,
and whose dau. he afterwards married. For a short time he tried
the publishing business, but soon gave it up and devoted himself to
journalism and literature. His first successful novel was Rookwood,
pub. in 1834, of which Dick Turpin is the leading character, and
thenceforward he continued to pour forth till 1881 a stream of
novels, to the number of 39, of which the best known are The Tower
of London (1840), Old St. Paul’s (1841), Lancashire Witches, and The
Constable of the Tower. The titles of some of his other novels are
Crichton (1837), Jack Sheppard (1839), Guy Fawkes, The Star
Chamber, The Flitch of Bacon, The Miser’s Daughter (1842), and
Windsor Castle (1843). A. depends for his effects on striking situations
and powerful descriptions: he has little humour or power of
delineating character.

AIRD, THOMAS (1802-1876).
—Poet, b. at Bowden, Roxburghshire,
went to Edinburgh, where he became the friend of Professor
Wilson, Carlyle, and other men of letters. He contributed to
Blackwood’s Magazine, and was editor of the Dumfries Herald (1835-63).
His chief poem is The Captive of Fez (1830); and in prose he
wrote Religious Characteristics, and The Old Bachelor in the Old
Scottish Village (1848), all of which were received with favour.
Carlyle said that in his poetry he found everywhere “a healthy
breath as of mountain breezes.”

AKENSIDE, MARK (1721-1770).
—Poet, s. of a butcher at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, gave early indications of talent, and was sent
to the University of Edinburgh with the view of becoming a dissenting
minister. While there, however, he changed his mind and
studied for the medical profession. Thereafter he went to Leyden,
where he took his degree of M.D. in 1744. While there he wrote his
principal poem, The Pleasures of the Imagination, which was well
received, and was subsequently translated into more than one
foreign language. After trying Northampton, he settled as a
physician in London; but was for long largely dependent for his
livelihood on a Mr. Dyson. His talents brought him a good deal
of consideration in society, but the solemn and pompous manner
which he affected laid him open to some ridicule, and he is said to
have been satirised by Smollett (q.v.) in his Peregrine Pickle. He
endeavoured to reconstruct his poem, but the result was a failure.
His collected poems were pub. 1772. His works, however, are now
little read. Mr. Gosse has described him as “a sort of frozen Keats.”

ALCOTT, LOUISA M. (1832-1888).
—Writer of juvenile and
other tales, dau. of Amos Bronson Alcott, an educational and social
theorist, lecturer, and author, was b. in Pennsylvania. During the
American civil war she served as a nurse, and afterwards attained
celebrity as a writer of books for young people, of which the best is
Little Women (1868). Others are Little Men and Jo’s Boys. She
also wrote novels, including Moods and Work.

ALCUIN or EALHWINE (735-804).
—Theologian and
general writer, was b. and ed. at York. He wrote in prose and
verse, his subjects embracing educational, theological, and historical
matters. Returning from Rome, to which he had been sent to
procure the pallium for a friend, he met Charlemagne at Parma, and
made upon him so favourable an impression that he was asked to
enter his service as preceptor in the sciences to himself and his
family. His numerous treatises, which include metrical annals,
hagiographical and philosophical works, are not distinguished by
originality or profundity, but he is the best representative of the
culture and mental activity of his age, upon which, as the minister
of education of the great emperor, he had a widely-spread influence.

ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY (1836-1906).
—Poet and
novelist, b. at Portsmouth, N.H., was for some time in a bank,
and then engaged in journalism. His first book was The Bells, a
Collection of Chimes (1855), and other poetical works are The Ballad
of Babie Bell, Cloth of Gold, Flower and Thorn, etc. In prose he
wrote Daisy’s Necklace, The Course of True Love, Marjorie Daw,
Prudence Palfrey, etc.

ALESIUS, ALEXANDER (1500-1565).
—Theologian and controversialist.
His unlatinised name was Aless or Alane, and he was
b. at Edinburgh and ed. at St. Andrews, where he became a canon.
Originally a strong and able defender of the Romish doctrines, he
was chosen to argue with Patrick Hamilton, the proto-martyr of the
Reformation in Scotland, with the object of inducing him to recant.
The result, however, was that he was himself much shaken in his
allegiance to the Church, and the change was greatly accelerated by
the martyrdom of H. His subsequent protest against the immorality
of the clergy led to his imprisonment, and ultimately, in 1532, to his
flying for his life to Germany, where he became associated with
Luther and Melancthon, and definitely joined the reforming party.
Coming to England in 1535, he was well received by Cranmer and
other reformers. While in England he studied medicine, and
practised as a physician in London. On the fall of T. Cromwell in
1540 he again retired to Germany, where, at Leipzig, he obtained
a professorship. During the reign of Edward VI. he re-visited
England and was employed by Cranmer in connection with the 1st
Liturgy of Edward VI. Returning to Leipsic he passed the remainder
of his days in peace and honour, and was twice elected
Rector of the University. His writings were both exegetical and
controversial, but chiefly the latter. They include Expositio Libri
Psalmorum Davidis (1550). His controversial works refer to such
subjects as the translation of the Bible into the vernacular, against
Servetus, etc.

ALEXANDER, MRS. CECIL F. (HUMPHREYS) (1818-1895).
—dau.
of Maj. H., b. in Co. Waterford, m. the Rev. W. Alexander,
afterwards Bishop of Derry and Archbishop of Armagh. Her
Hymns for Little Children had reached its 69th edition before the
close of the century. Some of her hymns, e.g. “There is a Green
Hill” and “The Roseate Hues of Early Dawn,” are known wherever
English is spoken. Her husband has also written several books of
poetry, of which the most important is St. Augustine’s Holiday and
other Poems.

ALFORD, HENRY (1810-1871).
—Theologian, scholar, poet,
and miscellaneous writer, s. of a clergyman, was b. in London.
After passing through various private schools, he proceeded to
Cambridge, where he had a distinguished career, and after entering
the Church and filling various preferments in the country, became
minister of Quebec Chapel, London, whence he was promoted to
be Dean of Canterbury. His great work was his Greek Testament in
4 vols., of which the first was pub. in 1849 and the last in 1861.
In this work he largely followed the German critics, maintaining,
however, a moderate liberal position; and it was for long the
standard work on the subject in this country. A. was one of the
most versatile men, and prolific authors, of his day, his works consisting
of nearly 50 vols., including poetry (School of the Heart and
Abbot of Munchelnaye, and a translation of the Odyssey), criticism,
sermons, etc. In addition to the works above mentioned he wrote
Chapters on the Greek Poets (1841), the Queen’s English (1863), and
many well-known hymns, and he was the first editor of the Contemporary
Review. He was also an accomplished artist and musician.
His industry was incessant and induced a premature breakdown in
health, which terminated in his death in 1871. He was the friend of
most of his eminent contemporaries, and was much beloved for his
amiable character.

ALISON, ARCHIBALD (1757-1839).
—Didactic and philosophical
writer, was b. in Edinburgh and ed. at Glasgow University
and Oxford. After being presented to various livings in England,
A. came to Edinburgh as incumbent of St. Paul’s Episcopal Chapel,
where he attained popularity as a preacher of sermons characterised
by quiet beauty of thought and grace of composition. His chief
contribution to literature is his Essay on the Nature and Principles
of Taste (1790), in which the “association” theory is supported.

ALISON, SIR ARCHIBALD (1792-1867).
—Historian, s. of
the above, was b. at Kenley, Shropshire, and after studying under a
private tutor, and at Edinburgh University, was, in 1814, called to
the Bar, at which he ultimately attained some distinction, becoming
in 1834 Sheriff of Lanarkshire, in which capacity he rendered valuable
service in times of considerable difficulty. It was when travelling
in France in 1814 that he conceived the idea of his History of
Europe, which deals with the period from the outbreak of the French
Revolution to the restoration of the Bourbons, and extends, in its
original form (1833-42), to 10 vols. The work is one of vast
industry, and gives a useful account of an important epoch, but is
extremely diffuse and one-sided, and often prosy. Disraeli satirises
the author in Coningsby as Mr. Wordy, who wrote a history to prove
that Providence was on the side of the Tories. It had, however, an
enormous sale. A continuation of it (1852-59) brought the story
down to the accession of Louis Napoleon. A. was also the author
of a life of Marlborough, and of two standard works on the criminal
law of Scotland. In his private and official capacities he was highly
respected, and was elected Lord Rector successively of Marischal
Coll., Aberdeen, and of Glasgow University. He was created a
baronet by Lord Derby in 1852.

ALLEN, CHARLES GRANT (1848-1899).
—Scientific writer
and novelist, b. in Canada, to which his f., a clergyman, had
emigrated, and ed. at Birmingham and Oxford. For a time he was
a professor in a college for negroes in Jamaica, but returning to
England in 1876 devoted himself to literature. His first books were
on scientific subjects, and include Physiological Æsthetics (1877)
and Flowers and Their Pedigrees. After assisting Sir W.W. Hunter
in his Gazeteer of India, he turned his attention to fiction, and
between 1884 and 1899 produced about 30 novels, among which
The Woman Who Did (1895), promulgating certain startling views
on marriage and kindred questions, created some sensation.
Another work, The Evolution of the Idea of God, propounding a
theory of religion on heterodox lines, has the disadvantage of
endeavouring to explain everything by one theory. His scientific
works also included Colour Sense, Evolutionist at Large, Colin
Clout’s Calendar, and the Story of the Plants, and among his novels
may be added Babylon, In all Shades, Philistia (1884), The Devil’s
Die, and The British Barbarians (1896).

ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM (1824-1889).
—Poet, the s. of a
banker of English descent, was b. at Ballyshannon, entered the
customs service, and was ultimately settled in London, where he
contributed to Leigh Hunt’s Journal. Hunt introduced him to
Carlyle and other men of letters, and in 1850 he pub. a book of
poems, which was followed by Day and Night Songs (1854), Laurence
Bloomfield in Ireland (1864) (his most ambitious, though not his
most successful work), and Collected Poems in 6 vols. (1888-93).
He also edited The Ballad Book for the Golden Treasury series in
1864. In 1870 he retired from the civil service and became sub-editor
of Fraser’s Magazine under Froude, whom he succeeded as
editor (1874-79). His verse is clear, fresh, and graceful. He married
Helen Paterson, the water colourist, whose idylls have made
the name of “Mrs. Allingham” famous also. He d. in 1889.
Other works are Fifty Modern Poems (1865), Songs, Poems, and
Ballads (1877), Evil May Day (1883), Blackberries (1884), Irish
Songs and Poems (1887), and Varieties in Prose (1893). A selection
from his diaries and autobiography was pub. in 1906.

ALLSTON, WASHINGTON (1779-1843).
—Painter and poet,
b. in S. Carolina, became a distinguished painter, and also wrote a
good deal of verse including The Sylphs of the Seasons, etc. (1813),
and The Two Painters, a satire. He also produced a novel, Monaldi.
He was known as “the American Titian.”

AMORY, THOMAS (1691(?)-1788).
—Eccentric writer, was of
Irish descent. In 1755 he publ. Memoirs containing the lives of
several ladies of Great Britain, a History of Antiquities and Observations
on the Christian Religion, which was followed by the Life of
John Buncle (1756), practically a continuation. The contents of
these works are of the most miscellaneous description—philology,
natural science, theology, and, in fact, whatever occurred to the
writer, treated without any system, but with occasional originality
and felicity of diction. The author, who was probably more or less
insane, is described as having a very peculiar aspect, with the
manner of a gentleman, scarcely ever stirring abroad except at
dusk. He reached the age of 97.

ANDERSON, ALEXANDER (1845-1909).
—Poet, s. of a
quarrier at Kirkconnel, Dumfriesshire, became a surfaceman on the
railway. Spending all his leisure in self-culture, he mastered
German, French, and Spanish sufficiently to read the chief masterpieces
in these languages. His poetic vein, which was true if somewhat
limited in range, soon manifested itself, and his first book,
Songs of Labour, appeared in 1873, and there followed Two Angels
(1875), Songs of the Rail (1878), and Ballads and Sonnets (1879). In
the following year he was made assistant librarian in the University
of Edinburgh, and after an interval as secretary to the Philosophical
Institution there, he returned as Chief Librarian to the university.
Thereafter he wrote little. Of a simple and gentle character, he
made many friends, including the Duke of Argyll, Carlyle, and Lord
Houghton. He generally wrote under the name of “Surfaceman.”

ANDREWES, LANCELOT (1555-1626).
—Churchman and
scholar, was b. in London, and ed. at Merchant Taylor’s School and
Cambridge, where he took a fellowship and taught divinity. After
receiving various other preferments he became Dean of Westminster,
and a chaplain-in-ordinary to Queen Elizabeth, who, however, did
not advance him further on account of his opposition to the alienation
of ecclesiastical revenues. On the accession, however, of
James I., to whom his somewhat pedantic learning and style of
preaching recommended him, he rose into great favour, and was
made successively Bishop of Chichester, of Ely, and, in 1618, of
Winchester. He attended the Hampton Court Conference, and
took part in the translation of the Bible, known as the Authorised
Version, his special work being given to the earlier parts of the Old
Testament: he acted, however, as a sort of general editor. He was
considered as, next to Ussher, the most learned churchman of his
day, and enjoyed a great reputation as an eloquent and impassioned
preacher, but the stiffness and artificiality of his style render
his sermons unsuited to modern taste. His doctrine was High
Church, and in his life he was humble, pious, and charitable.
Ninety-six of his sermons were published in 1631 by command of
Charles I.

There are lives by A.T. Russell (1863), and R.L. Ottley (1894);
Devotions were edited by Rev. Dr. Whyte (1900).

ANSTEY, CHRISTOPHER (1724-1805).
—Poet, s. of Dr. A.,
a wealthy clergyman, rector of Brinkley, Cambridgeshire, was ed.
at Eton and Cambridge. He pub. in 1766 a satirical poem of considerable
sparkle, The New Bath Guide, from which Smollett is said
to have drawn largely in his Humphrey Clinker. He made many
other excursions into literature which are hardly remembered, and
ended his days as a country squire at the age of eighty.

D’ARBLAY, FRANCES (BURNEY) (1752-1840).
—Novelist,
dau. of Dr. Charles B., a musician of some distinction, was b. at Lynn
Regis, where her f. was organist. Her mother having died while
she was very young, and her f., who had come to London, being too busy
to give her any attention, she was practically self-educated. Her
first novel, Evelina, pub. anonymously in 1778, at once by its narrative
and comic power, brought her fame, and, through Mrs. Thrale
(q.v.), she made the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson, with whom she
became a great favourite. Her next literary venture was a comedy,
The Witlings; but, by the advice of her f., it was not put upon the
stage. In 1782, however, she produced Cecilia, which, like its predecessor,
had an enormous sale, and which, though not perhaps so
popular as Evelina, added to her fame. She now became the friend
of Burke and other distinguished persons, including Mrs. Delaney,
through whom she became known to the royal family, and was
offered the appointment of Second Keeper of the Robes, which,
with some misgivings, she accepted. This situation did not prove a
happy one, the duties being menial, the society uncongenial, and the
court etiquette oppressive and injurious to her health, and in 1791
she obtained permission to retire on a pension of £100. She had,
during her connection with the court, continued her Diary, which
she had begun in girlhood, and continued during her whole life,
and which during this period contains many interesting accounts of
persons and affairs of note. She married (1793) Gen. D’Arblay, a
French emigré, their only income being her slender pension. This
she endeavoured to increase by producing a tragedy, Edwy and
Elvira, which failed. In 1795 she pub. by subscription another
novel, Camilla, which, though it did not add to her reputation, considerably
improved her circumstances, as it is said to have brought
her £3000. After some years spent in France, where her husband
had obtained employment, she returned to England and pub. her
last novel, The Wanderer, which fell flat. Her only remaining work
was a life of her father, written in an extraordinarily grandiloquent
style. She died in 1840, aged 87.

ARBUTHNOT, JOHN (1667-1735).
—Physician and satirist,
was b. in Kincardineshire, and after studying at Aberdeen and
Oxford, took his degree of M.D. at St. Andrews. Settling in London,
he taught mathematics. Being by a fortunate accident at Epsom,
he was called in to prescribe for Prince George, who was suddenly
taken ill there, and was so successful in his treatment that he was
appointed his regular physician. This circumstance made his professional
fortune, for his ability enabled him to take full advantage
of it, and in 1705 he became physician to the Queen. He became
the cherished friend of Swift and Pope, and himself gained a high
reputation as a wit and man of letters. His principal works are the
Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, partly by Pope, but to which he
was the chief contributor, the History of John Bull (1712), mainly
against the Duke of Marlborough, A Treatise concerning the Altercation
or Scolding of the Ancients, and the Art of Political Lying.
He also wrote various medical treatises, and dissertations on
ancient coins, weights, and measures. After the death of Queen
Anne, A. lost his court appointments, but this, as well as more
serious afflictions with which he was visited, he bore with serenity
and dignity. He was an honourable and amiable man, one of the
very few who seems to have retained the sincere regard of Swift,
whose style he made the model of his own, with such success that
writings by the one were sometimes attributed to the other: his
Art of Political Lying is an example. He has, however, none of the
ferocity of S.

ARGYLL, GEORGE JOHN DOUGLAS CAMPBELL, 8TH DUKE OF (1823-1900).
—Statesman
and writer on science, religion, and
politics, succeeded his f., the 7th duke, in 1847. His talents and
eloquence soon raised him to distinction in public life. He acted
with the Liberal party until its break-up under the Irish policy of
Mr. Gladstone, after which he was one of the Unionist leaders. He
held the offices of Lord Privy Seal, Postmaster-General, and Indian
Secretary. His writings include The Reign of Law (1866), Primeval
Man (1869), The Eastern Question (1879), The Unseen Foundations
of Society (1893), Philosophy of Belief (1896), Organic Evolution
Cross-examined (1898). He was a man of the highest character,
honest, courageous, and clear-sighted, and, though regarded by
some professional scientists as to a certain extent an amateur, his
ability, knowledge, and dialectic power made him a formidable
antagonist, and enabled him to exercise a useful, generally conservative,
influence on scientific thought and progress.

ARMSTRONG, JOHN, M.D. (1709-1779).
—Poet, s. of the
minister of Castleton, Roxburghshire, studied medicine, which he
practised in London. He is remembered as the friend of Thomson,
Mallet, and other literary celebrities of the time, and as the author of
a poem on The Art of Preserving Health, which appeared in 1744,
and in which a somewhat unpromising subject for poetic treatment
is gracefully and ingeniously handled. His other works, consisting
of some poems and prose essays, and a drama, The Forced
Marriage, are forgotten, with the exception of the four stanzas at
the end of the first part of Thomson’s Castle of Indolence, describing
the diseases incident to sloth, which he contributed.

ARNOLD, SIR EDWIN (1832-1904).
—Poet, s. of a Sussex
magistrate, was b. at Gravesend, and ed. at King’s School, Rochester,
London, and Oxford. Thereafter he was an assistant master at
King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and was in 1856 appointed
Principal of the Government Deccan College, Poona. Here he
received the bias towards, and gathered material for, his future
works. In 1861 he returned to England and became connected
with The Daily Telegraph, of which he was ultimately editor. The
literary task which he set before him was the interpretation in
English verse of the life and philosophy of the East. His chief work
with this object is The Light of Asia (1879), a poem on the life and
teaching of Buddha, which had great popularity, but whose permanent
place in literature must remain very uncertain. In The Light
of the World (1891), he attempted, less successfully, a similar treatment
of the life and teaching of Jesus. Other works are The Song of
Songs of India (1875), With Saadi in the Garden, and The Tenth Muse.
He travelled widely in the East, and wrote books on his travels.
He was made K.C.I.E. in 1888.

ARNOLD, MATTHEW (1822-1888).
—Poet and critic, s. of
Dr. A., of Rugby (q.v.), was b. at Laleham and ed. at Rugby, Winchester,
and Balliol Coll., Oxford, becoming a Fellow of Oriel in
1845. Thereafter he was private secretary to Lord Lansdowne,
Lord President of the Council, through whose influence he was in
1851 appointed an inspector of schools. Two years before this he
had pub. his first book of poetry, The Strayed Reveller, which he
soon withdrew: some of the poems, however, including “Mycerinus”
and “The Forsaken Merman,” were afterwards republished,
and the same applies to his next book, Empedocles on
Etna (1852), with “Tristram and Iseult.” In 1857 he was appointed
to the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford, which he held for ten
years. After this he produced little poetry and devoted himself to
criticism and theology. His principal writings are, in poetry,
Poems (1853), containing “Sohrab and Rustum,” and “The
Scholar Gipsy;” Poems, 2nd Series (1855), containing “Balder
Dead;” Merope (1858); New Poems (1867), containing “Thyrsis,” an
elegy on A.H. Clough (q.v.), “A Southern Night,” “Rugby
Chapel,” and “The Weary Titan”; in prose he wrote On Translating
Homer (1861 and 1862), On the Study of Celtic Literature (1867),
Essays in Celtic Literature (1868), 2nd Series (1888), Culture and
Anarchy (1869), St. Paul and Protestantism (1870), Friendship’s
Garland (1871), Literature and Dogma (1873), God and the Bible
(1875), Last Essays on Church and Religion (1877), Mixed Essays
(1879), Irish Essays (1882), and Discourses in America (1885). He
also wrote some works on the state of education on the Continent.
In 1883 he received a pension of £250. The rationalistic tendency
of certain of his writings gave offence to many readers, and the
sufficiency of his equipment in scholarship for dealing with some of
the subjects which he handled was called in question; but he undoubtedly
exercised a stimulating influence on his time; his writings are
characterised by the finest culture, high purpose, sincerity, and
a style of great distinction, and much of his poetry has an exquisite
and subtle beauty, though here also it has been doubted whether
high culture and wide knowledge of poetry did not sometimes take
the place of the true poetic fire.

There is a bibliography of A.’s works by T.B. Smart (1892), and
books upon him have been written by Prof. Saintsbury (1899), H.
Paul (1902), and G.W.E. Russell (1904), also papers by Sir L.
Stephen, F. Harrison, and others.

ARNOLD, THOMAS (1795-1842).
—Historian, s. of an inland
revenue officer in the Isle of Wight, was ed. at Winchester and
Oxford, and after some years as a tutor, was, in 1828, appointed
Head Master of Rugby. His learning, earnestness, and force of
character enabled him not only to raise his own school to the front
rank of public schools, but to exercise an unprecedented reforming
influence on the whole educational system of the country. A
liberal in politics, and a zealous church reformer, he was involved
in many controversies, educational and religious. As a churchman
he was a decided Erastian, and strongly opposed to the High Church
party. In 1841 he was appointed Professor of Modern History
at Oxford. His chief literary works are his unfinished History of
Rome (three vols. 1838-42), and his Lectures on Modern History.
He d. suddenly of angina pectoris in the midst of his usefulness and
growing influence. His life, by Dean Stanley (q.v.), is one of the
best works of its class in the language.

ASCHAM, ROGER (1515-1568).
—Didactic writer and
scholar, s. of John A., house-steward in the family of Lord Scrope,
was b. at Kirby Wiske, Yorkshire, and ed. first by Sir Humphrey
Wingfield, and then at St. John’s Coll., Cambridge, where he devoted
himself specially to the study of Greek, then newly revived,
and of which, having taken a fellowship, he became a teacher. He
was likewise noted for his skill in penmanship, music, and archery,
the last of which is the subject of his first work, Toxophilus, pub. in
1545, and which, dedicated to Henry VIII., gained him the favour
of the King, who bestowed a pension upon him. The objects of the
book are twofold, to commend the practice of shooting with the long
bow as a manly sport and an aid to national defence, and to set
the example of a higher style of composition than had yet been
attempted in English. Soon afterwards he was made university
orator, and master of languages to the Lady (afterwards Queen)
Elizabeth. He then went abroad in various positions of trust,
returning on being appointed Latin Secretary to Edward VI. This
office he likewise discharged to Mary and then to Elizabeth—a
testimony to his tact and caution in these changeful times. His
principal work, The Schoolmaster, a treatise on education, was
printed by his widow in 1570. He also pub. a book on the political
state of Germany.

Editions: of Toxophilus, Arber; Schoolmaster, Arber, also Mayer
(1883); English works, Bennet (1767), with life by Dr. Johnson;
whole works, Giles (1864-5).

ASGILL, JOHN (1659-1738).
—Eccentric writer, student
at the Middle Temple, 1686, and called to the Bar 1692. In 1699
he pub. in an unlucky hour a pamphlet to prove that death was not
obligatory upon Christians, which, much to his surprise, aroused
the public wrath and led to his expulsion from the Irish and English
House of Commons successively. A. thereafter fell on evil days,
and passed the rest of his life between the Fleet and the King’s
Bench, where, strange to say, his zeal as a pamphleteer continued
unabated. He d. in 1738.

ASHMOLE, ELIAS (1617-1692).
—Antiquary, was ed. at
Lichfield, and became a solicitor in 1638. On the breaking out of
the Civil War he sided with the royalists; went to Oxford and
studied science, including astrology. The result of his studies in
this region of mystery was his Theatrum Chymicum Britannicum,
which gained him great repute and the friendship of John Selden.
His last astrological treatise was The Way to Bliss, which dealt with
the subject of “the philosopher’s stone.” He also wrote various
works on antiquarian subjects, and a History of the Order of the
Garter. A. held various posts under government, and presented to
the University of Oxford a valuable collection of curiosities now
known as the Ashmolean Museum. He also bequeathed his library
to the University. His wife was a dau. of Sir W. Dugdale, the
antiquary.

ASSER (d. 909?).
—Chronicler, a monk of St. David’s,
afterwards Bishop of Sherborne, was the friend, helper, and biographer
of Ælfred. In addition to his life of Ælfred he wrote a
chronicle of England from 849 to 887.

ATHERSTONE, EDWIN (1788-1872).
—Poet and novelist.
His works, which were planned on an imposing scale, attracted
some temporary attention and applause, but are now forgotten.
His chief poem, The Fall of Nineveh, consisting of thirty books,
appeared at intervals from 1828 to 1868. He also produced two
novels, The Sea Kings in England and The Handwriting on the Wall.

ATTERBURY, FRANCIS (1662-1732).
—Controversialist
and preacher, was b. near Newport Pagnel, Bucks, and ed. at Westminster
School and Oxford. He became the leading protagonist
on the High Church side in the ecclesiastical controversies of his
time, and is believed to have been the chief author of the famous
defence of Dr. Sacheverell in 1712. He also wrote most of Boyle’s
Examination of Dr. Bentley’s Dissertations on the Epistles of
Phalaris, and pub. sermons, which, with his letters to Swift, Pope,
and other friends, constitute the foundation of his literary reputation.
During the reign of the Tories he enjoyed much preferment,
having been successively Canon of Exeter, Dean of Christ Church,
Dean of Westminster, and Bishop of Rochester. His Jacobite
principles, however, and his participation in various plots got him
into trouble, and in 1722 he was confined in the Tower, deprived of
all his offices, and ultimately banished. He d. at Paris, Feb. 15,
1732, and was buried privately in Westminster Abbey.

AUBREY, JOHN (1626-1697).
—Antiquary, was a country
gentleman who inherited estates in several counties in England,
which he lost by litigation and otherwise. He devoted himself to
the collection of antiquarian and miscellaneous observations, and
gave assistance to Dugdale and Anthony à-Wood in their researches.
His own investigations were extensive and minute, but their value
is much diminished by his credulity, and want of capacity to weigh
evidence. His only publication is his Miscellanies, a collection of
popular superstitions, etc., but he left various collections, which
were edited and publ. in the 19th century.

AUSTEN, JANE (1775-1817).
—Novelist, dau. of a clergyman,
was b. at the rectory of Steventon near Basingstoke. She
received an education superior to that generally given to girls of
her time, and took early to writing, her first tale being begun in
1798. Her life was a singularly uneventful one, and, but for a disappointment
in love, tranquil and happy. In 1801 the family went
to Bath, the scene of many episodes in her writings, and after the
death of her f. in 1805 to Southampton, and later to Chawton, a
village in Hants, where most of her novels were written. A tendency
to consumption having manifested itself, she removed in
May, 1817, to Winchester for the advantage of skilled medical
attendance, but so rapid was the progress of her malady that she
died there two months later. Of her six novels, four—Sense and
Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814)
and Emma (1816)—were pub. anonymously during her life-time;
and the others, Northanger Abbey—written in 1798—and Persuasion,
finished in 1816, appeared a few months after her death, when the
name of the authoress was divulged. Although her novels were
from the first well received, it is only of comparatively late years
that her genius has gained the wide appreciation which it deserves.
Her strength lies in the delineation of character, especially of
persons of her own sex, by a number of minute and delicate touches
arising out of the most natural and everyday incidents in the life of
the middle and upper classes, from which her subjects are generally
taken. Her characters, though of quite ordinary types, are drawn
with such wonderful firmness and precision, and with such significant
detail as to retain their individuality absolutely intact through
their entire development, and they are never coloured by her own
personality. Her view of life is genial in the main, with a strong
dash of gentle but keen satire: she appeals rarely and slightly to
the deeper feelings; and the enforcement of the excellent lessons
she teaches is left altogether to the story, without a word of formal
moralising. Among her admirers was Sir W. Scott, who said,
“That young lady has a talent for describing the involvements of
feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most
wonderful I ever met with;” others were Macaulay (who thought
that in the world there were no compositions which approached
nearer to perfection), Coleridge, Southey, Sydney Smith, and E.
FitzGerald.

AUSTIN, JOHN (1790-1859).
—Jurist, served in the army
in Sicily and Malta, but, selling his commission, studied law, and
was called to the Bar 1818. He did not long continue to practise,
but devoted himself to the study of law as a science, and became
Professor of Jurisprudence in London University 1826-32. Thereafter
he served on various Royal Commissions. By his works he
exercised a profound influence on the views of jurisprudence held
in England. These include The Province of Jurisprudence Determined
(1832), and his Lectures on Jurisprudence.

AYTON, SIR ROBERT (1570-1638).
—Poet, s. of A. of
Kinaldie in Fife. After grad. at St. Andrews, he studied law at Paris,
became ambassador to the Emperor, and held other court offices.
He appears to have been well-known to his literary contemporaries
in England. He wrote poems in Latin, Greek, and English, and
was one of the first Scotsmen to write in the last. His chief poem is
Diophantus and Charidora; Inconstancy Upbraided is perhaps the
best of his short poems. He is credited with a little poem, Old Long
Syne, which probably suggested Burns’s famous Auld Lang Syne.

AYTOUN, WILLIAM EDMONSTONE (1813-1865).
—Poet and
humorist, s. of Roger A., a Writer to the Signet, was b. in Edinburgh
and ed. there, and was brought up to the law, which, however, as
he said, he “followed but could never overtake.” He became a
contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine in 1836, and continued his
connection with it until his death. In it appeared most of his
humorous prose pieces, such as The Glenmutchkin Railway, How I
Became a Yeoman, and How I Stood for the Dreepdaily Burghs, all full
of vigorous fun. In the same pages began to appear his chief
poetical work, the Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, and a novel, partly
autobiographical, Norman Sinclair. Other works were The Bon
Gaultier Ballads, jointly with Theodore Martin, and Firmilian, a
Spasmodic Tragedy, under the nom-de-plume of T. Percy Jones, intended
to satirise a group of poets and critics, including Gilfillan,
Dobell, Bailey, and Alexander Smith. In 1845 A. obtained the
Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in Edinburgh University,
which he filled with great success, raising the attendance from 30
to 150, and in 1852 he was appointed sheriff of Orkney and Shetland.
He was married to a dau. of Professor Wilson (Christopher North).

BACON, FRANCIS, LORD VERULAM, AND VISCOUNT ST. ALBAN’S (1561-1626).
—Philosopher
and statesman, was the
youngest s. of Sir Nicholas B., Lord Keeper, by his second wife, a
dau. of Sir Anthony Cooke, whose sister married William Cecil, Lord
Burghley, the great minister of Queen Elizabeth. He was b. at
York House in the Strand on Jan. 22, 1561, and in his 13th year
was sent with his elder brother Anthony to Trinity Coll., Cambridge.
Here he first met the Queen, who was impressed by his precocious
intellect, and was accustomed to call him “the young Lord Keeper.”
Here also he became dissatisfied with the Aristotelian philosophy as
being unfruitful and leading only to resultless disputation. In 1576
he entered Gray’s Inn, and in the same year joined the embassy of
Sir Amyas Paulet to France, where he remained until 1579. The
death of his f. in that year, before he had completed an intended
provision for him, gave an adverse turn to his fortunes, and rendered
it necessary that he should decide upon a profession. He accordingly
returned to Gray’s Inn, and, after an unsuccessful attempt to
induce Burghley to give him a post at court, and thus enable him
to devote himself to a life of learning, he gave himself seriously to the
study of law, and was called to the Bar in 1582. He did not, however,
desert philosophy, and pub. a Latin tract, Temporis Partus
Maximus (the Greatest Birth of Time), the first rough draft of his
own system. Two years later, in 1584, he entered the House of
Commons as member for Melcombe, sitting subsequently for
Taunton (1586), Liverpool (1589), Middlesex (1593), and Southampton
(1597). In the Parliament of 1586 he took a prominent
part in urging the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. About this
time he seems again to have approached his powerful uncle, the
result of which may possibly be traced in his rapid progress at the
Bar, and in his receiving, in 1589, the reversion to the Clerkship of
the Star Chamber, a valuable appointment, into the enjoyment of
which, however, he did not enter until 1608. About 1591 he
formed a friendship with the Earl of Essex, from whom he received
many tokens of kindness ill requited. In 1593 the offices of
Attorney-general, and subsequently of Solicitor-general became
vacant, and Essex used his influence on B.’s behalf, but unsuccessfully,
the former being given to Coke, the famous lawyer. These
disappointments may have been owing to a speech made by B. on a
question of subsidies. To console him for them Essex presented
him with a property at Twickenham, which he subsequently sold
for £1800, equivalent to a much larger sum now. In 1596 he was
made a Queen’s Counsel, but missed the appointment of Master of
the Rolls, and in the next year (1597), he pub. the first edition of
his Essays, ten in number, combined with Sacred Meditations
and the Colours of Good and Evil. By 1601 Essex had lost
the Queen’s favour, and had raised his rebellion, and B. was one of
those appointed to investigate the charges against him, and examine
witnesses, in connection with which he showed an ungrateful and
indecent eagerness in pressing the case against his former friend and
benefactor, who was executed on Feb. 25, 1601. This act B.
endeavoured to justify in A Declaration of the Practices and Treasons,
etc., of … the Earl of Essex, etc. His circumstances had for some
time been bad, and he had been arrested for debt: he had, however,
received a gift of a fine of £1200 on one of Essex’s accomplices. The
accession of James VI. in 1603 gave a favourable turn to his fortunes:
he was knighted, and endeavoured to set himself right with the new
powers by writing his Apologie (defence) of his proceedings in the
case of Essex, who had favoured the succession of James. In the
first Parliament of the new king he sat for St. Alban’s, and was
appointed a Commissioner for Union with Scotland. In 1605 he
pub. The Advancement of Learning, dedicated, with fulsome
flattery, to the king. The following year he married Alice Barnham,
the dau. of a London merchant, and in 1607 he was made
Solicitor-General, and wrote Cogita et Visa, a first sketch of the
Novum Organum, followed in 1609 by The Wisdom of the Ancients.
Meanwhile (in 1608), he had entered upon the Clerkship of the Star
Chamber, and was in the enjoyment of a large income; but old
debts and present extravagance kept him embarrassed, and he
endeavoured to obtain further promotion and wealth by supporting
the king in his arbitrary policy. In 1613 he became Attorney-General,
and in this capacity prosecuted Somerset in 1616. The
year 1618 saw him Lord Keeper, and the next Lord Chancellor
and Baron Verulam, a title which, in 1621, he exchanged for that
of Viscount St. Albans. Meanwhile he had written the New Atlantis,
a political romance, and in 1620 he presented to the king the Novum
Organum, on which he had been engaged for 30 years, and which
ultimately formed the main part of the Instauratio Magna. In his
great office B. showed a failure of character in striking contrast with
the majesty of his intellect. He was corrupt alike politically and
judicially, and now the hour of retribution arrived. In 1621 a
Parliamentary Committee on the administration of the law charged
him with corruption under 23 counts; and so clear was the evidence
that he made no attempt at defence. To the lords, who sent a
committee to inquire whether the confession was really his, he
replied, “My lords, it is my act, my hand, and my heart; I beseech
your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed.” He was sentenced
to a fine of £40,000, remitted by the king, to be committed to the
Tower during the king’s pleasure (which was that he should be
released in a few days), and to be incapable of holding office or
sitting in parliament. He narrowly escaped being deprived of his
titles. Thenceforth he devoted himself to study and writing. In
1622 appeared his History of Henry VII., and the 3rd part of the
Instauratio; in 1623, History of Life and Death, the De Augmentis
Scientarum, a Latin translation of the Advancement, and in 1625
the 3rd edition of the Essays, now 58 in number. He also pub.
Apophthegms, and a translation of some of the Psalms. His life
was now approaching its close. In March, 1626, he came to London,
and shortly after, when driving on a snowy day, the idea struck him
of making an experiment as to the antiseptic properties of snow, in
consequence of which he caught a chill, which ended in his death on
9th April 1626. He left debts to the amount of £22,000. At the
time of his death he was engaged upon Sylva Sylvarum. The
intellect of B. was one of the most powerful and searching ever
possessed by man, and his developments of the inductive philosophy
revolutionised the future thought of the human race. The most
popular of his works is the Essays, which convey profound and
condensed thought in a style that is at once clear and rich. His
moral character was singularly mixed and complex, and bears no
comparison with his intellect. It exhibits a singular coldness and
lack of enthusiasm, and indeed a bluntness of moral perception
and an absence of attractiveness rarely combined with such
extraordinary mental endowments. All that was possible to be
done in defence of his character and public conduct has been done
by his accomplished biographer and editor, Mr. Spedding (q.v.).
Singular, though of course futile, attempts, supported sometimes
with much ingenuity, have been made to claim for B. the authorship
of Shakespeare’s plays, and have indeed been extended so as
to include those of Marlowe, and even the Essays of Montaigne.

SUMMARY.—B. London 1561, ed. Trinity Coll., Cambridge, dissatisfied
with Aristotelean philosophy, entered Gray’s Inn 1576, in
France 1576-79, called to Bar 1582, enters Parliament 1584, became
friend of Essex 1591, who presents him with estate 1593, pub. 1st ed.
of Essays 1597, prosecutes Essex 1601, pub. Advancement of Learning
1605, Solicitor-Gen. 1607, pub. Wisdom of the Ancients 1609,
Attorney-Gen. 1613, prosecuted Somerset 1616, Lord Keeper 1618,
Lord Chancellor with title of Verulam 1619, Visc. St. Albans 1621,
pub. Novum Organum 1620, charged with corruption, and retires
from public life 1621, pub. Henry VII. and 3rd part of Instauratio
1622, d. 1626.

The standard edition of B.’s works is that of Spedding, Ellis, and
Heath (14 vols. 1857-74), including Life and Letters by Spedding.
See also Macaulay’s Essays; Dean Church in Men of Letters Series;
Dr. Abbott’s Life (1885), etc. For philosophy Fowler’s Novum
Organum (1878).

BACON, ROGER (1214?-1294).
—Philosopher, studied at
Oxford and Paris. His scientific acquirements, regarded in that
age as savouring of witchcraft, and doubtless also his protests
against the ignorance and immorality of the clergy, excited the
jealousy and hatred of the Franciscans, and he was in consequence
imprisoned at Paris for ten years. Clement IV., who had been a
sympathiser, desired on his accession to see his works, and in
response B. sent him Opus Majus, a treatise on the sciences
(grammar, logic, mathematics, physics, and philosophy), followed
by Opus Secundum and Opus Tertium. Clement, however, was
near death when they arrived. B. was comparatively free from
persecution for the next ten years. But in 1278 he was again imprisoned
for upwards of ten years. At the intercession of some
English noblemen he was at last released, and spent his remaining
years at Oxford. He possessed one of the most commanding intellects
of his own, or perhaps of any, age, and, notwithstanding all
the disadvantages and discouragements to which he was subjected,
made many discoveries, and came near to many more. There is
still preserved at Oxford a rectified calendar in which he approximates
closely to the truth. He received the sobriquet of the
“Doctor Mirabilis.”

BAGE, ROBERT (1728-1801).
—Novelist, b. in Derbyshire,
was the s. of a paper-maker. It was not until he was 53 that he took
to literature; but in the 15 years following he produced 6 novels, of
which Sir Walter Scott says that “strong mind, playful fancy, and
extensive knowledge are everywhere apparent.” B., though brought
up as a Quaker, imbibed the principles of the French Revolution.
He was an amiable and benevolent man, and highly esteemed.
Hermsprong; or, Man as He is Not (1796) is considered the best of his
novels, of which it was the last. The names of the others are
Mount Kenneth (1781), Barham Downs (1784), The Fair Syrian
(1787), James Wallace (1788), and Man as He is (1792).

BAGEHOT, WALTER (1826-1877).
—Economist, s. of a
banker, b. at Langport, Somerset, ed. at University Coll., London,
and called to the Bar, but did not practise, and joined his f. in
business. He wrote for various periodicals, and from 1860 was
editor of The Economist. He was the author of The English Constitution
(1867), a standard work which was translated into several
languages; Physics and Politics (1872), and Lombard Street (1873), a
valuable financial work. A collection of essays, biographical and
economic, was pub. after his death.

BAILEY, PHILIP JAMES (1816-1902).
—Poet, s. of a
journalist, b. at Nottingham, and ed. there and at Glasgow, of which
he was made an LL.D. in 1891. His life was a singularly uneventful
one. He lived at Nottingham, Jersey, Ilfracombe, London, and
again at Nottingham, where he d. He travelled a good deal
on the Continent. He was by profession a barrister, but never
practised, and devoted his whole energies to poetry. His first
poem, Festus (1839), is, for the daring of its theme and the imaginative
power and moral altitude which it displays, one of the most
notable of the century; as the work of one little past boyhood it is
a prodigy of intellectual precocity. Along with its great qualities
it has many faults in execution, and its final place in literature
remains to be determined. It was pub. anonymously, and had
great success, but has fallen into unmerited, but perhaps temporary,
neglect. Among its greatest admirers was Tennyson. The subsequent
poems of B., The Angel World (1850), The Mystic (1855), The
Age (1858), and The Universal Hymn (1867), were failures, and the
author adopted the unfortunate expedient of endeavouring to
buoy them up by incorporating large extracts in the later editions
of Festus, with the effect only of sinking the latter, which ultimately
extended to over 40,000 lines. B. was a man of strikingly
handsome appearance, and gentle and amiable character.

BAILLIE, JOANNA (1762-1851).
—Dramatist and poetess,
dau. of the minister of Bothwell, afterwards Professor of Divinity at
Glasgow. Her mother was a sister of the great anatomists, William
and John Hunter, and her brother was the celebrated physician,
Matthew B., of London. She received a thorough education at
Glasgow, and at an early age went to London, where the remainder
of her long, happy, and honoured, though uneventful, life was
passed. In 1798, when she was 36, the first vol. of her Plays on the
Passions appeared, and was received with much favour, other two
vols. followed in 1802 and 1812, and she also produced Miscellaneous
Plays in 1804, and 3 vols. of Dramatic Poetry in 1836. In
all her works there are many passages of true and impressive poetry,
but the idea underlying her Plays on the Passions, that, namely, of
exhibiting the principal character as acting under the exclusive
influence of one passion, is artificial and untrue to nature.

BAILLIE, LADY GRIZEL (1665-1746).
—Poetess, dau. of
Sir Patrick Home or Hume, afterwards Earl of Marchmont, was
married to George Baillie of Jerviswoode. In her childhood she
showed remarkable courage and address in the services she
rendered to her father and his friend, Robert Baillie of Jerviswoode,
the eminent Scottish patriot, when under persecution. She left
many pieces both prose and verse in MS., some of which were
pub. The best known is the beautiful song, Were na my heart licht
I wad die.

BAILLIE, ROBERT (1599-1662).
—Historical writer, s. of
B. of Jerviston, ed. at Glasgow, he entered the Church of Scotland
and became minister of Kilwinning in Ayrshire. His abilities soon
made him a leading man. He was a member of the historic
Assembly of 1638, when Presbyterianism was re-established in
Scotland, and also of the Westminster Assembly, 1643. In 1651 he
was made Professor of Divinity in Glasgow, and 10 years later
Principal. His Letters and Journals, edited for the Bannatyne
Club by D. Laing (q.v.), are of the greatest value for the interesting
light they throw on a period of great importance in Scottish history.
He was one of the wisest and most temperate churchmen of his
time.

BAIN, ALEXANDER (1818-1903).
—Philosopher, b. at
Aberdeen, and graduated at Marischal Coll. there, became in 1860
Professor of Logic in his university, and wrote a number of works on
philosophy and psychology, including The Senses and the Intellect
(1855), The Emotions and the Will, Mental and Moral Science (1868),
Logic (1870), and Education as a Science (1879). In 1881 he was
elected Lord Rector of Aberdeen University.

BAKER, SIR RICHARD (1568-1645).
—Historian and
religious writer, studied law, was knighted in 1603, and was High
Sheriff of Oxfordshire 1620. B. was the author of The Chronicle of
the Kings of England (1643), which was for long held as a great
authority among the country gentlemen. It has, however, many
errors. B. fell on evil days, was thrown into the Fleet for debt
incurred by others, for which he had made himself responsible, and
d. there. It was during his durance that the Chronicle and some
religious treatises were composed. The Chronicle was continued by
Edward Phillips, Milton’s nephew, who became a strong Royalist.

BAKER, SIR SAMUEL WHITE (1821-1893).
—Traveller, b.
in London, and after being a planter in Ceylon, and superintending
the construction of a railway between the Danube and the Black
Sea, went with his wife, a Hungarian lady, in search of the sources
of the Nile, and discovered the great lake, Albert Nyanza. B. was
knighted in 1866, and was for 4 years Governor-General of the Equatorial
Nile Basin. His books, which are all on travel and sport,
are well written and include Albert Nyanza (1866), Nile Tributaries
of Abyssinia (1867).

BALE, JOHN (1495-1563).
—Historian and controversialist,
b. at Cove, Suffolk, and ed. as a Carmelite friar, but becoming
a Protestant, engaged in violent controversy with the Roman
Catholics. After undergoing persecution and flying to Flanders, he
was brought back by Edward VI. and made Bishop of Ossory. On
the death of Edward he was again persecuted, and had to escape
from Ireland to Holland, but returned on the accession of Elizabeth,
who made him a Prebendary of Canterbury. His chief work
is a Latin Account of the Lives of Eminent Writers of Great Britain.
Besides this he wrote some dramas on scriptural subjects, and an
account of the trial and death of Sir John Oldcastle. He wrote in
all 22 plays, of which only 5 have come down, the names of certain
of which give some idea of their nature, e.g., The Three Leaves of
Nature, Moses and Christ, and The Temptacyon of Our Lord.

BALLANTINE, JAMES (1808-1877).
—Artist and author, b.
in Edinburgh, began life as a house painter. He studied art, and
became one of the first to revive the art of glass-painting, on which
subject he wrote a treatise. He was the author of The Gaberlunzie’s
Wallet (1843), Miller of Deanhaugh (1845), Poems (1856),
100 Songs with Music (1865), and a Life of David Roberts, R.A.
(1866).

BALLANTYNE, ROBERT MICHAEL (1825-1894).
—Writer
of tales for boys, b. in Edinburgh, was a connection of the well-known
printers. As a youth he spent some years in the service of
the Hudson’s Bay Co., and was then a member of Constable’s
printing firm. In 1856 he took to literature as a profession, and
pub. about 80 tales, which, abounding in interesting adventure and
information, and characterised by a thoroughly healthy tone, had
great popularity. Among them are The Young Fur Traders (1856),
The Coral Island, Fighting the Flames, Martin Rattler, The World of
Ice, The Dog Crusoe, Erling the Bold, and Black Ivory. B. was also
an accomplished water-colour artist, and in all respects lived up to
the ideals he sought to instil into his readers. He d. at Rome.

BANCROFT, GEORGE (1800-1891).
—American historian,
b. at Worcester, Massachusetts, and after grad. at Harvard, studied
in Germany, where he became acquainted and corresponded with
Goethe, Hegel, and other leaders of German thought. Returning
to America he began his History of the United States (1834-74). The
work covers the period from the discovery of the Continent to the
conclusion of the Revolutionary War in 1782. His other great work
is The History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United
States (1882). B. filled various political offices, and was in 1846
Minister Plenipotentiary to England, and in 1867 Minister to
Prussia. His writing is clear and vigorous, and his facts generally
accurate, but he is a good deal of a partisan.

BANIM, JOHN (1798-1842).
—Novelist, began life as a
miniature painter, but was led by the success of his first book,
Tales of the O’Hara Family, to devote himself to literature. The
object which he set before himself was to become to Ireland what
Scott has been to Scotland, and the influence of his model is distinctly
traceable in his writings. His strength lies in the delineation
of the characters of the Irish lower classes, and the impulses,
often misguided and criminal, by which they are influenced, and
in this he has shown remarkable power. The first series of the
O’Hara Tales appeared in 1825, the second in 1826. Other works
are The Croppy (1828), The Denounced (1830), The Smuggler (1831),
The Mayor of Windgap, and his last, Father Connell. Most of
these deal with the darker and more painful phases of life, but the
feeling shown in the last-named is brighter and tenderer. B.
latterly suffered from illness and consequent poverty, which were
alleviated by a pension from Government. He also wrote some
poems, including The Celt’s Paradise, and one or two plays. In the
O’Hara Tales, he was assisted by his brother, MICHAEL BANIM
(1796-1874), and there is difficulty in allocating their respective
contributions. After the death of John, Michael wrote Clough
Fionn (1852), and The Town of the Cascades (1864).

BANNATYNE, RICHARD (d. 1605).
—Secretary to John
Knox, compiled Memorials of Transactions in Scotland from 1569 to
1573.

BARBAULD, ANNA LETITIA (1743-1825).
—Poetess, etc.,
dau. of Dr. John Aikin (q.v.), was b. at Kibworth-Hencourt,
Leicestershire. Her f. kept an academy for boys, whose education
she shared, and thus became acquainted with the classics. In
1773 she pub. a collection of miscellaneous poems, which was well
received, and in the following year she married the Rev. R. Barbauld,
a French Protestant and dissenting minister, who also conducted
a school near Palgrave in Suffolk. Into this enterprise Mrs.
B. threw herself with great energy, and, mainly owing to her
talents and reputation, it proved a success and was afterwards
carried on at Hampstead and Newington Green. Meantime, she
continued her literary occupations, and brought out various devotional
works, including her Hymns in Prose for Children. These
were followed by Evenings at Home, Selections from the English
Essayists, The Letters of Samuel Richardson, with a life prefixed, and
a selection from the British novelists with introductory essay.

BARBOUR, JOHN (1316?-1395).
—Poet. Of B.’s youth
nothing is certainly known, but it is believed that he was b. near
Aberdeen, and studied at Oxford and Paris. He entered the Church,
and rose to ecclesiastical preferment and Royal favour. He is
known to have been Archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1357, when, and
again in 1364, he went with some young scholars to Oxford, and he
also held various civil offices in connection with the exchequer and
the King’s household. His principal poem, The Bruce, was in progress
in 1376. It consists of 14,000 octosyllabic lines, and celebrates
the praises of Robert the Bruce and James Douglas, the
flowers of Scottish chivalry. This poem is almost the sole authority
on the history it deals with, but is much more than a rhyming
chronicle; it contains many fine descriptive passages, and sings the
praises of freedom. Its style is somewhat bald and severe. Other
poems ascribed to B. are The Legend of Troy, and Legends of the
Saints, probably translations. B. devoted a perpetual annuity of
20 shillings, bestowed upon him by the King, to provide for a mass
to be sung for himself and his parents, and this was duly done in the
church of St. Machar until the Reformation.

The Bruce, edited by C. Innes for Spalding Club (1856), and for
Early Engl. Text Soc. by W.W. Skeat, 1870-77; and for Scott.
Text Soc. (1894); The Wallace and The Bruce re-studied,
J.T.T. Brown, 1900; G. Neilson in Chambers’ Cyc. Eng. Lit. (1903).

BARCLAY, ALEXANDER (1475?-1552).
—Poet, probably
of Scottish birth, was a priest in England. He is remembered for
his satirical poem, The Ship of Fools (1509), partly a translation,
which is of interest as throwing light on the manners and customs
of the times to which it refers. He also translated Sallust’s Bellum
Jugurthinum, and the Mirrour of Good Manners, from the Italian of
Mancini, and wrote five Eclogues. His style is stiff and his verse
uninspired.

BARCLAY, JOHN (1582-1621).
—Satirist, s. of a Scotsman,
who was Professor of Law at Pont-à-Mousson, Lorraine, came with
his f. to England about 1603. He wrote several works in English
and Latin, among which are Euphormionis Satyricon, against the
Jesuits, and Argenis, a political romance, resembling in certain
respects the Arcadia of Sidney, and the Utopia of More.

BARCLAY, ROBERT (1648-1690).
—Apologist of the
Quakers, s. of Col. David B. of Ury, ed. at the Scots Coll. in Paris,
of which his uncle was Rector, made such progress in study as
to gain the admiration of his teachers, specially of his uncle, who
offered to make him his heir if he would remain in France, and join
the Roman Catholic Church. This he refused to do, and, returning
to Scotland, he in 1667 adopted the principles of the Quakers
as his f. had already done. Soon afterwards he began to write in
defence of his sect, by pub. in 1670 Truth cleared of Calumnies, and
a Catechism and Confession of Faith (1673). His great work, however,
is his Apology for the Quakers, pub. in Latin in 1676, and
translated into English in 1678. It is a weighty and learned work,
written in a dignified style, and was eagerly read. It, however,
failed to arrest the persecution to which the Quakers were exposed,
and B. himself, on returning from the Continent, where he
had gone with Foxe and Penn, was imprisoned, but soon regained
his liberty, and was in the enjoyment of Court favour. He was one
of the twelve Quakers who acquired East New Jersey, of which he
was appointed nominal Governor. His latter years were spent at his
estate of Ury, where he d. The essential view which B. maintained
was, that Christians are illuminated by an inner light superseding
even the Scriptures as the guide of life. His works have often been
reprinted.

BARHAM, RICHARD HARRIS (1788-1845).
—Novelist and
humorous poet, s. of a country gentleman, was b. at Canterbury, ed.
at St. Paul’s School and Oxford, entered the church, held various
incumbencies, and was Divinity Lecturer, and minor canon of St.
Paul’s. It is not, however, as a churchman that he is remembered,
but as the author of the Ingoldsby Legends, a series of comic
and serio-comic pieces in verse, sparkling with wit, and full of striking
and often grotesque turns of expression, which appeared first in
Bentley’s Miscellany. He also wrote, in Blackwood’s Magazine, a
novel, My Cousin Nicholas.

BARLOW, JOEL (1754-1812).
—Poet, b. at Reading, Connecticut,
served for a time as an army chaplain, and thereafter
betook himself to law, and finally to commerce and diplomacy, in
the former of which he made a fortune. He was much less successful
as a poet than as a man of affairs. His writings include Vision of
Columbus (1787), afterwards expanded into the Columbiad (1807),
The Conspiracy of Kings (1792), and The Hasty Pudding (1796), a
mock-heroic poem, his best work. These are generally pompous
and dull. In 1811 he was app. ambassador to France, and met his
death in Poland while journeying to meet Napoleon.

BARNARD, LADY ANNE (LINDSAY) (1750-1825).
—Poet,
e. dau. of the 5th Earl of Balcarres, married Andrew Barnard,
afterwards Colonial Secretary at Cape Town. On the d. of her
husband in 1807 she settled in London. Her exquisite ballad of
Auld Robin Gray was written in 1771, and pub. anonymously. She
confessed the authorship to Sir Walter Scott in 1823.

BARNES, BARNABE (1569?-1609).
—Poet, s. of Dr.
Richard B. Bishop, of Durham, was b. in Yorkshire, and studied at
Oxford. He wrote Parthenophil, a collection of sonnets, madrigals,
elegies, and odes, A Divine Centurie of Spirituall Sonnets, and The
Devil’s Charter, a tragedy. When at his best he showed a true
poetic vein.

BARNES, WILLIAM (1801-1886).
—Poet and philologist,
s. of a farmer, b. at Rushay, Dorset. After being a solicitor’s clerk
and a schoolmaster, he entered the Church, in which he served
various cures. He first contributed to a newspaper, Poems in
Dorset Dialect, separately pub. in 1844. Hwomely Rhymes followed
in 1858, and a collected edition of his poems appeared in 1879.
His philological works include Philological Grammar (1854), Se
Gefylsta, an Anglo-Saxon Delectus (1849). Tiw, or a View of Roots
(1862), and a Glossary of Dorset Dialect (1863). B.’s poems are
characterised by a singular sweetness and tenderness of feeling,
deep insight into humble country life and character, and an exquisite
feeling for local scenery.

BARNFIELD, RICHARD (1574-1627).
—Poet, e.s. of
Richard B., gentleman, was b. at Norbury, Shropshire, and ed. at
Oxford. In 1594 he pub. The Affectionate Shepherd, a collection
of variations in graceful verse of the 2nd Eclogue of Virgil. His
next work was Cynthia, with certain Sonnets and the Legend of Cassandra
in 1595; and in 1598 there appeared a third vol., The
Encomion of Lady Pecunia, etc., in which are two songs (“If music
and sweet poetrie agree,” and “As it fell upon a day”) also included
in The Passionate Pilgrim, an unauthorised collection, and
which were long attributed to Shakespeare. From this time, 1599,
B. produced nothing else, and seems to have retired to the life of
a country gentleman at Stone in Staffordshire, in the church of
which he was buried in 1627. He was for long neglected; but his
poetry is clear, sweet, and musical. His gift indeed is sufficiently
attested by work of his having passed for that of Shakespeare.

BARROW, ISAAC (1630-1677).
—Divine, scholar, and
mathematician, s. of a linen-draper in London, was ed. at Charterhouse,
Felsted, Peterhouse, and Trinity Coll., Cambridge, where
his uncle and namesake, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, was a
Fellow. As a boy he was turbulent and pugnacious, but soon took
to hard study, distinguishing himself in classics and mathematics.
Intending originally to enter the Church, he was led to think of
the medical profession, and engaged in scientific studies, but soon
reverted to his first views. In 1655 he became candidate for the
Greek Professorship at Cambridge, but was unsuccessful, and
travelled for four years on the Continent as far as Turkey. On his
return he took orders, and, in 1660, obtained the Greek Chair at
Cambridge, and in 1662 the Gresham Professorship of Geometry,
which he resigned on being appointed first Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics in the same university. During his tenure of this
chair he pub. two mathematical works of great learning and
elegance, the first on Geometry and the second on Optics. In 1669
he resigned in favour of his pupil, Isaac Newton, who was long
considered his only superior among English mathematicians.
About this time also he composed his Expositions of the Creed, The
Lord’s Prayer, Decalogue, and Sacraments. He was made a D.D.
by royal mandate in 1670, and two years later Master of Trinity Coll.,
where he founded the library. Besides the works above mentioned,
he wrote other important treatises on mathematics, but in literature
his place is chiefly supported by his sermons, which are masterpieces
of argumentative eloquence, while his treatise on the Pope’s
Supremacy is regarded as one of the most perfect specimens of controversy
in existence. B.’s character as a man was in all respects
worthy of his great talents, though he had a strong vein of eccentricity.
He d. unmarried in London at the early age of 47. B.’s
theological works were edited by Napier, with memoir by Whewell
(9 vols., 1839).

BARTON, BERNARD (1784-1849).
—Poet, b. of Quaker
parentage, passed nearly all his life at Woodbridge, for the most part
as a clerk in a bank. He became the friend of Southey, Lamb, and
other men of letters. His chief works are The Convict’s Appeal
(1818), a protest against the severity of the criminal code of the time,
and Household Verses (1845), which came under the notice of Sir R.
Peel, through whom he obtained a pension of £100. With the exception
of some hymns his works are now nearly forgotten, but he
was a most amiable and estimable man—simple and sympathetic.
His dau. Lucy, who married Edward Fitzgerald, the translator of
Omar Khayyam, pub. a selection of his poems and letters, to which
her husband prefixed a biographical introduction.

BAYNES, THOMAS SPENCER (1823-1887).
—Philosopher, s.
of a Baptist minister, b. at Wellington, Somerset, intended to study
for Baptist ministry, and was at a theological seminary at Bath
with that view, but being strongly attracted to philosophical studies,
left it and went to Edin., when he became the favourite pupil of Sir
W. Hamilton (q.v.), of whose philosophical system he continued an
adherent. After working as ed. of a newspaper in Edinburgh, and after
an interval of rest rendered necessary by a breakdown in health, he
resumed journalistic work in 1858 as assistant ed. of the Daily News.
In 1864 he was appointed Prof. of Logic and English Literature at
St. Andrews, in which capacity his mind was drawn to the study of
Shakespeare, and he contributed to the Edinburgh Review and
Fraser’s Magazine valuable papers (chiefly relating to his vocabulary
and the extent of his learning) afterwards collected as Shakespeare
Studies. In 1873 he was appointed to superintend the ninth ed.
of the Encyclopædia Britannica, in which, after 1880, he was assisted
by W. Robertson Smith (q.v.).

BAXTER, RICHARD (1615-1691).
—Divine scholar and controversialist,
was b. of poor, but genteel, parents at Rowton in
Shropshire, and although he became so eminent for learning, was not
ed. at any university. Circumstances led to his turning his attention
to a career at court under the patronage of the Master of the Revels,
but a short experience of this sufficed; and giving himself to the
Christian ministry, he was ordained in 1638, and, after being master
of a school at Dudley, exercised his ministry successively at Bridgnorth
and Kidderminster. His learning and capacity for business
made him the leader of the Presbyterian party. He was one of the
greatest preachers of his own day, and consistently endeavoured to
exert a moderating influence, with the result that he became the
object of attack by extremists of opposing views. Though siding
with the Parliament in the Civil War, he opposed the execution of the
King and the assumption of supreme power by Cromwell. During
the war he served with the army as a chaplain. On the return of
Charles II., B. was made one of his chaplains, and was offered the see
of Hereford, which he declined, and his subsequent request to be
allowed to return to Kidderminster was refused. He subsequently
suffered persecution at the hands of Judge Jeffreys. After the
Revolution he had a few years of peace and quiet. His literary
activity was marvellous in spite of ill-health and outward disturbance.
He is said to have written 168 works, the best known of
which are The Saints’ Everlasting Rest (1650), and Call to the Unconverted
(1657), manuals of practical religion; and, among his controversial
writings, Methodus Theologiæ (1681), and Catholic Theology
(1675), in which his theological standpoint—a compromise between
Arminianism and Calvinism—is set forth. Dr. Isaac Barrow says
that “his practical writings were never mended, and his controversial
seldom confuted,” and Dean Stanley calls him “the chief
English Protestant schoolman.” B. left an autobiography,
Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, which was a favourite book with both Johnson
and Coleridge. Other works by him are The Life of Faith (1670),
Reasons of the Christian Religion (1672), and Christian Directory
(1675). Practical Works in 23 vols. (1830) edited with memoirs by
W. Orme, also Lives by A.B. Grosart (1879), Dean Boyle (1883), and
J.H. Davies (1886).

BAYLY, ADA ELLEN (d. 1903).
—Novelist, wrote
several stories under the name of “Edna Lyall,” which were very
popular. They include Autobiography of a Slander, Donovan, Hope
the Hermit, In the Golden Days, To Right the Wrong, We Two, and
Won by Waiting.

BAYLY, THOMAS HAYNES (1797-1839).
—Miscellaneous
writer, s. of a wealthy lawyer in Bath. Originally intended for the
law, he changed his mind and thought of entering the Church, but
abandoned this idea also, and gave himself to writing for the stage
and the periodical press. He is chiefly known for his songs, of
which he wrote hundreds, which, set to the music of Bishop and
other eminent composers, found universal acceptance. Some were
set to his own music. He also wrote several novels and a number
of farces, etc. Although making a large income from his writings,
in addition to that of his wife, he fell into embarrassed circumstances.
Among the best known of his songs are I’d be a Butterfly, Oh, no, we
never mention Her, and She wore a Wreath of Roses. He may be
regarded as, excepting Moore, the most popular song writer of his
time.

BEACONSFIELD, BENJAMIN DISRAELI, 1ST EARL of (1804-1881).
—Statesman
and novelist, was the s. of Isaac D. (q.v.). Belonging
to a Jewish family settled first in Spain, whence in the 15th
century they migrated to Italy, he was b. in London in 1804 and
privately ed. His f. destined him for the law, and he was articled
to a solicitor. The law was, however, uncongenial, and he had
already begun to write. After some journalistic work, he brought
himself into general notice by the publication, in 1827, of his first
novel, Vivian Grey, which created a sensation by its brilliance,
audacity, and slightly veiled portraits of living celebrities. After
producing a Vindication of the British Constitution, and some political
pamphlets, he followed up his first success by a series of novels, The
Young Duke (1831), Contarini Fleming (1832), Alroy (1833), Venetia
and Henrietta Temple (1837). During the same period he had also
written The Revolutionary Epic and three burlesques, Ixion, The Infernal
Marriage, and Popanilla. These works had gained for him a
brilliant, if not universally admitted, place in literature. But his
ambition was by no means confined to literary achievement; he
aimed also at fame as a man of action. After various unsuccessful
attempts to enter Parliament, in which he stood, first as a Radical,
and then as a Tory, he was in 1837 returned for Maidstone, having
for his colleague Mr. Wyndham Lewis, whose widow he afterwards
married. For some years after entering on his political career, D.
ceased to write, and devoted his energies to parliamentary work.
His first speech was a total failure, being received with shouts of
laughter, but with characteristic courage and perseverance he pursued
his course, gradually rose to a commanding position in parliament
and in the country, became leader of his party, was thrice Chancellor
of the Exchequer, 1852, 1858-59, and 1866-68, in which last
year he became Prime Minister, which office he again held from 1874
till 1880. To return to his literary career, in 1844 he had pub. Coningsby,
followed by Sybil (1845), and Tancred (1847), and in 1848 he
wrote a life of Lord G. Bentinck, his predecessor in the leadership of
the Protectionist party. His last novels were Lothair (1870), and
Endymion (1880). He was raised to the peerage as Earl of Beaconsfield
in 1876, and was a Knight of the Garter. In his later years he
was the intimate friend as well as the trusted minister of Queen
Victoria. The career of D. is one of the most remarkable in English
history. With no family or political influence, and with some
personal characteristics, and the then current prejudices in regard to
his race to contend with, he rose by sheer force of will and intellect
to the highest honours attainable in this country. His most marked
qualities were an almost infinite patience and perseverance, indomitable
courage, a certain spaciousness of mind, and depth of penetration,
and an absolute confidence in his own abilities, aided by great
powers of debate rising occasionally to eloquence. Though the
object, first of a kind of contemptuous dislike, then of an intense
opposition, he rose to be universally regarded as, at all events, a
great political force, and by a large part of the nation as a great
statesman. As a writer he is generally interesting, and his books
teem with striking thoughts, shrewd maxims, and brilliant phrases
which stick in the memory. On the other hand he is often artificial,
extravagant, and turgid, and his ultimate literary position is difficult
to forecast.

Lives by Froude (1890), Hitchman (1885), see also Dictionary of
Nat. Biog. etc.

BEATTIE, JAMES (1735-1803).
—Poet and philosophical
writer, s. of a shopkeeper and small farmer at Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire,
and ed. at Aberdeen; he was, in 1760, appointed Professor
of Moral Philosophy there. In the following year he pub. a
vol. of poems, which attracted attention. The two works, however,
which brought him most fame were: (1) his Essay on Truth
(1770), intended as an answer to Hume, which had great immediate
success, and led to an introduction to the King, a pension of £200,
and the degree of LL.D. from Oxford; and (2) his poem of The
Minstrel, of which the first book was pub. in 1771 and the second in
1774, and which constitutes his true title to remembrance. It contains
much beautiful descriptive writing. The Essay on Truth and
his other philosophical works are now forgotten. B. underwent
much domestic sorrow in the death of his wife and two promising
sons, which broke down his own health and spirits.

BEAUMONT, FRANCIS (1584-1616), AND FLETCHER, JOHN (1579-1625).
—Poets
and dramatists. As they are indissolubly
associated in the history of English literature, it is convenient to
treat of them in one place. B. was the s. of Francis B., a Judge of
the Common Pleas, and was b. at the family seat, Grace Dieu,
Leicestershire. He was ed. at Oxford, but his f. dying in 1598, he
left without taking his degree. He went to London and entered the
Inner Temple in 1600, and soon became acquainted with Ben
Jonson, Drayton, and other poets and dramatists. His first work
was a translation from Ovid, followed by commendatory verses prefixed
to certain plays of Jonson. Soon afterwards his friendship
with F. began. They lived in the same house and had practically a
community of goods until B.’s marriage in 1613 to Ursula, dau. and
co-heiress of Henry Isley of Sundridge in Kent, by whom he had
two dau. He d. in 1616, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. F.
was the youngest s. of Richard F., Bishop of London, who accompanied
Mary Queen of Scots to the scaffold. He went to Cambridge,
but it is not known whether he took a degree, though he had some
reputation as a scholar. His earliest play is The Woman Hater
(1607). He is said to have died of the plague, and is buried in St.
Saviour’s Church, Southwark. The plays attributed to B. and F.
number 52 and a masque, and much labour has been bestowed by
critics in endeavouring to allocate their individual shares. It is
now generally agreed that others collaborated with them to some
extent—Massinger, Rowley, Shirley, and even Shakespeare. Of
those believed to be the joint work of B. and F. Philaster and The
Maid’s Tragedy are considered the masterpieces, and are as dramas
unmatched except by Shakespeare. The Two Noble Kinsmen is
thought to contain the work of Shakespeare. As regards their
respective powers, B. is held to have had the graver, solider, and
more stately genius, while F. excelled in brightness, wit, and gaiety.
The former was the stronger in judgment, the latter in fancy. The
plays contain many very beautiful lyrics, but are often stained by
gross indelicacy. The play of Henry VIII. included in Shakespeare’s
works, is now held to be largely the work of F. and Massinger.
Subjoined is a list of the plays with the authorship according to the
latest authorities.

(1) BEAUMONT.—The Masque. (2) FLETCHER.—Woman Hater
(1607), Faithful Shepherdess (1609), Bonduca (Boàdicea) (1618-19),
Wit without Money (1614?), Valentinian (1618-19), Loyal Subjects
(1618), Mad Lover (1618-19), Humorous Lieutenant (1618?), Women
Pleased (1620?), Island Princess (1621), Pilgrim (1621), Wild Goose
Chase (1621), Woman’s Prize (? pub. 1647), A Wife for a Month
(1624), Chances (late, p. 1647), perhaps Monsieur Thomas (p. 1639),
and Sea Voyage (1622). (3) BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.—Four
Plays in One (1608), King and No King (1611), Cupid’s Revenge
(1611?), Knight of Burning Pestle (1611), Maid’s Tragedy (1611),
Philaster (1611), Coxcomb (1612-13), Wits at Several Weapons (1614),
Scornful Lady (1616), doubtfully, Thierry and Theodoret (1616), and
Little French Lawyer (1620) perhaps by F. and Massinger, and Laws
of Candy (?) perhaps by B. and Massinger. (4) FLETCHER and
OTHERS.—Honest Man’s Fortune (1613), F., Mass., and Field; The
Captain (1613), and Nice Valour (p. 1647), F. and Middleton (?);
Bloody Brothers (1616-17), F., Mid., and Rowley or Fielding and B.
Jonson (?); Queen of Corinth (1618-19), F. and Row. or Mass. and
Mid.; Barneveld (1619), by F. and Massinger; Knight of Malta
(1619), False One (1620), A Very Woman (1621?), Double Marriage
(1620), Elder Brother (p. 1637), Lover’s Progress (p. 1647), Custom of
the Country (1628), Prophetess (1622), Spanish Curate (1622), by F.
and Shakespeare; Henry VIII. (1617), and Two Noble Kinsmen (p.
1634), by F. and Rowley, or Massinger; Maid of the Mill (1625-6),
Beggar’s Bush (?) (1622), by F. and Shirley; Noble Gentleman (?)
Night Walker (1633?), Lovers Pilgrimage (1623?), Fair Maid of the
Inn (1625-26), also with Middleton?

The latest ed. is that of Mr. Bullen (11 vols., 1904), and A.R.
Waller (7 vols., pub. C.U.P., 1909); Dyce (11 vols., 1843-46); Francis
Beaumont, G.C. Macaulay (1883); Lyric Poems of B. and F., E.
Rhys (1897); Bibliography, A.C. Potter in Harvard Bibliograph.
Contributions, 1891.

BEAUMONT, SIR JOHN (1582-1627?).
—Poet, elder
brother of Francis B., the dramatist (q.v.). His poems, of which the best
known is Bosworth Field, pub. by his s., 1629. Another, The
Crown of Thorns, is lost.

BECKFORD, WILLIAM (c. 1760-1844).
—Miscellaneous
writer, only s. of William B., Lord Mayor of London, the associate and
supporter of John Wilkes, inherited at the age of 9 an enormous
fortune. In these circumstances he grew up wayward and extravagant,
showing, however, a strong bent towards literature. His education
was entrusted to a private tutor, with whom he travelled
extensively on the Continent. At the age of 22 he produced his oriental
romance, Vathek (c. 1781), written originally in French and,
as he was accustomed to boast, at a single sitting of three days and
two nights. There is reason, however, to believe that this was a
flight of imagination. It is an impressive work, full of fantastic and
magnificent conceptions, rising occasionally to sublimity. His
other principal writings are Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters (1780),
a satirical work, and Letters from Italy with Sketches of Spain and
Portugal (1835), full of brilliant descriptions of scenes and manners.
B.’s fame, however, rests nearly as much upon his eccentric extravagances
as a builder and collector as upon his literary efforts. In
carrying out these he managed to dissipate his fortune of £100,000 a
year, only £80,000 of his capital remaining at his death. He sat in
parliament for various constituencies, and one of his two dau. became
Duchess of Hamilton.

BEDDOES, THOMAS LOVELL (1803-1849).
—Dramatic poet
and physiologist, s. of Dr. Thos. B., an eminent physician, and
nephew of Maria Edgeworth. Ed. at the Charterhouse and Oxford,
he pub. in 1821 The Improvisatore, which he afterwards endeavoured
to suppress. His next venture was The Bride’s Tragedy (1822),
which had considerable success, and won for him the friendship of
“Barry Cornwall.” Thereafter he went to Göttingen and studied
medicine. He then wandered about practising his profession, and
expounding democratic theories which got him into trouble. He d.
at Bale in mysterious circumstances. For some time before his
death he had been engaged upon a drama, Death’s Jest Book, which
was published in 1850 with a memoir by his friend, T.F. Kelsall. B.
had not the true dramatic instinct, but his poetry is full of thought
and richness of diction. Some of his short pieces, e.g.: “If there were
dreams to sell,” and “If thou wilt ease thine heart,” are masterpieces
of intense feeling exquisitely expressed.

BEDE or BÆDA (673-735).
—Historian and scholar. B.,
who is sometimes referred to as “the father of English history,” was
in his youth placed under the care of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of
Wearmouth, and of Ceolfrith, afterwards Abbot of Jarrow. Ordained
deacon in 692 and priest in 703, he spent most of his days at
Jarrow, where his fame as a scholar and teacher of Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew brought him many disciples. Here likewise he d. and was
buried, but his bones were, towards the beginning of the 11th century,
removed to Durham. The well-deserved title of “Venerable”
usually prefixed to his name first appears in 836. He was the most
learned Englishman of his age. His industry was marvellous, and
its results remain embodied in about 40 books, of which about 25
are commentaries on books of Scripture. The others are lives of
saints and martyrs, and his two great works, The Ecclesiastical
History of England and the scientific treatise, De Natura Rerum.
The former of these gives the fullest and best information we have
as to the history of England down to the year 731, and the latter is
an encyclopædia of the sciences as then known. In the anxious care
with which he sought out and selected reliable information, and
referred to authorities he shows the best qualities of the modern
historian, and his style is remarkable for “a pleasing artlessness.”

History of Early Engl. Lit., Stopford Brooke (2 vols., 1892), etc.

BEECHER, HENRY WARD (1813-1887).
—Orator and
divine, s. of Lyman B. and bro. of Harriet Beecher Stowe, was one
of the most popular of American preachers and platform orators, a
prominent advocate of temperance and of the abolition of slavery.
His writings, which had a wide popularity, include Summer in the
Soul and Life Thoughts.

BEHN, APHRA (JOHNSTON) (1640-1689).
—Novelist and
dramatist, dau. of a barber named Johnston, but went with a relative
whom she called father to Surinam, of which he had been appointed
Governor. He, however, d. on the passage thither, and her
childhood and youth were passed there. She became acquainted
with the celebrated slave Oronoko, afterwards the hero of one of her
novels. Returning to England in 1658 she m. Behn, a Dutch merchant,
but was a widow at the age of 26. She then became attached
to the Court, and was employed as a political spy at Antwerp.
Leaving that city she cultivated the friendship of various playwrights,
and produced many plays and novels, also poems and
pamphlets. The former are extremely gross, and are now happily
little known. She was the first English professional authoress.
Among her plays are The Forced Marriage, Abdelazer, The Rover,
The Debauchee, etc., and her novels include Oronoko and The Nun.
The former of these was the first book to bring home to the country
a sense of the horrors of slavery, for which let her have credit.

BELL, HENRY GLASSFORD (1805-1874).
—Poet and historian,
was a member of the Scottish Bar, and became Sheriff of
Lanarkshire. He wrote a Life of Mary Queen of Scots (1830),
strongly in her defence, and two vols. of poetry, Summer and Winter
Hours (1831), and My Old Portfolio, the latter also containing pieces
in prose.

BELLENDEN, or BALLANTYNE, JOHN (fl. 1533-1587?).
—Poet,
b. towards the close of the 15th century, and ed. at St. Andrews
and Paris. At the request of James V. he translated the Historia
Gentis Scotorum of Boece. This translation, Chroniklis of Scotland
is a very free one, with a good deal of matter not in the original, so
that it may be almost considered as a new work. It was pub. in
1536, and is the earliest existing specimen of Scottish literary prose.
He also translated the first five books of Livy. He enjoyed the
Royal favour, and was Archdeacon of Moray. He latterly, however,
became involved in controversy which led to his going to Rome,
where he d., according to one account, about 1550. Another
authority, however, states that he was living in 1587.

BENTHAM, JEREMY (1748-1832).
—Writer on jurisprudence
and politics, b. in London, s. of a prosperous attorney, ed.
at Westminster and Oxford, was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn,
but disliking the law, he made little or no effort to practise, but
devoted himself to physical science and the theory of jurisprudence.
In 1776 he pub. anonymously his Fragment on Government, an able
criticism of Blackstone’s Commentaries, which brought him under
the notice of Lord Shelburne, and in 1780 his Introduction to Principles
of Morals and Legislation. Other works were Panopticon, in
which he suggested improvements on prison discipline, Discourse on
Civil and Penal Legislation (1802), Punishments and Rewards (1811),
Parliamentary Reform Catechism (1817), and A Treatise on Judicial
Evidence. By the death of his f. he inherited a competency on
which he was able to live in frugal elegance, not unmixed with
eccentricity. B. is the first and perhaps the greatest of the “philosophical
radicals,” and his fundamental principle is utilitarianism or
“the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” a phrase of which
he is generally, though erroneously, regarded as the author. The
effect of his writings on legislation and the administration of the law
has been almost incalculable. He left his body to be dissected; and
his skeleton, clothed in his usual attire, is preserved in University
College, London.

Life by Bowring in collected works (J.H. Barton, 11 vols., 1844).
Study of Life and Work, Atkinson, 1903.

BENTLEY, RICHARD (1662-1742).
—Theologian, scholar,
and critic, b. in Yorkshire of humble parentage, went at the age of 14
to Camb., afterwards had charge of a school at Spalding, and then
becoming tutor to the s. of Dr. Stillingfleet, Dean of St. Paul’s,
afterwards Bishop of Worcester (q.v.), accompanied his pupil to
Oxf. After taking his degree at both universities, and entering
the Church, he laid the foundation of his reputation as perhaps the
greatest scholar England has produced by his letter in Mill’s ed.
of the Chronicle of John Malelas, and his Dissertation on the Letters
of Phalaris (1699), which spread his fame through Europe. After
receiving various preferments, including the Boyle lectureship and
the Keepership of the Royal Library, he was, in 1700, appointed
Master of Trinity, and afterwards was, largely owing to his own
pugnacity and rapacity, which were almost equal to his learning,
involved in a succession of litigations and controversies. These
lasted for 20 years, and led to the temporary loss of his academic
preferments and honours. In 1717, however, he was appointed
Regius Prof. of Divinity. During the contentions referred to he
continued his literary activity without abatement, and pub. various
ed. of the classics, including Horace and Terence. He was much less
successful in certain emendations of Milton which he attempted.
Having incurred the resentment of Pope he was rewarded by being
assigned a niche in The Dunciad! His style is strong and nervous,
and sparkles with wit and sarcasm. His classical controversies
called forth Swift’s Battle of the Books.

Life by Monk (1833). Life by Sir R. Jebb in English Men of
Letters (1882).

BERESFORD, JAMES (1764-1840).
—Miscellaneous writer
and clergyman. He made translations and wrote religious books,
but was chiefly known as the author of a satirical work, The Miseries
of Human Life (1806-7.)

BERKELEY, GEORGE (1685-1753).
—Philosopher, eldest s.
of William B., a cadet of the noble family of Berkeley, b. at Kilcrin
near Kilkenny, and ed. at the school of his native place and at
Trinity Coll., Dublin, where he graduated and took a Fellowship in
1707. His earliest publication was a mathematical one; but the
first which brought him into notice was his Essay towards a New
Theory of Vision, pub. in 1709. Though giving rise to much controversy
at the time, its conclusions are now accepted as an established
part of the theory of optics. There next appeared in 1710 the
Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, which was
followed in 1713 by Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in which
he propounded his system of philosophy, the leading principle of
which is that the world as represented to our senses depends for its
existence on being perceived. Of this theory the Principles gives the
exposition and the Dialogues the defence. One of his main objects
was to combat the prevailing materialism of the time. A theory so
novel was, as might be expected, received with widespread ridicule,
though his genius was realised by some of the more elect spirits,
such as Dr. S. Clarke. Shortly afterwards B. visited England, and
was received into the circle of Addison, Pope, and Steele. He then
went to the Continent in various capacities, and on his return was
made Lecturer in Divinity and Greek in his university, D.D. in 1721,
and Dean of Derry in 1724. In 1725 he formed the project of
founding a college in Bermuda for training ministers for the colonies,
and missionaries to the Indians, in pursuit of which he gave up his
deanery with its income of £1100, and went to America on a salary
of £100. Disappointed of promised aid from Government he returned,
and was appointed Bishop of Cloyne. Soon afterwards
he pub. Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher, directed
against Shaftesbury, and in 1734-37 The Querist. His last publications
were Siris, a treatise on the medicinal virtues of tar-water,
and Further Thoughts on Tar-water. He d. at Oxford in 1753. His
affectionate disposition and genial manners made him much beloved.
As a thinker his is the greatest name in English philosophy between
Locke and Hume. His style is clear and dignified.

The best ed. of B. is Prof. A.C. Fraser’s, with Life (4 vols., 1871,
and new, 1902); there is also a small work by the same (1881).

BERNERS, BERNES, or BARNES, JULIANA (b. 1388?).
—Writer
on heraldry and sports. Nothing of her real history is
known, but statements more or less mythical have gathered round
her name. The work attributed to her is The Boke of St. Albans
(1486). It consists of four treatises on Hawking, Hunting, The Lynage
of Coote Armiris, and The Blasynge of Armis. She was said to be
the dau. of Sir James B., and to have been Prioress of Sopwell
Nunnery, Herts.

BERNERS, JOHN BOURCHIER, 2ND LORD (1467-1553).
—Translator,
b. at Sherfield, Herts and ed. at Oxf., held various
offices of state, including that of Chancellor of the Exchequer to
Henry VIII., and Lieutenant of Calais, where he d. He translated,
at the King’s desire, Froissart’s Chronicles (1523-25), in such a
manner as to make distinct advance in English historical writing,
and the Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius (1534); also The History
of Arthur of Lytell Brytaine (Brittany), and the romance of Huon of
Bordeaux.

BESANT, SIR WALTER (1836-1901).
—Novelist and historian
of London, b. at Portsmouth and ed. at King’s Coll., London, and
Camb., was for a few years a professor at Mauritius, but a breakdown
in health compelled him to resign, and he returned to England and
took the duties of Secretary to the Palestine Exploration Fund,
which he held 1868-85. He pub. in 1868 Studies in French Poetry.
Three years later he began his collaboration with James Rice (q.v.).
Among their joint productions are Ready-money Mortiboy (1872), and
the Golden Butterfly (1876), both, especially the latter, very successful.
This connection was brought to an end by the death of Rice in
1882. Thereafter B. continued to write voluminously at his own
hand, his leading novels being All in a Garden Fair, Dorothy Forster
(his own favourite), Children of Gibeon, and All Sorts and Conditions
of Men. The two latter belonged to a series in which he endeavoured
to arouse the public conscience to a sense of the sadness of life among
the poorest classes in cities. In this crusade B. had considerable
success, the establishment of The People’s Palace in the East of
London being one result. In addition to his work in fiction B.
wrote largely on the history and topography of London. His plans
in this field were left unfinished: among his books on this subject
is London in the 18th Century.

Other works among novels are My Little Girl, With Harp and
Crown, This Son of Vulcan, The Monks of Thelema, By Celia’s
Arbour, and The Chaplain of the Fleet, all with Rice; and The Ivory
Gate, Beyond the Dreams of Avarice, The Master Craftsman, The
Fourth Generation, etc., alone. London under the Stuarts, London
under the Tudors are historical.

BICKERSTAFFE, ISAAC (c. 1735-1812?).
—Dramatic
writer, in early life a page to Lord Chesterfield when Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, produced between 1756 and 1771 many dramatic
pieces, which had considerable popularity, the best known of which
are Love in a Village (1762), and The Maid of the Mill. Owing to
misconduct he was dismissed from being an officer in the Marines,
and had ultimately, in 1772, to fly the country. The remainder of
his life seems to have been passed in penury and misery. The
date of his death is unknown. He was alive in 1812.

BIRD, ROBERT MONTGOMERY (1803-1854).
—Novelist,
an American physician, wrote three tragedies, The Gladiator, Oraloosa,
and The Broker of Bogota, and several novels, including
Calavar, The Infidel, The Hawks of Hawk Hollow, Peter Pilgrim, and
Nick of the Woods, in the first two of which he gives graphic and
accurate details and descriptions of Mexican history.

BISHOP, SAMUEL (1731-1795).
—Poet, b. in London, and
ed. at Merchant Taylor’s School and Oxf., took orders and became
Headmaster of Merchant Taylor’s School. His poems on miscellaneous
subjects fill two quarto vols., the best of them are those to
his wife and dau. He also pub. essays.

BLACK, WILLIAM (1841-1898).
—Novelist. After studying
as a landscape painter, he took to journalism in Glasgow. In 1864
he went to London, and soon after pub. his first novel, James Merle,
which made no impression. In the Austro-Prussian War he acted
as a war correspondent. Thereafter he began afresh to write
fiction, and was more successful; the publication of A Daughter of
Heth (1871) at once established his popularity. He reached his
highwater-mark in A Princess of Thule (1873). Many other books
were added before his death in 1898, among which may be mentioned
In Silk Attire (1869), The Strange Adventures of a Phæton
(1872), Macleod of Dare (1878), White Wings (1880), Shandon Bells
(1882), Yolande (1883), Judith Shakespeare (1884), White Heather
(1886), Stand Fast Craig-Royston! (1890), Green Pastures and Piccadilly,
Three Feathers, Wild Eelin (1898).

BLACKIE, JOHN STUART (1809-1895).
—Scholar and man
of letters, b. in Glasgow, and ed. at the Universities of Aberdeen and
Edin., after which he travelled and studied in Germany and
Italy. Returning to Scotland he was, in 1834, admitted to the
Scottish Bar, but did not practise. His first work was his translation
of Faust (1834), which won the approbation of Carlyle.
From 1841-52 B. was Prof. of Humanity (Latin) in Aberdeen,
and from 1852-82, when he retired, of Greek in Edinburgh. His
literary activity was incessant, his works consisting of translations
of Æschylus and of the Iliad, various books of poetry, including
Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece, and treatises on religious,
philosophical, and political subjects, among which may be mentioned
Self-Culture (1873), Horæ Hellenicæ, and a life of Burns. He was an
enthusiastic champion of Scottish nationality. Possessed of great
conversational powers and general versatility, his picturesque
eccentricity made him one of the most notable members of Scottish
society. It was owing to his efforts that a Chair of Celtic Language
and Literature was established in Edinburgh University.

BLACKLOCK, THOMAS (1721-1791).
—Poet, b. near Annan
of humble parentage, lost his sight by smallpox when 6 months old.
He began to write poetry at the age of 12, and studied for the
Church. He was appointed Minister of Kirkcudbright, but was
objected to by the parishioners on account of his blindness, and
gave up the presentation on receiving an annuity. He then retired
to Edinburgh, where he took pupils. He pub. some miscellaneous
poems, which are now forgotten, and is chiefly remembered for
having written a letter to Burns, which had the effect of dissuading
him from going to the West Indies. He was made D.D. in 1767.

BLACKMORE, SIR RICHARD (c. 1650, d. 1729).
—Poet, one
of the Court Physicians to William III. and Anne, wrote several
very long and well-intentioned, but dull and tedious, poems, which,
though praised by Addison and Johnson, are now utterly forgotten.
They include Prince Arthur, Creation, Redemption, Alfred. As may
be imagined, they were the subject of derision by the profaner wits
of the day. B. was a successful physician and an excellent man.

BLACKMORE, RICHARD DODDRIDGE (1825-1900).
—Novelist
and poet, b. at Longworth, Berks, ed. at Tiverton School
and Oxf., practised for a short time as a lawyer but, owing to his
health, gave this up, and took to market-gardening and literature at
Teddington. His first pub. was Poems by Melanter (1853), followed
by Epullia (1855), The Bugle of the Black Sea (1855), etc.; but he
soon found that fiction, not poetry, was his true vocation. Beginning
with Clara Vaughan in 1864, he produced fifteen novels, all of
more than average, and two or three of outstanding merit. Of
these much the best in the opinion of the public, though not of the
author, is Lorna Doone (1869), the two which rank next to it being
The Maid of Sker (1872) (the author’s favourite) and Springhaven
(1887). Others are Cradock Nowell (1866), Alice Lorraine (1875),
Cripps the Carrier (1876), Mary Anerley (1880), and Christowell
(1882). One of the most striking features of B.’s writings is his
marvellous eye for, and sympathy with, Nature. He may be said
to have done for Devonshire what Scott did for the Highlands. He
has been described as “proud, shy, reticent, strong-willed, sweet-tempered,
and self-centred.”

BLACKSTONE, SIR WILLIAM (1723-1780).
—Legal Writer,
posthumous s. of a silk mercer in London, was ed. at Charterhouse
School and Oxf., and entered the Middle Temple in 1741. His
great work is his Commentaries on the Laws of England, in 4 vols.
(1765-1769), which still remains the best general history of the
subject. It had an extraordinary success, and is said to have
brought the author £14,000. B. was not a man of original mind, nor
was he a profound lawyer; but he wrote an excellent style, clear and
dignified, which brings his great work within the category of general
literature. He had also a turn for neat and polished verse, of
which he gave proof in The Lawyer’s Farewell to his Muse.

BLAIR, HUGH (1718-1800).
—Divine, and man of letters,
b. and ed. at Edin. After being minister at Collessie in Fife, he was
translated to Edinburgh, where he filled various pulpits, latterly
that of the High Church. In 1759 he commenced a series of lectures
on composition, and soon after the Chair of Rhetoric and Belles
Lettres was founded, to which he was appointed. His Lectures were
pub. on his resignation of the chair in 1783. His chief fame, however,
rests upon his Sermons, in 4 vols., which had an extraordinary
popularity, and obtained for him a pension of £200. Time has not
sustained the opinion of his contemporaries: they have been described
as feeble in thought though elegant in style, and even as “a
bucket of warm water.” B. was amiable, kind to young authors,
and remarkable for a harmless, but rather ridiculous vanity and
simplicity.

BLAIR, ROBERT (1699-1746).
—Poet, b. at Edin., where
his f. was a clergyman, became minister of Athelstaneford, Haddingtonshire.
His sole work was The Grave, a poem in blank verse
extending to 767 lines of very various merit, in some passages rising
to great sublimity, and in others sinking to commonplace. It was
illustrated by William Blake (q.v.) B.’s s., Robert, was a very
distinguished Scottish judge and Lord President of the Court of
Session; and his successor in his ministerial charge was Home, the
author of Douglas.

BLAKE, WILLIAM (1757-1827).
—Poet and painter, b. in
London, was from earliest youth a seer of visions and a dreamer of
dreams, seeing “Ezekiel sitting under a green bough,” and “a tree
full of angels at Peckham,” and such he remained to the end of his
days. His teeming imagination sought expression both in verse and
in drawing, and in his 14th year he was apprenticed to James Basire,
an eminent engraver, and thereafter studied at the Royal Academy.
Among his chief artistic works were illustrations for Young’s Night
Thoughts, Blair’s Grave, “Spiritual Portraits,” and his finest work,
“Inventions to the Book of Job,” all distinguished by originality
and imagination. In literature his Songs of Innocence appeared in
1789, Songs of Experience in 1794. These books were literally made
by Blake and his heaven-provided wife; poems and designs alike
being engraved on copper by B. and bound by Mrs. B. In like
fashion were produced his mystical books, The Book of Thel (1789),
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), The Gates of Paradise,
Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Europe, The Book of Urizen (1794),
The Book of Los and The Book of Ahania (1795). His last books
were Jerusalem and Milton. His earlier and shorter pieces, e.g. “The
Chimney-Sweeper,” “Holy Thursday,” “The Lamb,” “The Sun-flower,”
“The Tiger,” etc., have an exquisite simplicity arising from
directness and intensity of feeling—sometimes tender, sometimes
sublime—always individual. Latterly he lost himself in clouds of
mysticism. A truly pious and loving soul, neglected and misunderstood
by the world, but appreciated by an elect few, he led a
cheerful and contented life of poverty illumined by visions and
celestial inspirations.

BLAMIRE, SUSANNA (1747-1794).
—Poetess, was of good
Cumberland family, and received the sobriquet of “The Muse of
Cumberland.” Her poems, which were not collected until 1842,
depict Cumbrian life and manners with truth and vivacity. She
also wrote some fine songs in the Scottish dialect, including “Ye
shall walk in Silk Attire,” and “What ails this Heart o’ Mine.”

BLESSINGTON, MARGARET (POWER), COUNTESS of (1789-1849).
—Married
as her second husband the 1st Earl of B., with
whom she travelled much on the Continent, where she met Lord
Byron, her Conversations with whom she pub. in 1834. This is the
only one of her books which has any value. The others were slight
works on Travel, such as The Idler in Italy, annuals, and novels.
She became bankrupt and went to Paris, where she lived under the
protection of the Count d’Orsay.

BLIND HARRY or HENRY THE MINSTREL (fl. 1470-1492).
—Is
spoken of by John Major in his History of Scotland as a wandering
minstrel, skilled in the composition of rhymes in the Scottish
tongue, who “fabricated” a book about William Wallace, and
gained his living by reciting it to his own accompaniment on the
harp at the houses of the nobles. Harry claims that it was founded
on a Latin Life of Wallace written by Wallace’s chaplain, John
Blair, but the chief sources seem to have been traditionary. Harry
is often considered inferior to Barbour as a poet, and has little of his
moral elevation, but he surpasses him in graphic power, vividness of
description, and variety of incident. He occasionally shows the
influence of Chaucer, and is said to have known Latin and French.

BLIND, MATHILDE (1841-1896).
—Poetess, b. at Mannheim,
but settled in London about 1849, and pub. several books of
poetry, The Prophecy of St. Oran (1881), The Heather on Fire (1886),
Songs and Sonnets (1893), Birds of Passage (1895), etc. She also
translated Strauss’s Old Faith and New, and other works, and wrote
Lives of George Eliot and Madame Roland. Her own name was
Cohen, but she adopted that of her stepfather, Karl Blind.

BLOOMFIELD, ROBERT (1766-1823).
—Poet, b. at Honington
in Suffolk, lost his f. when he was a year old, and received the
rudiments of education from his mother, who kept the village school.
While still a boy he went to London, and worked as a shoemaker
under an elder brother, enduring extreme poverty. His first and
chief poem, The Farmer’s Boy, was composed in a room where half a
dozen other men were at work, and the finished lines he carried in his
head until there was time to write them down. The manuscript,
after passing through various hands, fell into those of Capel Lofft, a
Suffolk squire of literary tastes, by whose exertions it was pub.
with illustrations by Bewick in 1800. It had a signal success,
26,000 copies having been sold in three years. The Duke of Grafton
obtained for him an appointment in the Seal Office, and when,
through ill-health, he was obliged to resign this, allowed him a
pension of 1s. a day. Other works were Rural Tales (1804), Wild
Flowers (1806), The Banks of the Wye (1811), and May Day with the
Muses (1817). An attempt to carry on business as a bookseller
failed, his health gave way, his reason was threatened, and he d. in
great poverty at Shefford in 1823. B.’s poetry is smooth, correct,
and characterised by taste and good feeling, but lacks fire and energy.
Of amiable and simple character, he was lacking in self-reliance.

BODENHAM, JOHN (fl. 1600).
—Anthologist, is stated to
have been the ed. of some of the Elizabethan anthologies, viz.,
Politeuphuia (Wits’ Commonwealth) (1597), Wits’ Theater (1598),
Belvidere, or the Garden of the Muses (1600), and England’s Helicon
(1600). Mr. Bullen says that B. did not himself ed. any of the
Elizabethan miscellanies attributed to him by bibliographers: but
that he projected their publication, and he befriended the editors.

BOECE, or BOETHIUS, HECTOR (1465?-1536).
—Historian,
probably b. at Dundee, and ed. there and at Paris, where he was
a regent or professor, 1492 to 1498. While there he made the
acquaintance of Erasmus. Returning to Scotland he co-operated
with Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, in founding the univ. there
of which he was the first Principal. His literary fame rests on
two works, his Lives of the Bishops of Mortlach and Aberdeen, in
which his friend Elphinstone figures prominently, and his History of
Scotland to the accession of James III. These works were, of course,
composed in Latin, but the History was translated into Scottish
prose by John Bellenden, 1530 to 1533, and into English for Hollinshed’s
Chronicle. The only predecessor of the work was the compendium
of Major, and as it was written in a flowing and pleasing
style it became very popular, and led to ecclesiastical preferment
and Royal favour. B. shared in the credulity of his age, but the
charge of inventing his authorities formerly brought against him
has been shown to be, to some extent at any rate, unfounded.

BOKER, GEORGE HENRY (1823-90).
—Poet, was in the
American Diplomatic Service. Among his dramas, generally
tragedies, are Anne Boleyn, The Betrothed, and Francesca da Rimini,
and among his books of poetry, Street Lyrics, Königsmark, and The
Book of the Dead. His dramas combine poetic merit with adaptability
for acting.

BOLINGBROKE, HENRY ST. JOHN, 1ST VISCOUNT (1678-1751).
—Statesman
and philosopher, s. of Sir Henry St. J., b. at Battersea,
and ed. at Eton and perhaps Oxf., was during his youth noted
chiefly for dissipation, but entering Parliament in 1701 as a supporter
of Harley, soon made himself a name by his eloquence and talent.
He held office as War and Foreign Sec. successively, became a peer
in 1712, intrigued successfully against Harley, and formed an administration
during the last days of Queen Anne, with the intention
of bringing back the Stuarts, which was frustrated by the Queen’s
death. On the arrival of George I. and the accession to power of
the Whigs, B. was impeached, and his name erased from the Roll of
Peers. He went to France, and became Sec. of State to the Pretender
James, who, however, dismissed him in 1716, after which he
devoted himself to philosophy and literature. In 1723 he was pardoned
and returned to England, and an act was passed in 1725
restoring his forfeited estates, but still excluding him from the House
of Lords. He thereupon retired to his house, Dawley, near Uxbridge,
where he enjoyed the society of Swift and Pope, on the
latter of whom he exerted a strong influence. After some ineffectual
efforts to regain a position in political life, he returned to France
in 1735, where he remained for 7 years, and wrote most of his chief
works.

B. was a man of brilliant and versatile talents, but selfish, insincere,
and intriguing, defects of character which led to his political
ruin. His writings, once so much admired, reflect his character in
their glittering artificiality, and his pretensions to the reputation of
a philosopher have long been exploded; the chief of them are Reflections
upon Exile, Letters on the Study of History (in which he
attacked Christianity), Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, and Idea
of a Patriot King. He left his MSS. to David Mallet (q.v.), who
pub. a complete ed. of his works in 5 vols. (1753-54).

BONAR, HORATIUS (1808-1889).
—Divine and poet, s. of
James B., Solicitor of Exise for Scotland, b. and ed. in Edin.,
entered the Ministry of the Church of Scotland, and was settled at
Kelso. He joined the Free Church at the Disruption in 1843, and
in 1867 was translated to Edin. In 1853 he was made D.D. of
Aberdeen. He was a voluminous and highly popular author, and
in addition to many books and tracts wrote a number of hymns,
many of which, e.g., “I heard the voice of Jesus say,” are known all
over the English-speaking world. A selection of these was pub. as
Hymns of Faith and Hope (3 series). His last vol. of poetry was My
Old Letters.

BOORDE, or BORDE, ANDREW (1490?-1549).
—Traveller,
b. near Cuckfield, Sussex, was brought up as a Carthusian, and held
ecclesiastical appointments, then practised medicine at various
places, including Glasgow, and was employed in various capacities
by T. Cromwell. He travelled widely, going as far as Jerusalem,
and wrote descriptions of the countries he had visited. His Dyetary
is the first English book of domestic medicine. The Boke of the
Introduction of Knowledge describes his journeys on the Continent.
Other works are The Boke of Berdes (Beards), Handbook of Europe,
and Itinerary of England.

BORROW, GEORGE (1803-1881).
—Philologist and miscellaneous
author, and traveller, b. at East Dereham, Norfolk, s. of a
recruiting officer, had a somewhat wandering childhood. He received
most of his education in Edin., and showed a peculiar talent
for acquiring languages. After being for a short time in the office of
a solicitor in Norwich, he travelled widely on the Continent and in
the East, acquainting himself with the people and languages of the
various countries he visited. He specially attached himself to the
Gipsies, with whose language he became so familiar as to pub. a dictionary
of it. His learning was shown by his publishing at St.
Petersburg Targum, a work containing translations from 30
languages. B. became a travelling agent of the Bible Society, and
his book, The Bible in Spain (1843), giving an account of his remarkable
adventures in that country, made his literary reputation. It
was followed by Lavengro (1851), and its sequel, Romany Rye (1857),
and Wild Wales (1862), which, though works of originality and extreme
interest, and now perhaps his most popular books, were received
with less public favour. The two first give a highly coloured
picture of his own story. He translated the New Testament into
Manchu. In his latter years he settled at Oulton Broad, Norfolk,
where he d. B. was a man of striking appearance and great vigour
and originality of character and mind. His writings hold a unique
place in English literature.

BOSTON, THOMAS (1677-1732).
—Scottish divine, was successively
schoolmaster at Glencairn, and minister of Simprin in
Berwickshire, and Ettrick in Selkirkshire. In addition to his best-known
work, The Fourfold State, one of the religious classics of
Scotland, he wrote an original little book, The Crook in the Lot, and
a learned treatise on the Hebrew points. He also took a leading
part in the Courts of the Church in what was known as the “Marrow
Controversy,” regarding the merits of an English work, The Marrow
of Modern Divinity, which he defended against the attacks of the
“Moderate” party in the Church. B., if unduly introspective, was
a man of singular piety and amiability. His autobiography is an
interesting record of Scottish life, full of sincerity and tenderness,
and not devoid of humorous touches, intentional and otherwise.

BOSWELL, SIR ALEXANDER (1775-1822).
—Antiquary and
song writer, s. of James B., of Auchinleck, Johnson’s biographer, was
interested in old Scottish authors, some of whose works he reprinted
at his private press. He wrote some popular Scotch songs, of which
Jenny’s Bawbee and Jenny dang the Weaver are the best known. B.
d. in a duel with Mr. Stuart of Dunearn.

BOSWELL, JAMES (1740-1795).
—Biographer, s. of Alexander
B. of Auchinleck, Ayrshire, one of the judges of the Supreme
Courts of Scotland, was ed. at the High School and Univ. of
Edin., and practised as an advocate. He travelled much on the
Continent and visited Corsica, where he became acquainted with the
patriot General Paoli. Fortunately for posterity he was in 1763
introduced to Dr. Johnson, and formed an acquaintance with him
which soon ripened into friendship, and had as its ultimate fruit the
immortal Life. He was also the author of several works of more or
less interest, including an Account of Corsica (1768), and Journal of
Tour to the Hebrides (in the company of Johnson) (1786). Vain and
foolish in an exceptional degree, and by no means free from more
serious faults, B. has yet produced the greatest biography in the
language. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. appeared in 1791,
and at once commanded an admiration which has suffered no diminution
since. But by this time a cloud had fallen upon the author.
He had lost his excellent wife, his health had given way, the
intemperance to which he had always been subject had mastered
him, and he d. four years after the appearance of his great work. B.
was called to the English as well as to the Scottish Bar, but his
various foibles prevented his reaching any great success, and he had
also vainly endeavoured to enter on a political career. The question
has often been raised how a man with the characteristics of B.
could have produced so unique a work, and has been discussed at
length by Macaulay and by Carlyle, the former paradoxically arguing
that his supreme folly and meanness themselves formed his
greatest qualifications; the latter, with far deeper insight, that
beneath these there lay the possession of an eye to discern excellence
and a heart to appreciate it, intense powers of accurate observation
and a considerable dramatic faculty. His letters to William
Temple were discovered at Boulogne, and pub. 1857.

BOUCICAULT, DION (1820-90).
—Actor and dramatist, b.
in Dublin and ed. in London, joined Macready while still young, and
made his first appearance upon the stage with Benj. Webster at
Bristol. Soon afterwards he began to write plays, occasionally in
conjunction, of which the first, London Assurance (1841) had an
immediate success. He was an excellent actor, especially in
pathetic parts. His plays are for the most part adaptations, but
are often very ingenious in construction, and have had great
popularity. Among the best known are The Colleen Bawn, Arrah-na-Pogue,
Faust and Marguerite, and The Shaughraun. B. d. in America.

BOWDLER, THOMAS (1754-1825).
—Editor of The Family
Shakespeare, b. near Bath, s. of a gentleman of independent fortune,
studied medicine at St. Andrews and at Edin., where he took his
degree in 1776, but did not practise, devoting himself instead to
the cause of prison reform. In 1818 he pub. his Family Shakespeare
in 10 vols., “in which nothing is added to the original text, but
those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety
be read aloud in a family.” The work had considerable success, 4
editions having been pub. before 1824, and others in 1831, 1853, and
1861. It was, however, subjected to some criticism and ridicule,
and gave rise to the expression “bowdlerise,” always used in an
opprobrious sense. On the other hand, Mr. Swinburne has said,
“More nauseous and foolish cant was never chattered than that
which would deride the memory or depreciate the merits of B. No
man ever did better service to Shakespeare than the man who
made it possible to put him into the hands of intelligent and
imaginative children.” B. subsequently essayed a similar enterprise
in regard to Gibbon, which, however, was not so successful.

BOWER, ARCHIBALD (1686-1766).
—Historian, b. at Dundee,
and ed. at the Scots Coll., Douay, became a Jesuit, but afterwards
joined the Church of England, and again became a Jesuit. He wrote
a History of Rome (1735-44), a History of the Popes (1748-66).
These works are ill-proportioned and inaccurate. His whole life
appears to have been a very discreditable one.

BOWER, or BOWMAKER, WALTER (d. 1449).
—Was Abbot
of Inchcolm, and continued and enlarged Fordun’s Scotichronicon.

BOWLES, WILLIAM LISLE (1762-1850).
—Poet and antiquary,
b. at King’s Sutton, Northamptonshire, of which his f. was
vicar, and ed. at Winchester and Oxf., was for the most of his
life Vicar of Bremhill, Wilts, and became Prebendary and Canon
Residentiary of Salisbury. His first work, pub. in 1789, was a
little vol. containing 14 sonnets, which was received with extraordinary
favour, not only by the general public, but by such men as
Coleridge and Wordsworth. It may be regarded as the harbinger of
the reaction against the school of Pope, in which these poets were
soon to bear so great a part. B. pub. several other poems of much
greater length, of which the best are The Spirit of Discovery (1805),
and The Missionary of the Andes (1815), and he also enjoyed considerable
reputation as an antiquary, his principal work in that
department being Hermes Britannicus (1828). In 1807 he pub. a
Life of Pope, in the preface to which he expressed some views on
poetry which resulted in a rather fierce controversy with Byron,
Campbell, and others. He also wrote a Life of Bishop Ken. B. was
an amiable, absent-minded, and rather eccentric man. His poems
are characterised by refinement of feeling, tenderness, and pensive
thought, but are deficient in power and passion.

Other works are Coombe Ellen and St. Michael’s Mount (1798),
The Battle of the Nile (1799), The Sorrows of Switzerland (1801), St.
John in Patmos (1833), etc.

BOWRING, SIR JOHN (1792-1872).
—Linguist, writer, and
traveller, was b. at Exeter. His talent for acquiring languages
enabled him at last to say that he knew 200, and could speak 100.
He was appointed editor of the Westminster Review in 1824;
travelled in various countries with the view of reporting on their
commercial position; was an M.P. 1835-37 and 1841-49, and held
various appointments in China. His chief literary work was the
translation of the folk-songs of most European nations, and he
also wrote original poems and hymns, and works on political and
economic subjects. B. was knighted in 1854. He was the literary
executor of Jeremy Bentham (q.v.).

BOYD, ANDREW KENNEDY HUTCHISON (1825-1899).
—Miscellaneous
writer, s. of Rev. Dr. B. of Glasgow, was originally
intended for the English Bar, but entered the Church of Scotland,
and was minister latterly at St. Andrews, wrote in Fraser’s Magazine
a series of light, chirping articles subsequently collected as the
Recreations of a Country Parson, also several books of reminiscences,
etc., written in a pleasant chatty style, and some sermons. He
was D.D. and LL.D.

BOYD, ZACHARY (1585-1653).
—Divine, belonged to the
family of B. of Pinkhill, Ayrshire, was ed. at Glasgow and at Saumur.
He translated many parts of Scripture into uncouth verse. Among
his works are The Garden of Zion and Zion’s Flowers.

BOYLE, THE HON. ROBERT (1627-1691).
—Natural Philosopher
and chemist, 7th s. of the 1st Earl of Cork, was b. at Lismore,
Co. Waterford, and ed. at Eton and by private tutors, after which he
pursued his studies on the Continent. On his return to England he
devoted himself to the study of science, especially natural philosophy
and chemistry. He was one of the founders of the Royal
Society, and, by his experiments and observations added to existing
knowledge, especially in regard to pneumatics. He at the same
time devoted much study to theology; so much indeed that he was
strongly urged by Lord Clarendon to enter the Church. Thinking,
however, that he could serve the cause of religion better as a layman,
he declined this advice. As a director of the East India Co. he did
much for the propagation of Christianity in the East, and for the
dissemination of the Bible. He also founded the “Boyle Lectures”
in defence of Christianity. He declined the offer of a peerage. B.
was a man of great intellectual acuteness, and remarkable for his
conversational powers. Among his writings are Origin of Forms and
Qualities, Experiments touching Colour, Hydrostatical Paradoxes, and
Observations on Cold; in theology, Seraphic Love. His complete
works were pub. in 5 vols. in 1744.

BRADLEY, EDWARD (1827-1889).
—Novelist, was a clergyman.
He wrote under the name of “Cuthbert Bede” a few novels
and tales, Fairy Fables (1858), Glencraggan (1861), Fotheringhay
(1885), etc.; but his most popular book was Verdant Green, an
Oxford Freshman, which had great vogue.

BRADWARDINE, THOMAS (1290?-1349).
—Theologian, was
at Oxf., where he became Prof. of Divinity and Chancellor, and afterwards
Chaplain to Edward III., whom he attended in his French
wars. He was twice elected Archbishop of Canterbury by the
monks, and on the second occasion accepted, but d. of the plague
within 40 days. He wrote on geometry, but his great work was De
Causa Dei (on the Cause of God against Pelagius), in which he treated
theology mathematically, and which earned for him from the Pope
the title of the Profound Doctor.

BRAITHWAITE, or BRATHWAITE, RICHARD (1588-1673).
—Poet,
b. near Kendal, and ed. at Oxf., is believed to have served
with the Royalist army in the Civil War. He was the author of
many works of very unequal merit, of which the best known is
Drunken Barnaby’s Four Journeys, which records his pilgrimages
through England in rhymed Latin (said by Southey to be the best
of modern times), and doggerel English verse. The English Gentleman
(1631) and English Gentlewoman are in a much more decorous
strain. Other works are The Golden Fleece (1611) (poems), The
Poet’s Willow, A Strappado for the Devil (a satire), and Art Asleepe,
Husband?

BRAMSTON, JAMES (c. 1694-1744).
—Satirist, ed. at Westminster
School and Oxf., took orders and was latterly Vicar of
Hastings. His poems are The Art of Politics (1729), in imitation of
Horace, and The Man of Taste (1733), in imitation of Pope. He
also parodied Phillips’s Splendid Shilling in The Crooked Sixpence.
His verses have some liveliness.

BRAY, ANNA ELIZA (1790-1883).
—Novelist, dau. of Mr.
J. Kempe, was married first to C.A. Stothard, s. of the famous R.A.,
and himself an artist, and secondly to the Rev. E.A. Bray. She
wrote about a dozen novels, chiefly historical, and The Borders of
the Tamar and Tavy (1836), an account of the traditions and superstitions
of the neighbourhood of Tavistock in the form of letters to
Southey, of whom she was a great friend. This is probably the most
valuable of her writings. Among her works are Branded, Good St.
Louis and his Times, Trelawney, and White Hoods.

BRETON, NICHOLAS (1545-1626).
—Poet and novelist.
Little is known of his life. He was the s. of William B., a London
merchant, was perhaps at Oxf., and was a rather prolific author
of considerable versatility and gift. Among his poetical works are
A Floorish upon Fancie, Pasquil’s Mad-cappe (1626), The Soul’s
Heavenly Exercise, and The Passionate Shepherd. In prose he
wrote Wit’s Trenchmour, The Wil of Wit (1599), A Mad World, my
Masters, Adventures of Two Excellent Princes, Grimello’s Fortunes
(1604), Strange News out of Divers Countries (1622), etc. His mother
married E. Gascoigne, the poet (q.v.). His lyrics are pure and fresh,
and his romances, though full of conceits, are pleasant reading,
remarkably free from grossness.

BREWSTER, SIR DAVID (1781-1868).
—Man of science and
writer, b. at Jedburgh, originally intended to enter the Church, of
which, after a distinguished course at the Univ. of Edin., he became
a licentiate. Circumstances, however, led him to devote himself
to science, of which he was one of the most brilliant ornaments
of his day, especially in the department of optics, in which he
made many discoveries. He maintained his habits of investigation
and composition to the very end of his long life, during which he
received almost every kind of honorary distinction open to a man of
science. He also made many important contributions to literature,
including a Life of Newton (1831), The Martyrs of Science (1841),
More Worlds than One (1854), and Letters on Natural Magic addressed
to Sir W. Scott, and he also edited, in addition to various scientific
journals, The Edinburgh Encyclopædia (1807-29). He likewise
held the offices successively of Principal of the United Coll. of
St. Salvator and St. Leonard, St. Andrews (1838), and of the Univ.
of Edin. (1859). He was knighted in 1831. Of high-strung and
nervous temperament, he was somewhat irritable in matters of
controversy; but he was repeatedly subjected to serious provocation.
He was a man of highly honourable and fervently religious
character.

BROKE, or BROOKE, ARTHUR (d. 1563).
—Translator,
was the author of The Tragicall Historie of Romeus and Juliett, from
which Shakespeare probably took the story of his Romeo and Juliet.
Though indirectly translated, through a French version, from the
Italian of Bandello, it is so much altered and amplified as almost to
rank as an original work. The only fact known regarding him is his
death by shipwreck when crossing to France.

BROME, RICHARD (d. 1652?).
—Dramatist, the servant
and friend of Ben Jonson, produced upwards of 20 plays, some
in conjunction with Dekker and others. Among them are A Fault
in Friendship, Late Lancashire Witches (with Heywood and Dekker),
A Jovial Crew (1652), The Northern Lass (1632), The Antipodes
(1646), City Wit (1653), Court Beggar (1653), etc. He had no
original genius, but knew stage-craft well.

BRONTÉ, CHARLOTTE (1816-1855).
—Novelist, dau. of the
Rev. Patrick B., a clergyman of Irish descent and of eccentric
habits who embittered the lives of his children by his peculiar
theories of education. Brought up in a small parsonage close to the
graveyard of a bleak, windswept village on the Yorkshire moors,
and left motherless in early childhood, she was “the motherly friend
and guardian of her younger sisters,” of whom two, Emily and
Anne, shared, but in a less degree, her talents. After various
efforts as schoolmistresses and governesses, the sisters took to literature
and pub. a vol. of poems under the names of Currer, Ellis, and
Acton Bell, which, however, fell flat. Charlotte then wrote her first
novel, The Professor, which did not appear until after her death, and
began Jane Eyre, which, appearing in 1847, took the public by
storm. It was followed by Shirley in 1849, and Villette in 1852. In
1854 she was married to her father’s curate, the Rev. A. Nicholls, but
after a short though happy married life she d. in 1855. EMILY B.
(1818-1848).—a woman of remarkable force of character, reserved
and taciturn, pub. in 1848 Wuthering Heights, a powerful, but somewhat
unpleasing, novel, and some striking poems; and ANNE (1820-1849),
was the authoress of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes
Grey (1848). She had not the intellectual force of her sisters. The
novels of Charlotte especially created a strong impression from the
first, and the pub. of Jane Eyre gave rise to much curiosity and
speculation as to its authorship. Their strength and originality
have retained for them a high place in English fiction which is likely
to prove permanent. There is a biography of Charlotte by Mrs.
Gaskell (q.v.).

Complete ed. of the works of Charlotte B. have been issued
by Mrs. Humphrey Ward (7 vols. 1899-1900), and by Sir W.R.
Nicoll, LL.D. (1903). Note on Charlotte Bronté, A.C. Swinburne,
1877. A short Life in Great Writers Series by A. Birrell.

BROOKE, FULKE GREVILLE, LORD (1554-1628).
—Poet
and statesman, b. at Beauchamp Court, Warwickshire, and ed. at
Shrewsbury and Camb., was a Privy Councillor, and held various
important offices of state, including that of Chancellor of the
Exchequer (1614-21). In the latter year he was created a peer. He
was murdered by a servant. His works, which were chiefly pub.
after his death, consist of tragedies and sonnets, and poems on
political and moral subjects, including Cælica (109 sonnets). He
also wrote a Life of Sir P. Sidney, whose friend he was. His style
is grave and sententious. He is buried in the church at Warwick,
and the inscription on his tomb, written by himself, is a compendious
biography. It runs: “Fulke Greville, servant to Queen Elizabeth,
counsellor to King James, friend to Sir Philip Sidney.”

BROOKE, HENRY (1703-1783).
—Novelist and dramatist,
b. in Ireland, s. of a clergyman, studied law, but embraced literature
as a career. He wrote poems, dramas, and novels; but the only
work which has kept its place is The Fool of Quality (5 vols. 1766-70),
which was a favourite book with John Wesley. His now forgotten
poem, Universal Beauty (1735) was admired by Pope. His dau.,
CHARLOTTE, the only survivor of 22 children, tended him to his last
days of decay, and was herself a writer, her principal work being
Reliques of Irish Poetry (1789). She d. 1793.

BROOKS, CHARLES WILLIAM SHIRLEY (1816-1874).
—Journalist
and novelist, b. in London, began life in a solicitor’s
office. He early, however, took to literature, and contributed to
various periodicals. In 1851 he joined the staff of Punch, to which
he contributed “Essence of Parliament,” and on the death of Mark
Lemon (q.v.) he succeeded him as editor. He pub. a few novels,
including Aspen Court and The Gordian Knot.

BROOKS, MARIA (GOWAN) (1795?-1845).
—American
poetess, was early m. to a merchant, who lost his money, and left her a
young widow, after which she wrote highly romantic and impassioned
poetry. Her chief work, Zophiël or The Bride of Swen, was finished
under the auspices of Southey, who called her “Maria del Occidente,”
and regarded her as “the most impassioned and imaginative of all
poetesses,” but time has not sustained this verdict.

BROOME, WILLIAM (1689-1745).
—Poet and translator, b.
at Haslington, Cheshire, and ed. at Eton and Camb., entered the
Church, and held various incumbencies. He translated the Iliad in
prose along with others, and was employed by Pope, whom he excelled
as a Greek scholar, in translating the Odyssey, of which he
Englished the 8th, 11th, 12th, 16th, 18th, and 23rd books, catching
the style of his master so exactly as almost to defy identification,
and thus annoying him so as to earn a niche in The Dunciad. He
pub. verses of his own of very moderate poetical merit.

BROUGHAM AND VAUX, HENRY, 1ST LORD (1778-1868).
—S.
of Henry B. of Brougham Hall, Westmoreland, b. in Edin., and ed.
at the High School and Univ. there, where he distinguished himself
chiefly in mathematics. He chose a legal career, and was called
to the Scottish Bar in 1800, and to the English Bar in 1808. His
chief forensic display was his defence of Queen Caroline in 1822. In
1810 he entered Parliament, where his versatility and eloquence soon
raised him to a foremost place. The questions on which he chiefly
exerted himself were the slave trade, commercial, legal, and parliamentary
reform, and education, and in all of these he rendered
signal service. When, in 1830, the Whigs, with whom he had
always acted, attained power, B. was made Lord Chancellor; but
his arrogance, selfishness, and indiscretion rendered him a dangerous
and unreliable colleague, and he was never again admitted to office.
He turned fiercely against his former political associates, but continued
his efforts on behalf of reform in various directions. He
was one of the founders of London Univ. and of the Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In literature he has a place as one
of the original projectors of and most voluminous contributors to
The Edinburgh Review, and as the author of a prodigious number of
treatises on science, philosophy, and history, including Dialogues on
Instinct, Lives of Statesmen, Philosophers, and Men of Science of
the Time of George III., Natural Theology, etc., his last work being
an autobiography written in his 84th year, and pub. 1871. His
writings were far too numerous and far too diverse in subject to be
of permanent value. His fame now rests chiefly on his services to
political and specially to legal reform, and to the diffusion of useful
literature, which are his lasting monuments.

BROUGHTON, JOHN CAM HOBHOUSE, 1ST LORD (1786-1869).
—Eldest
s. of Sir Benjamin H., b. at Redland near Bristol,
ed. at Westminster School and at Camb., where he became intimate
with Byron, and accompanied him in his journeys in the Peninsula,
Greece, and Turkey, and acted as his “best man.” In 1816 he
was with him after his separation from his wife, and contributed
notes to the fourth canto of Childe Harold, which was dedicated to
him. On his return he threw himself into politics with great
energy as an advanced Radical, and wrote various pamphlets, for
one of which he was in 1819 imprisoned in Newgate. In the following
year he entered Parliament, sitting for Westminster. After the
attainment of power by the Whigs he held various offices, including
those of Sec. at War, Chief Sec. for Ireland, and Pres. of the Board
of Control. He pub. Journey through Albania (1813), Historical
Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold (1818), and Recollections
of a Long Life (1865), for private circulation, and he left in MS.
Diaries, Correspondence, and Memoranda, etc., not to be opened till
1900, extracts from which were pub. by his dau., Lady Dorchester,
also under the title of Recollections from a Long Life (1909).

BROWN, CHARLES BROCKDEN (1771-1810).
—Novelist, b.
in Philadelphia, belonged to a Quaker family, became a lawyer, but
exchanged law for literature, and has the distinction of being the
first American to adopt a purely literary career. He wrote several
novels, including Wieland (1798), Ormond (1799), Arthur Mervyn
(1800-1), and his last, Jane Talbot (1801). With a good deal of
crudeness and sentimentality he has occasional power, but dwells
too much on the horrible and repulsive, the result, perhaps, of the
morbidity produced by the ill-health from which he all his life
suffered.

BROWN, GEORGE DOUGLAS (1869-1902).
—Novelist, wrote
The House with the Green Shutters, which gives a strongly outlined
picture of the harder and less genial aspects of Scottish life and
character. It may be regarded as a useful supplement and corrective
to the more roseate presentations of the kail-yard school of
J.M. Barrie and “Ian Maclaren.” It made a considerable impression.
The author d. almost immediately after its publication.
There is an ed. with a memoir by Mr. Andrew Lang.

BROWN, DR. JOHN (1810-1882).
—Physician and essayist,
s. of John B., D.D., a distinguished dissenting minister in Edin.
B. at Biggar, he was ed. at the High School and Univ. of Edin.,
where practically the whole of his uneventful life was spent as a
physician, and where he was revered and beloved in no common degree,
and he was the cherished friend of many of his most distinguished
contemporaries, including Thackeray. He wrote comparatively
little; but all he did write is good, some of it perfect, of its kind.
His essays, among which are Rab and his Friends, Pet Marjorie,
Our Dogs, Minchmoor, and The Enterkine, were collected along with
papers on art, and medical history and biography, in Horæ
Subsecivæ (Leisure Hours), 3 vols. In the mingling of tenderness
and delicate humour he has much in common with Lamb; in his
insight into dog-nature he is unique. His later years were clouded
with occasional fits of depression.

BROWN, THOMAS (1778-1820).
—Metaphysician, s. of the
Rev. Samuel B., minister of Kirkinabreck, practised for some time
as a physician in Edin., but his tastes and talents lying in the
direction of literature and philosophy, he devoted himself to the
cultivation of these, and succeeded Dugald Stewart as Professor of
Moral Philosophy in the Univ. of Edin., in which position he had
remarkable popularity as a lecturer. His main contribution to
literature is his Lectures, pub. after his death. B. was a man of
attractive character and considerable talents, but as a philosopher
he is now largely superseded. He also wrote poetry, which, though
graceful, lacked force, and is now forgotten.

BROWN, THOMAS EDWARD (1830-1897).
—Poet, b. at
Douglas, Isle of Man, s. of a clergyman, and ed. there and at Oxf.,
entered the Church and held various scholastic appointments,
including a mastership at Clifton. His later years were spent in his
native island. He had a true lyrical gift, and much of his poetry
was written in Manx dialect. His poems include Fo’c’sle Yarns
(1881), The Doctor (1887), The Manx Witch (1889), and Old John
(1893). He was also an admirable letter-writer, and 2 vols. of his
letters have been pub.

BROWN, TOM (1663-1704).
—Satirist, was ed. at Oxf., and
there composed the famous epigram on Dr. Fell. He was for a few
years schoolmaster at Kingston-on-Thames, but owing to his irregularities
lost the appointment, and went to London, where he wrote
satires, epigrams, and miscellaneous pieces, generally coarse and
scurrilous.

BROWNE, CHARLES FARRAR (1834-1867).
—Humorist
(Artemus Ward), b. in Maine, U.S., worked as a compositor and
reporter, and became a highly popular humorous writer, his books
being Artemus Ward his Book, A.W. His Panorama, A.W. among
the Mormons, and A.W. in England.

BROWNE, ISAAC HAWKINS (1705-1760).
—Is remembered
as the author of some clever imitations of contemporary poets on the
theme of A Pipe of Tobacco, somewhat analogous to the Rejected
Addresses of a later day. He also wrote a Latin poem on the immortality
of the soul. B., who was a country gentleman and
barrister, had great conversational powers. He was a friend of Dr.
Johnson.

BROWNE, SIR THOMAS (1605-1682).
—Physician and miscellaneous
and metaphysical writer, s. of a London merchant,
was ed. at Winchester and Oxf., after which he studied medicine
at various Continental univs., including Leyden, where he grad.
He ultimately settled and practised at Norwich. His first and
perhaps best known work, Religio Medici (the Religion of a Physician)
was pub. in 1642. Other books are Pseudodoxia Epidemica:
Enquiries into Vulgar Errors (1646), Hydriotaphia, or Urn-burial
(1658); and The Garden of Cyrus in the same year. After his death
were pub. his Letter to a Friend and Christian Morals. B. is one of
the most original writers in the English language. Though by no
means free from credulity, and dealing largely with trivial subjects
of inquiry, the freshness and ingenuity of his mind invest everything
he touches with interest; while on more important subjects his
style, if frequently rugged and pedantic, often rises to the highest
pitch of grave and stately eloquence. In the Civil War he sided
with the King’s party, and was knighted in 1671 on the occasion of
a Royal visit to Norwich. In character he was simple, cheerful, and
retiring. He has had a profound if indirect influence on succeeding
literature, mainly by impressing master-minds such as Lamb,
Coleridge, and Carlyle.

There is an ed. of B.’s works by S. Wilkin (4 vols., 1835-6),
Religio Medici by Dr. Greenhill, 1881. Life by Gosse in Men of
Letters Series, 1903.

BROWNE, WILLIAM (1590?-1645?).
—Poet, b. at Tavistock,
ed. at Oxf., after which he entered the Inner Temple. His poems,
which are mainly descriptive, are rich and flowing, and true to the
phenomena of nature, but deficient in interest. Influenced by
Spenser, he in turn had an influence upon such poets as Milton and
Keats. His chief works were Britannia’s Pastorals (1613), and The
Shepheard’s Pipe (1614).

BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT (1806-1861).
—Poetess,
was the dau. of Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett, who assumed the
last name on succeeding to the estates of his grandfather in Jamaica.
She was b. at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, but spent her youth at Hope
End, near Great Malvern. While still a child she showed her gift, and
her f. pub. 50 copies of a juvenile epic, on the Battle of Marathon.
She was ed. at home, but owed her profound knowledge of Greek
and much mental stimulus to her early friendship with the blind
scholar, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who was a neighbour. At the age of 15
she met with an injury to her spine which confined her to a recumbent
position for several years, and from the effects of which she
never fully recovered. In 1826 she pub. anonymously An Essay on
Mind and Other Poems. Shortly afterwards the abolition of slavery,
of which he had been a disinterested supporter, considerably reduced
Mr. B.’s means: he accordingly disposed of his estate and
removed with his family first to Sidmouth and afterwards to London.
At the former Miss B. wrote Prometheus Bound (1835). After her
removal to London she fell into delicate health, her lungs being
threatened. This did not, however, interfere with her literary
labours, and she contributed to various periodicals The Romaunt of
Margaret, The Romaunt of the Page, The Poet’s Vow, and other pieces.
In 1838 appeared The Seraphim and Other Poems (including “Cowper’s
Grave.”) Shortly thereafter the death, by drowning, of her
favourite brother gave a serious shock to her already fragile health,
and for a time she hovered between life and death. Eventually,
however, she regained strength, and meanwhile her fame was growing.
The pub. about 1841 of The Cry of the Children gave it a great
impulse, and about the same time she contributed some critical
papers in prose to R.H. Horne’s New Spirit of the Age. In 1844 she
pub. two vols. of Poems, which comprised “The Drama of Exile,”
“Vision of Poets,” and “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.” In 1845 she
met for the first time her future husband, Robert Browning (q.v.).
Their courtship and marriage, owing to her delicate health and the
extraordinary objections entertained by Mr. B. to the marriage of
any of his children, were carried out under somewhat peculiar and
romantic circumstances. After a private marriage and a secret
departure from her home, she accompanied her husband to Italy,
which became her home almost continuously until her death, and
with the political aspirations of which she and her husband both
thoroughly identified themselves. The union proved one of unalloyed
happiness to both, though it was never forgiven by Mr.
Barrett. In her new circumstances her strength greatly increased.
Her husband and she settled in Florence, and there she wrote Casa
Guidi Windows (1851)—by many considered her strongest work—under
the inspiration of the Tuscan struggle for liberty. Aurora
Leigh, her largest, and perhaps the most popular of her longer
poems, appeared in 1856. In 1850 The Sonnets from the Portuguese—the
history of her own love-story, thinly disguised by its title—had
appeared. In 1860 she issued a coll. ed. of her poems under
the title, Poems before Congress. Soon thereafter her health underwent
a change for the worse; she gradually lost strength, and d. on
June 29, 1861. She is generally considered the greatest of English
poetesses. Her works are full of tender and delicate, but also of
strong and deep, thought. Her own sufferings, combined with her
moral and intellectual strength, made her the champion of the
suffering and oppressed wherever she found them. Her gift was
essentially lyrical, though much of her work was not so in form.
Her weak points are the lack of compression, an occasional somewhat
obtrusive mannerism, and frequent failure both in metre and
rhyme. Though not nearly the equal of her husband in force of
intellect and the higher qualities of the poet, her works had, as
might be expected on a comparison of their respective subjects and
styles, a much earlier and wider acceptance with the general public.
Mrs. B. was a woman of singular nobility and charm, and though
not beautiful, was remarkably attractive. Miss Mitford (q.v.) thus
describes her as a young woman: “A slight, delicate figure, with a
shower of dark curls falling on each side of a most expressive face;
large, tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes, and a smile
like a sunbeam.”

Life by J.H. Ingram (1889); Letters of R. Browning and E.B.
Browning (1889). Coll. ed. of her works, see above.

BROWNING, ROBERT (1812-1889).
—Poet, only s. of
Robert B., a man of fine intellect and equally fine character, who
held a position in the Bank of England, was b. in Camberwell. His
mother, to whom he was ardently attached, was the dau. of a German
shipowner who had settled in Dundee, and was alike intellectually
and morally worthy of his affection. The only other member of the
family was a younger sister, also highly gifted, who was the sympathetic
companion of his later years. In his childhood he was
distinguished by his love of poetry and natural history. At 12 he
had written a book of poetry which he destroyed when he could not
find a publisher. After being at one or two private schools, and
showing an insuperable dislike to school life, he was ed. by a tutor,
and thereafter studied Greek at Univ. Coll., London. Through
his mother he inherited some musical talent, and composed settings,
for various songs. His first pub. was Pauline, which appeared
anonymously in 1833, but attracted little attention. In 1834 he
paid his first visit to Italy, in which so much of his future life was to
be passed. The publication of Paracelsus in 1835, though the poem
had no general popularity, gained the notice of Carlyle, Wordsworth,
and other men of letters, and gave him a reputation as a poet of
distinguished promise. Two years later his drama of Stratford was
performed by his friend Macready and Helen Faucit, and in 1840 the
most difficult and obscure of his works, Sordello, appeared; but,
except with a select few, did little to increase his reputation. It
was followed by Bells and Pomegranates (containing Pippa Passes)
(1841), A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon (drama) (1843), Luria and A Soul’s
Tragedy (1846). In this year he married Miss Elizabeth Barrett
(q.v.), the poetess, a union of ideal happiness. Thereafter his home
until his wife’s death in 1861 was in Italy, chiefly at Florence. In
1850 he wrote Christmas Eve and Easter Day, and in 1855 appeared
Men and Women. After the death of Mrs. Browning he returned to
England, paying, however, frequent visits to Italy. Settling in
London he published successively Dramatis Personæ (1864), The Ring
and the Book (1868-69), his greatest work, Balaustion’s Adventure,
and Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau (1871), Fifine at the Fair (1872),
Red Cotton Night-cap Country (1873), The Inn Album (1875), Pacchiarotto
(1876), translation of Agamemnon (1879), La Saisiaz, etc.
(1878), Dramatic Idylls (1879 and 1880), Asolando (1889) appeared
on the day of his death. To the great majority of readers, probably,
B. is best known by some of his short poems, such as, to name a few,
“Rabbi Ben Ezra,” “How they brought the good News to Aix,”
“Evelyn Hope,” “The Pied Piper of Hammelin,” “A Grammarian’s
Funeral,” “A Death in the Desert.” It was long before
England recognised that in B. she had received one of the greatest of
her poets, and the causes of this lie on the surface. His subjects
were often recondite and lay beyond the ken and sympathy of the
great bulk of readers; and owing, partly to the subtle links connecting
the ideas and partly to his often extremely condensed and rugged
expression, the treatment of them was not seldom difficult and
obscure. Consequently for long he appealed to a somewhat narrow
circle. As time went on, however, and work after work was added,
the circle widened, and the marvellous depth and variety of thought
and intensity of feeling told with increasing force. Societies began
to be formed for the study of the poet’s work. Critics became more
and more appreciative, and he at last reaped the harvest of admiration
and honour which was his due. Many distinctions came to him.
He was made LL.D. of Edin., a life Governor of London Univ., and
had the offer of the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow. He d. in the house
of his son at Venice, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The
keynote of his teaching is a wise and noble optimism. His poems
were collected in 2 vols. in 1896. Some vols. of his correspondence
with Mrs. B. were also pub.

Uniform ed. of Works (17 vols. 1888-90); Furnivall’s Browning
Bibliography (1883), Lives by Mrs. Sutherland Orr (1891);
Gosse (1890); Dowden (1904), G.K. Chesterton (English Men of
Letters), etc.; Poetry of Robert Browning by Stopford Brooke, 1902,
etc.

SUMMARY.—B. 1812, pub. Paracelsus 1835, Sordello 1840, Bells
and Pomegranates 1841, m. to E.B.B. 1846, lives chiefly in Italy
till her d., 1861, when he returned to England and continued to
write until his d., pub. Dramatis Personæ, Ring and Book 1868-9,
Asolando 1889, d. 1889.

BRUCE, JAMES (1730-1794).
—Traveller, was b. at the
family seat of Kinnaird, Perthshire, and ed. at Harrow. After
various travels in Europe he set out in 1768 on his expedition to
Abyssinia, and in 1770 reached the source of the Blue Nile. He
returned to England in 1774, and in 1790 pub. his Travels in 5
quarto vols. His notorious vanity, the singular adventures he
related, and the generally embellished character which he imparted
to his narrative excited some degree of scepticism, and he was subjected
to a good deal of satire, to which, though much annoyed, he
did not reply. It is, however, generally allowed that he had shown
great daring, perseverance, and zeal in his explorations, and that he
made a real addition to the geographical knowledge of his day.

BRUCE, MICHAEL (1746-1767).
—Poet, s. of a poor weaver
at Kinnesswood, Kinross-shire, as a child herded cattle, but received
a good education, including 4 sessions at the Univ. of
Edin., and for a short time kept a school. His longest poem, Loch
Leven, shows the influence of Thomson. His best is his Elegy. His
promising career was cut short by consumption in 1767. The
authorship of the beautiful Ode to the Cuckoo beginning “Hail,
beauteous stranger of the grove” is contested, some authorities
claiming it for B. and others for the Rev. John Logan (q.v.), who ed.
B.’s works, adding some of his own, and who claimed the Ode as his.

BRUNTON, MARY (BALFOUR) (1778-1818).
—Novelist, dau.
of Col. Balfour of Elwick, and m. to the Rev. Dr. Brunton, Prof.
of Oriental Languages in the Univ. of Edin., was the authoress
of two novels, Self-Control (1811) and Discipline (1814), which
were popular in their day.

BRYANT, JACOB (1715-1804).
—Scholar, ed. at Eton and
Camb., wrote learnedly, but paradoxically, on mythological and
Homeric subjects. His chief works were A New System or Analysis
of Ancient Mythology (1774-76), Observations on the Plain of Troy
(1795), and Dissertation concerning the Wars of Troy (1796). In the
last two he endeavoured to show that the existence of Troy and
the Greek expedition were fabulous. Though so sceptical on these
points he was an implicit believer in the authenticity of the Rowley
authorship of Chatterton’s fabrications. He also wrote on theological
subjects.

BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN (1794-1878).
—Poet, was b. at
Cummington, Massachusetts, the s. of a doctor. His ancestors on
both sides came over in the Mayflower. His first poem was Thanatopsis
(1817), which was greeted as the best poem produced in
America up to that time. After being a lawyer for some time he
was induced to exchange law for journalism, and acted as ed. of
various periodicals. Among his best known poems are Lines to a
Water-fowl, The Rivulet, The West Wind, The Forest Hymn, The
Fringed Gentian, etc. His muse is tender and graceful, pervaded by
a contemplative melancholy, and a love of solitude and the silence
of the woods. Though he was brought up to admire Pope, and in
his early youth imitated him, he was one of the first American poets
to throw off his influence. He had a high sense of duty, was a
prominent and patriotic citizen, and enjoyed the esteem and even
the reverence of his fellow-countrymen. B. also produced a blank-verse
translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

BRYDGES, SIR SAMUEL EGERTON (1762-1837).
—Bibliographer
and genealogist, ed. at Camb., was called to the Bar in 1787.
He wrote some novels and poems, now forgotten, but rendered
valuable service by his bibliographical publications, Censura
Literaria, Titles and Opinions of Old English Books (10 vols. 1805-9),
his editions of E. Phillips’s Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum (1800)
Collin’s Peerage of England (1812), and of many rare Elizabethan
authors. He was made a baronet in 1814. He d. at Geneva.

BUCHANAN, GEORGE (1506-1582).
—Historian and scholar
b. at Killearn, Stirlingshire, of poor parents, was sent in 1519, with
the help of an uncle, to the Univ. of Paris, where he first came
in contact with the two great influences of the age, the Renaissance
and the Reformation. His uncle having died, he had to leave
Paris, and after seeing some military service, returned to Scotland,
and in 1524 went to St. Andrews, where he studied under John
Major (q.v.). Two years later he found means to return to Paris,
where he graduated at the Scots Coll. in 1528, and taught grammar
in the Coll. of St. Barbe. Returning to Scotland in 1536 with a
great reputation for learning he was made by James V. tutor to one
of his illegitimate sons, and incited by him to satirise the vices of the
clergy, which he did in two Latin poems, Somnium and Franciscanus.
This stirred the wrath of the ecclesiastical powers to such a heat
that, the King withholding his protection, he was obliged in 1539 to
save himself by flight first to England and then to France, where he
remained until 1547 teaching Latin at Bordeaux and Paris. In the
latter year he was invited to become a prof. at Coimbra, where
he was imprisoned by the Inquisition as a heretic from 1549-51, and
wrote the greater part of his magnificent translation of the Psalms
into Latin verse, which has never been excelled by any modern.
He returned to England in 1552, but soon re-crossed to France and
taught in the Coll. of Boncourt. In 1561 he came back to his native
country, where he remained for the rest of his life. Hitherto, though
a supporter of the new learning and a merciless exposer of the vices
of the clergy, he had remained in the ancient faith, but he now
openly joined the ranks of the Reformers. He held the Principalship
of St. Leonard’s Coll., St. Andrews, was a supporter of the party
of the Regent Moray, produced in 1571 his famous Detectio Mariæ
Reginæ, a scathing exposure of the Queen’s relations to Darnley and
the circumstances leading up to his death, was tutor, 1570-78, to
James VI., whom he brought up with great strictness, and to whom
he imparted the learning of which the King was afterwards so vain.
His chief remaining works were De Jure Regni apud Scotos (1579),
against absolutism, and his History of Scotland, which was pub.
immediately before his death. Though he had borne so great a part
in the affairs of his country, and was the first scholar of his age, he
d. so poor that he left no funds to meet the expenses of his interment.
His literary masterpiece is his History, which is remarkable for the
power and richness of its style. Its matter, however, gave so much
offence that a proclamation was issued calling in all copies of it, as
well as of the De Jure Regni, that they might be purged of the
“offensive and extraordinary matters” which they contained. B.
holds his great and unique place in literature not so much for his
own writings as for his strong and lasting influence on subsequent
writers.

BUCHANAN, ROBERT (1841-1901).
—Poet and novelist, b.
at Caverswall, Staffordshire, the s. of a Scottish schoolmaster and
socialist, and ed. at Glasgow, was the friend of David Gray (q.v.),
and with him went to London in search of fame, but had a long
period of discouragement. His first work, a collection of poems,
Undertones (1863), had, however, some success, and was followed by
Idylls of Inverburn (1865), London Poems (1866), and others, which
gave him a growing reputation, and raised high hopes of his future.
Thereafter he took up prose fiction and the drama, not always with
success, and got into trouble owing to some drastic criticism of his
contemporaries, culminating in his famous article on the Fleshly
School of Poetry, which appeared in the Contemporary Review (Oct.
1871), and evoked replies from Rossetti (The Stealthy School of Criticism),
and Swinburne (Under the Microscope). Among his novels are
A Child of Nature (1879), God and the Man (1881), and among his
dramas A Nine Days’ Queen, A Madcap Prince, and Alone in London.
His latest poems, The Outcast and The Wandering Jew, were directed
against certain aspects of Christianity. B. was unfortunate in his
latter years; a speculation turned out ruinously; he had to sell his
copyrights, and he sustained a paralytic seizure, from the effects of
which he d. in a few months. He ultimately admitted that his
criticism of Rossetti was unjustifiable.

BUCKINGHAM, GEORGE VILLIERS, 2ND DUKE of (1628-1687).
—Dramatist,
s. of the 1st Duke, who was in 1628 assassinated
by Felton. His life was full of adventure and change of fortune.
The Restoration gave him back his already twice lost estates, which
he again squandered by a life of wild extravagance and profligacy
at Court. He was a member of the “Cabal” and intrigued against
Clarendon. He wrote pamphlets, lampoons, and plays, but his
chief contribution to literature was The Rehearsal, a comedy, in
which he satirised the heroic drama of Dryden and others. It is
believed that S. Butler had a hand in it. Dryden had his revenge
in his picture of B. as Zimri in Absalom and Achitophel.

BUCKINGHAM AND NORMANBY, JOHN SHEFFIELD, 1ST DUKE of (1648-1721).
—S.
of the 2nd Earl of Mulgrave, served in his
youth as a soldier under Prince Rupert and Turenne, and is also
said to have made love to the Princess, afterwards Queen, Anne.
He was a Privy Councillor under James II., William and Mary, and
Anne, with the last of whom he remained a favourite. His magnificent
mansion was purchased and pulled down to make way for
Buckingham Palace. He wrote An Account of the Revolution, An
Essay on Satire, and An Essay on Poetry. He also remodelled
Shakespeare’s Julius Cæsar.

BUCKINGHAM, JAMES SILK (1786-1855).
—Journalist and
traveller, wrote many books of travel, both on the Old and New
World. He established, and for a year or two ed., The Athenæum,
and produced many pamphlets on political and social subjects.

BUCKLAND, FRANCIS TREVELYAN (1826-80).
—Naturalist,
b. and ed. at Oxf., where his f. was Dean of Christchurch. He
studied medicine and was assistant-surgeon in the Life Guards. An
enthusiastic lover of natural history, he wrote largely upon it, among
his works being Curiosities of Natural History (4 vols. 1857-72), Log
Book of a Fisherman and Zoologist (1876), Natural History of British
Fishes (1881). He also founded and ed. Land and Water. He was
for a time Inspector of Salmon Fisheries, and served on various
commissions. Though observant, he was not always strictly
scientific in his methods and modes of expression, and he was a
strong opponent of Darwin.

BUCKLE, HENRY THOMAS (1821-1862).
—Historical
writer, s. of a wealthy shipowner in London, was b. at Lee in
Kent. Though never at a univ. and little at school, he received a
high degree of education privately, and inheriting an ample fortune
and a large library, he devoted himself to travel and study, with
the view of preparing for a great work which he had projected, The
History of Civilisation in England. As an introduction to this he
entered upon the consideration of the state of civilisation in various
other countries, but this he had scarcely completed when his death
took place at Damascus in 1862. The first vol. was pub. in 1857,
and the second in 1861. In these the results of a vast amount of
reading are shown; but they are not free from one-sided views and
generalisations resting on insufficient data. He has, however, the
credit of having contributed a new idea of history and the method
of writing it. The completed work was to have extended to 14 vols.
B. was one of the greatest chess-players in Europe.

BUDGELL, EUSTACE (1686-1737).
—Miscellaneous writer,
ed. at Oxf., was a cousin of Addison, who took him to Ireland and
got him appointed to a lucrative office, which, however, he was
foolish enough to throw away by lampooning the Viceroy. He
assisted A. in the Spectator, of which he wrote 37 numbers signed X.
In these he imitates A.’s style with some success. B., who was vain
and vindictive, fell on evil days, lost a fortune in the South Sea
Bubble, was accused of forging a will, and committed suicide by
throwing himself out of a boat at London Bridge.

BULL, GEORGE (1634-1710).
—Theologian, b. at Wells, ed.
at Tiverton and Oxf., took orders, was ordained by an ejected
bishop in 1658, and received the living of Suddington near Bristol. He
was a strong Royalist, and was privy to a scheme for bringing back
the Royal family. After the Restoration he obtained further preferment,
and became in 1704 Bishop of St. David’s at an age when
his strength had become unequal to any very active discharge of the
duties of his see. He has a high place among Anglican theologians,
and as a defender of the doctrine of the Trinity was held in high
esteem even by Continental Romanist controversialists. Among
his works are Harmonia Apostolica (1669-70) in which he endeavoured
to reconcile alleged discrepancies between the teaching of
St. Paul and St. James on the relation between faith and works, in
which he assigned to the latter the higher authority, Defensio
Fidei Nicænæ (1685) and Corruptions of the Church of Rome.

BULWER, E.L., (see LYTTON.)

BUNYAN, JOHN (1628-1688).
—B. at Elstow, near Bedford,
the s. of a poor tinker, was ed. at a free school, after which he
worked at his father’s trade. At 17 he was drafted as a soldier in
the Civil War, and served for two years at Newport Pagnell. At
19 he m. a pious young woman, whose only dowry appears to have
been two books, the Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven and the
Practice of Piety, by which he was influenced towards a religious
life. In his autobiographical book, Grace Abounding, B. describes
himself as having led an abandoned life in his youth; but there
appears to be no evidence that he was, outwardly at any rate, worse
than the average of his neighbours: the only serious fault which he
specifies is profanity, others being dancing and bell-ringing. The
overwhelming power of his imagination led him to contemplate acts
of impiety and profanity, and to a vivid realisation of the dangers
these involved. In particular he was harassed by a curiosity in
regard to the “unpardonable sin,” and a prepossession that he had
already committed it. He continually heard voices urging him to
“sell Christ,” and was tortured by fearful visions. After severe
spiritual conflicts he escaped from this condition, and became an
enthusiastic and assured believer. In 1657 he joined the Baptist
Church, began to preach, and in 1660 was committed to Bedford Jail,
at first for three months, but on his refusing to conform, or to desist
from preaching, his confinement was extended with little interval for
a period of nearly 12 years, not always, however, very rigorous. He
supported his family (wife and four children, including a blind girl)
by making tagged laces, and devoted all the time he could spare
from this to studying his few books and writing. During this
period he wrote among other things, The Holy City and Grace
Abounding. Under the Declaration of Indulgence he was released
in 1672, and became a licensed preacher. In 1675 the Declaration
was cancelled, and he was, under the Conventicle Act, again imprisoned
for six months, during which he wrote the first part of The
Pilgrim’s Progress, which appeared in 1678, and to which considerable
additions were made in subsequent editions. It was followed
by the Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), The Holy War (1682),
and the second part of The Pilgrim’s Progress (1684). B. was now
widely known as a popular preacher and author, and exercised a
wide influence. In 1688 he set out on a journey to mediate between
a father and son, in which he was successful. On the return journey
he was drenched with rain, caught a chill and d. in London on
August 31. He is buried in Bunhill Fields. B. has the distinction
of having written, in The Pilgrim’s Progress, probably the most
widely read book in the English language, and one which has been
translated into more tongues than any book except the Bible.
The charm of the work, which makes it the joy of old and young,
learned and ignorant, and of readers of all possible schools of thought
and theology, lies in the interest of a story in which the intense
imagination of the writer makes characters, incidents, and scenes
alike live in that of his readers as things actually known and remembered
by themselves, in its touches of tenderness and quaint
humour, its bursts of heart-moving eloquence, and its pure, nervous,
idiomatic English, Macaulay has said, “Every reader knows the
straight and narrow path as well as he knows a road on which he has
been backwards and forwards a hundred times,” and he adds that
“In England during the latter half of the seventeenth century there
were only two minds which possessed the imaginative faculty in a
very eminent degree. One of these minds produced the Paradise
Lost, the other The Pilgrim’s Progress.” B. wrote about 60 books
and tracts, of which The Holy War ranks next to The Pilgrim’s
Progress in popularity, while Grace Abounding is one of the most
interesting pieces of biography in existence.

There are numerous Lives, the most complete being that by Dr.
John Brown of Bedford (1885 new 1888): others are Southey’s
(1830), on which Macaulay’s Essay is based, Offor (1862), Froude
(1880). On The Pilgrim’s Progress, The People of the Pilgrimage, by
J. Kerr Bain, D.D.

BURCKHARDT, JOHN LEWIS (1784-1817).
—Traveller, b. at
Lausanne and ed. in Germany, came to England in 1806 and wrote
his books of travel in English. He travelled widely in Africa and
in Syria, and the adjoining countries, became a great oriental scholar,
and, disguising himself, made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and obtained
access to places not open to Christians. He wrote accounts of his
travels, and a book on Arabic proverbs. He d. of dysentery at
Cairo when about to start on a new journey into the interior of
Africa.

BURKE, EDMUND (1729-1797).
—Statesman, orator, and
political philosopher, was the s. of an attorney in Dublin, where he
was b. His f. was a Protestant, but his mother, whose maiden name
was Nagle, was a Roman Catholic. He received his early ed. at a
Quaker school at Ballitore, and in 1743 proceeded to Trinity Coll.,
Dublin, where he graduated in 1748. His f. wished him to study for
the law, and with this object he, in 1750, went to London and entered
the Middle Temple. He, however, disliked law and spent more time
in literary pursuits than in legal study. In 1756 his first pub. work
appeared, A Vindication of Natural Society, a satire on the views of
Bolingbroke, but so close was the imitation of that writer’s style,
and so grave the irony, that its point as a satire was largely missed.
In the same year he pub. his famous treatise On the Sublime and
Beautiful, which attracted universal attention, and three years
later (1759) he projected with Dodsley the publisher The Annual
Register, for which he continued to write the yearly Survey of
Events until 1788. About the same time he was introduced to
W.G. Hamilton (known as Single-speech H.) then about to go to
Ireland as Chief Sec., and accompanied him in the capacity of
private sec., in which he remained for three years. In 1765 he
became private sec. to the Marquis of Rockingham, the Whig statesman,
then Prime Minister, who became his fast friend until his death.
At the same time he entered Parliament as member for Wendover,
and began his brilliant career as an orator and philosophic
statesman. The first great subject in which he interested himself
was the controversy with the American colonies, which soon developed
into war and ultimate separation, and in 1769 he pub., in
reply to G. Grenville, his pamphlet on The Present State of the
Nation. In the same year he purchased the small estate of Gregories
near Beaconsfield. His speeches and writings had now made him
famous, and among other effects had brought about the suggestion
that he was the author of the Letters of Junius. It was also about this
time that he became one of the circle which, including Goldsmith,
Garrick, etc., had Johnson for its central luminary. In 1770 appeared
Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontent, directed
against the growth of the Royal power on the one hand, and of
faction on the other. In 1774 he was elected member for Bristol,
and continued so until 1780, when differences with his constituency
on the questions of Irish trade and Catholic emancipation led to his
resignation, after which he sat for Malton until his final retirement
from public life. Under the administration of Lord North (1770-1782)
the American war went on from bad to worse, and it was in part
owing to the splendid oratorical efforts of B. that it was at last
brought to an end. To this period belong two of his most brilliant
performances, his speech on Conciliation with America (1775), and
his Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777). The fall of North led to
Rockingham being recalled to power, which, however, he held for a
few months only, dying in the end of 1782, during which period B.
held the office of Paymaster of the Forces, and was made a Privy
Councillor. Thereafter he committed the great error of his political
life in supporting Fox in his coalition with North, one of the most
flagitious, as it was to those concerned in it, one of the most fatal,
political acts in our parliamentary history. Under this unhappy
combination he continued to hold during its brief existence the
office of Paymaster, and distinguished himself in connection with
Fox’s India Bill. The coalition fell in 1783, and was succeeded by
the long administration of Pitt, which lasted until 1801. B. was
accordingly for the remainder of his political life in opposition. In
1785 he made his great speech on The Nabob of Arcot’s Debts, and in
the next year (1786) he moved for papers in regard to the Indian
government of Warren Hastings, the consequence of which was the
impeachment of that statesman, which, beginning in 1787, lasted
until 1794, and of which B. was the leading promoter. Meanwhile,
the events in France were in progress which led to the Revolution,
and culminated in the death of the King and Queen. By these B.
was profoundly moved, and his Reflections on the French Revolution
(1790) electrified England, and even Europe. Its success was
enormous. The same events and the differences which arose
regarding them in the Whig party led to its break up, to the
rupture of B’s friendship with Fox, and to his Appeal from the New
to the Old Whigs. In 1794 a terrible blow fell upon him in the loss
of his son Richard, to whom he was tenderly attached, and in whom
he saw signs of promise, which were not patent to others, and which
in fact appear to have been non-existent. In the same year the
Hastings trial came to an end. B. felt that his work was done and
indeed that he was worn out; and he took leave of Parliament.
The King, whose favour he had gained by his attitude on the French
Revolution, wished to make him Lord Beaconsfield, but the death
of his son had deprived such an honour of all its attractions, and
the only reward he would accept was a pension of £2500. Even
this modest reward for services so transcendent was attacked by
the Duke of Bedford, to whom B. made a crushing reply in the
Letter to a Noble Lord (1796). His last pub. was the Letter on a
Regicide Peace (1796), called forth by negotiations for peace with
France. When it appeared the author was dead.

B. was one of the greatest political thinkers whom England has
produced, and all his writings, like his speeches, are characterised
by the welding together of knowledge, thought, and feeling. Unlike
most orators he is more successful as a writer than as a speaker.
He rose too far above the heads of his audience, which the continued
splendour of his declamation, his inordinate copiousness, and his
excessive vehemence, often passing into fury, at length wearied, and
even disgusted: but in his writings are found some of the grandest
examples of a fervid and richly elaborated eloquence. Though he
was never admitted to the Cabinet, he guided and influenced largely
the policy of his party, while by his efforts in the direction of
economy and order in administration at home, and on behalf of
kindly and just government in India, as well as by his contributions
to political philosophy, he laid his country and indeed the world
under lasting obligations.

There are Lives by Prior (1824 and 1854); J. Morley (1867), and
various ed. of his works have appeared. Select Works by Payne
(3 vols. 1874-78).

SUMMARY.—B. 1729, ed. Trinity Coll., Dublin, enters Middle
Temple 1750, pub. treatise On the Sublime and Beautiful 1756,
became friend of Rockingham 1765, enters Parliament and engages
in American controversy, pub. speech on Conciliation with America
1775, Paymaster of Forces and P.C. 1782, joined coalition of Fox
and North 1782, leads in prosecution of W. Hastings 1787-94, pub.
Reflections on French Revolution 1790 and breaks with Fox party,
pub. Letter on a Regicide Peace 1796, d. 1797.

BURNET, GILBERT (1643-1715).
—Theologian and historian,
s. of a Royalist and Episcopalian lawyer, who became a
judge, and of the sister of Johnston of Warristoun, a leader of the
Covenanters, was b. in Edin., and ed. at Aberdeen and at Amsterdam,
where he studied Hebrew under a Rabbi. Returning to Scotland,
he was successively Episcopal minister at Saltoun and Prof. of
Divinity in Glasgow (1669), and was then offered, but declined, a
Scotch bishopric. His energetic and bustling character led him to
take an active part in the controversies of the time, and he endeavoured
to bring about a reconciliation between Episcopacy and
Presbytery. Going to London he was in some favour with Charles
II., from whom he received various preferments. His literary reputation
was greatly enhanced by the publication in 1679 of the first
vol. of his History of the Reformation of the Church of England, for
which he received the thanks of Parliament, and which was completed
by other two vols., in 1682 and 1714. On account of a letter
of reproof which he ventured to write to the King, he lost favour at
Court, and the policy pursued by James II. being very repugnant to
him, he betook himself in 1687 to Holland, where he became one of
the advisers of the Prince of Orange. Returning to England at the
Revolution, he was made Bishop of Salisbury, which office he
adorned by liberal views and a zealous discharge of duty. The work
by which his fame is chiefly sustained, his History of my Own Times,
was, by his direction, not to be pub. until 6 years after his death. It
appeared in 1723. It gives a sketch of the history of the Civil Wars
and Commonwealth, and a detailed account of the immediately succeeding
period down to 1713. While not free from egotism and some
party feeling, it is written with a sincere desire for accuracy and fairness,
and it has largely the authority of an eye-witness. The style, if
somewhat lacking in dignity, is lively and picturesque. Among his
other writings are a History of the Dukes of Hamilton, and an Exposition
of the 39 Articles.

His principal works have been repeatedly printed. Clarendon
Press ed. of My Own Times by Routh (1823 and 1833).

BURNET, THOMAS (1635?-1715).
—Theologian and
writer on cosmogony, was b. at Croft near Darlington, and ed. at
Camb., and became Master of Charterhouse and Clerk of the Closet to
William III. His literary fame rests on his Telluris Theoria Sacra,
or Sacred Theory of the Earth, pub. about 1692, first in Latin and
afterwards in English, a work which, in absence of all scientific
knowledge of the earth’s structure, was necessarily a mere speculative
cosmogony. It is written, however, with much eloquence.
Some of the views expressed in another work, Archæolgiæ Philosophicæ,
were, however, so unacceptable to contemporary theologians
that he had to resign his post at Court.

BURNS, ROBERT (1759-1796).
—Poet, was b. near Ayr, the
s. of William Burness or Burns, a small farmer, and a man of considerable
force of character and self-culture. His youth was passed
in poverty, hardship, and a degree of severe manual labour which
left its traces in a premature stoop and weakened constitution. He
had little regular schooling, and got much of what education he had
from his father, who taught his children reading, writing, arithmetic,
geography, and history, and also wrote for them “A Manual of
Christian Belief.” With all his ability and character, however, the
elder B. was consistently unfortunate, and migrated with his large
family from farm to farm without ever being able to improve his
circumstances. In 1781 Robert went to Irvine to become a flax-dresser,
but, as the result of a New Year carousal of the workmen,
including himself, the shop took fire and was burned to the ground.
This venture accordingly came to an end. In 1784 the f. died, and
B. with his brother Gilbert made an ineffectual struggle to keep on
the farm; failing in which they removed to Mossgiel, where they
maintained an uphill fight for 4 years. Meanwhile, his love affair
with Jean Armour had passed through its first stage, and the
troubles in connection therewith, combined with the want of
success in farming, led him to think of going to Jamaica as bookkeeper
on a plantation. From this he was dissuaded by a letter
from Dr. Thomas Blacklock (q.v.), and at the suggestion of his
brother pub. his poems. This first ed. was brought out at Kilmarnock
in June 1786, and contained much of his best work, including
“The Twa Dogs,” “The Address to the Deil,” “Hallowe’en,”
“The Cottar’s Saturday Night,” “The Mouse,” “The Daisy,”
etc., many of which had been written at Mossgiel. Copies of this ed.
are now extremely scarce, and as much as £550 has been paid for one.
The success of the work was immediate, the poet’s name rang over
all Scotland, and he was induced to go to Edin. to superintend the
issue of a new ed. There he was received as an equal by the
brilliant circle of men of letters which the city then boasted—Dugald
Stewart, Robertson, Blair, etc., and was a guest at aristocratic
tables, where he bore himself with unaffected dignity. Here
also Scott, then a boy of 15, saw him and describes him as of
“manners rustic, not clownish. His countenance … more
massive than it looks in any of the portraits … a strong expression
of shrewdness in his lineaments; the eye alone indicated the
poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark
cast, and literally glowed when he spoke with feeling or interest.”
The results of this visit outside of its immediate and practical object,
included some life-long friendships, among which were those with
Lord Glencairn and Mrs. Dunlop. The new ed. brought him
£400. About this time the episode of Highland Mary occurred.
On his return to Ayrshire he renewed his relations with Jean Armour,
whom he ultimately married, took the farm of Ellisland near Dumfries,
having meanwhile taken lessons in the duties of an exciseman,
as a line to fall back upon should farming again prove unsuccessful.
At Ellisland his society was cultivated by the local gentry. And
this, together with literature and his duties in the excise, to which
he had been appointed in 1789, proved too much of a distraction to
admit of success on the farm, which in 1791 he gave up. Meanwhile
he was writing at his best, and in 1790 had produced Tam o’ Shanter.
About this time he was offered and declined an appointment in
London on the staff of the Star newspaper, and refused to become
a candidate for a newly-created Chair of Agriculture in the Univ.
of Edin., although influential friends offered to support his claims.
After giving up his farm he removed to Dumfries. It was at this
time that, being requested to furnish words for The Melodies of
Scotland, he responded by contributing over 100 songs, on which
perhaps his claim to immortality chiefly rests, and which placed him
in the front rank of lyric poets. His worldly prospects were now
perhaps better than they had ever been; but he was entering upon
the last and darkest period of his career. He had become soured,
and moreover had alienated many of his best friends by too freely
expressing sympathy with the French Revolution, and the then
unpopular advocates of reform at home. His health began to give
way; he became prematurely old, and fell into fits of despondency;
and the habits of intemperance, to which he had always been more
or less addicted, grew upon him. He d. on July 21, 1797.

The genius of B. is marked by spontaneity, directness, and sincerity,
and his variety is marvellous, ranging from the tender intensity
of some of his lyrics through the rollicking humour and blazing
wit of Tam o’ Shanter to the blistering satire of Holy Willie’s Prayer
and The Holy Fair. His life is a tragedy, and his character full of
flaws. But he fought at tremendous odds, and as Carlyle in his
great Essay says, “Granted the ship comes into harbour with
shrouds and tackle damaged, the pilot is blameworthy … but
to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been
round the Globe or only to Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs.”

The books about Burns, his life and writings, are innumerable.
Among the Lives are those by Currie (1800); Allan Cunningham
(1834); J.G. Lockhart (1828), on which is based Carlyle’s memorable
Essay (which see). Among the famous ed. of the Poems may
be mentioned the first (Kilmarnock 1786), Edin. (1787), and the
Centenary (1896), by W.E. Henley and T.F. Henderson.

SUMMARY.—B. 1759, flax-dresser at Irvine 1781, farms at Mossgiel,
has love affair with Jean Armour, pub. first ed. of poems 1786,
visits Edin. 1786, goes to Ellisland, became exciseman 1789, pub.
songs, c. 1791, d. 1797.

BURTON, JOHN HILL (1809-1881).
—Historian, was b. and
ed. at Aberdeen, was in 1831 called to the Bar, but had little practice,
and in 1854 was appointed Sec. to the Prison Board of Scotland,
and in 1877 a Commissioner of Prisons. He became at an early
period of his life a contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine and other
periodicals, and in 1846 pub. a life of Hume, which attracted considerable
attention, and was followed by Lives of Lord Lovat and
Lord President Forbes. He began his career as an historian by the
publication in 1853 of History of Scotland from the Revolution to the
Extinction of the last Jacobite Insurrection, to which he added (1867-70)
History of Scotland from Agricola’s Invasion to the Revolution, in
7 vols., thus completing a continuous narrative. Subsequently he
pub. a History of the Reign of Queen Anne (1880). Other works of a
lighter kind were The Book-Hunter (1862), and The Scot Abroad
(1864). B.’s historical works display much research and a spirit of
candour and honesty, and have picturesque and spirited passages,
but the style is unequal, and frequently lacks dignity. On the
whole, however, his is regarded as the most generally trustworthy
and valuable history of Scotland at present existing.

BURTON, SIR RICHARD FRANCIS (1821-1890).
—Explorer
and scholar, s. of an officer in the army, was b. at Barham House,
Herts, and after a somewhat desultory education abroad as well as
at home, entered upon a life of travel, adventure, and military and
civil service in almost every quarter of the world, including India,
Africa, the nearer East, and North and South America, in the course
of which he mastered 35 languages. As an official his masterful
ways and spirit of adventure frequently brought him into collision
with superior powers, by whom he not seldom considered himself
ill-used. He was the author of upwards of 50 books on a great
variety of subjects, including travels, novels, and translations,
among which are Personal Narrative of a Journey to Mecca (1855),
First Footprints in East Africa (1856), Lake Regions of Equatorial
Africa (1860), The Nile Basin, a translation and life of Camoens, an
absolutely literal translation of the Arabian Nights, with notes and
commentaries, of which his accomplished wife pub. an expurgated
edition. Lady B., who was the companion of his travels after 1861,
also wrote books on Syria, Arabia, and other eastern countries, as
well as a life of her husband, a number of whose manuscripts she
destroyed.

BURTON, ROBERT (1577-1640).
—Miscellaneous writer, b.
at Lindley, Leicestershire, and ed. at Oxf., took orders, and became
Vicar of St. Thomas, Oxf., 1616, and Rector of Segrave, Leicestershire,
1630. Subject to depression of spirits, he wrote as an antidote
the singular book which has given him fame. The Anatomy of
Melancholy, in which he appears under the name of Democritus
Junior, was pub. in 1621, and had great popularity. In the words
of Warton, “The author’s variety of learning, his quotations from
rare and curious books, his pedantry sparkling with rude wit and
shapeless elegance … have rendered it a repertory of amusement
and information.” It has also proved a store-house from which
later authors have not scrupled to draw without acknowledgment.
It was a favourite book of Dr. Johnson. B. was a mathematician
and dabbled in astrology. When not under depression he was an
amusing companion, “very merry, facete, and juvenile,” and a
person of “great honesty, plain dealing, and charity.”

The best ed. is that of Rev. A.R. Shilleto, with introduction by
A.H. Bullen (3 vols. 1893).

BURY, LADY CHARLOTTE (1775-1861).
—Novelist, dau. of
the 5th Duke of Argyll, and m. first to Col. J. Campbell, and
second to Rev. E.J. Bury, wrote a number of novels—Flirtation,
Separation, The Divorced, etc., but is chiefly remembered in connection
with a Diary illustrative of the Times of George IV. (1838),
a somewhat scandalous work generally, and probably correctly,
ascribed to her. She also wrote some poems and two devotional
works. She held for some time an appointment in the household of
the Princess of Wales.

BURY, RICHARD DE (1281-1345).
—S. of Sir Richard
Aungerville, b. at Bury St. Edmunds, studied at Oxf., and was a
Benedictine monk, became tutor to Edward III. when Prince of Wales,
and Bishop of Durham, and held many offices of State. He was a
patron of learning, and one of the first English collectors of books,
and he wrote his work, Philobiblon, in praise of books, and founded a
library at Durham.

BUTLER, JOSEPH (1692-1752).
—Theologian, b. at Wantage,
s. of a Presbyterian linen-draper, was destined for the ministry
of that Church, but in 1714 he decided to enter the Church of
England, and went to Oxf. After holding various other preferments
he became rector of the rich living of Stanhope, Bishop of Bristol
(1738), and Bishop of Durham (1750), and was said to have refused
the Primacy. In 1726 he pub. Fifteen Sermons, and in 1736 The
Analogy of Religion. These two books are among the most powerful
and original contributions to ethics and theology which have ever
been made. They depend for their effect entirely upon the force of
their reasoning, for they have no graces of style. B. was an excellent
man, and a diligent and conscientious churchman. Though indifferent
to general literature, he had some taste in the fine arts,
especially architecture. B.’s works were ed. by W.E. Gladstone
(2 vols. 1896), and there are Lives by Bishop W. Fitzgerald, Spooner
(1902), and others, see also History of English Thought in 18th
Century, by Leslie Stephen.

BUTLER, SAMUEL (1612-1680).
—Satirist, was the s. of a
Worcestershire farmer. In early youth he was page to the Countess
of Kent, and thereafter clerk to various Puritan justices, some of
whom are believed to have suggested characters in Hudibras.
After the Restoration he became Sec. to the Lord Pres. of Wales, and
about the same time m. a Mrs. Herbert, a widow with a jointure,
which, however, was lost. In 1663 the first part of Hudibras was
pub., and the other two in 1664 and 1668 respectively. This work,
which is to a certain extent modelled on Don Quixote, stands at the
head of the satirical literature of England, and for wit and compressed
thought has few rivals in any language. It is directed
against the Puritans, and while it holds up to ridicule the extravagancies
into which many of the party ran, it entirely fails to do justice
to their virtues and their services to liberty, civil and religious.
Many of its brilliant couplets have passed into the proverbial
commonplaces of the language, and few who use them have any idea
of their source. Butler, notwithstanding the popularity of his work,
was neglected by the Court, and d. in poverty.

Ed. of B.’s works have been issued by Bell (3 vols., 1813), and
Johnson (2 vols., 1893).

BUTLER, SAMUEL (1825-1902).
—Miscellaneous writer,
ed. at Shrewsbury and Camb., wrote two satirical books, Erewhon
(nowhere) (1872), and Erewhon Revisited (1901). He translated the
Iliad and Odyssey in prose, and mooted the theory that the latter was
written by a woman. Other works were The Fair Haven, Life and
Habit, The Way of all Flesh (a novel) (1903), etc., and some sonnets.
He also wrote on the Sonnets of Shakespeare.

BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, 6TH LORD BYRON (1788-1824).
—Poet,
was b. in London, the s. of Captain John B. and of Catherine
Gordon, heiress of Gight, Aberdeenshire, his second wife, whom he
m. for her money and, after squandering it, deserted. He was also
the grand-nephew of the 5th, known as the “wicked” Lord B.
From his birth he suffered from a malformation of the feet, causing
a slight lameness, which was a cause of lifelong misery to him,
aggravated by the knowledge that with proper care it might have
been cured. After the departure of his f. his mother went to Aberdeen,
where she lived on a small salvage from her fortune. She was a
capricious woman of violent temper, with no fitness for guiding her
volcanic son, and altogether the circumstances of his early life
explain, if they do not excuse, the spirit of revolt which was his lifelong
characteristic. In 1794, on the death of a cousin, he became
heir-presumptive to the title and embarrassed estates of the family,
to which, on the death of his great-uncle in 1798, he succeeded. In
1801 he was sent to Harrow, where he remained until 1805, when
he proceeded to Trinity Coll., Camb., where he read much history
and fiction, lived extravagantly, and got into debt. Some early
verses which he had pub. in 1806 were suppressed. They were
followed in 1807 by Hours of Idleness, which was savagely attacked
in the Edinburgh Review. In reply he sent forth English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers (1800), which created considerable stir and shortly
went through 5 ed. Meanwhile, he had settled at Newstead
Abbey, the family seat, where with some of his cronies he was
believed to have indulged in wild and extravagant orgies, the
accounts of which, however, were probably greatly exaggerated.
In 1809 he left England, and passing through Spain, went to Greece.
During his absence, which extended over two years, he wrote the
first two cantos of Childe Harold, which were pub. after his return
in 1812, and were received with acclamation. In his own words,
“he awoke one morning and found himself famous.” He followed
up his success with some short poems, The Corsair, Lara, etc.
About the same time began his intimacy with his future biographer,
Thomas Moore (q.v.), and about 1815 he married Anne Isabella
Milbanke, who had refused him in the previous year, a union which,
owing to the total incompatibility of the parties, and serious provocations
on the part of B., proved unhappy, and was in 1816 dissolved
by a formal deed of separation. The only fruit of it was a
dau., Augusta Ada. After this break-up of his domestic life,
followed as it was by the severe censure of society, and by pressure
on the part of his creditors, which led to the sale of his library, B.
again left England, as it turned out, for ever, and, passing through
Belgium and up the Rhine, went to Geneva, afterwards travelling
with Shelley through Switzerland, when he wrote the third canto of
Childe Harold. He wintered in Venice, where he formed a connection
with Jane Clairmont, the dau. of W. Godwin’s second wife
(q.v.). In 1817 he was in Rome, whence returning to Venice he
wrote the fourth canto of Childe Harold. In the same year he sold
his ancestral seat of Newstead, and about the same time pub. Manfred,
Cain, and The Deformed Transformed. The first five cantos of
Don Juan were written between 1818 and 1820, during which period
he made the acquaintance of the Countess Guiccioli, whom he
persuaded to leave her husband. It was about this time that he
received a visit from Moore, to whom he confided his MS. autobiography,
which Moore, in the exercise of the discretion left to him,
burned in 1824. His next move was to Ravenna, where he wrote
much, chiefly dramas, including Marino Faliero. In 1821-22 he
finished Don Juan at Pisa, and in the same year he joined with Leigh
Hunt in starting a short-lived newspaper, The Liberal, in the first
number of which appeared The Vision of Judgment. His last
Italian home was Genoa, where he was still accompanied by the
Countess, and where he lived until 1823, when he offered himself as
an ally to the Greek insurgents. In July of that year he started for
Greece, spent some months in Cephalonia waiting for the Greeks to
form some definite plans. In January, 1824, he landed at Missolonghi,
but caught a malarial fever, of which he d. on April 19, 1824.

The final position of B. in English literature is probably not yet
settled. It is at present undoubtedly lower than it was in his own
generation. Yet his energy, passion, and power of vivid and richly-coloured
description, together with the interest attaching to his wayward
and unhappy career, must always make him loom large in the
assembly of English writers. He exercised a marked influence on
Continental literature, and his reputation as poet is higher in some
foreign countries than in his own.

Among ed. of the works of B. may be mentioned Murray’s (13
vols. 1898-1904). Moore’s Life (1830), Lady Blessington’s Conversations
with Lord Byron (1834, new, 1894).

SUMMARY.—B. 1788, spent childhood in Aberdeen, ed. Harrow
and Camb., pub. English Bards etc., 1809, Childe Harold first two
cantos 1812, married 1815, separated 1816, owing to this and financial
difficulties leaves England, meets Shelley, pub. third canto of
Childe Harold 1816, fourth canto 1817, writes Don Juan cantos 1-4
1818-20, lives at various places in Italy 1816-24 with Countess
Guiccioli, finished Don Juan 1822, goes to Greece 1823 to assist
insurgents, d. 1824.

BYRON, HENRY JAMES (1834-1884).
—Dramatist, b. at
Manchester, entered the Middle Temple, but soon took to writing
for the stage, and produced many popular burlesques and extravaganzas.
He also wrote for periodicals, and was the first editor of
Fun. Among his best dramatic pieces are Cyril’s Success (1868),
Our Boys (1875), and The Upper Crust.

CÆDMON (d. 1680).
—The first English poet of whom we
have any knowledge. Originally employed as cowherd at the Abbey
of Whitby, he became a singer when somewhat advanced in life.
The story of how the gift of song came to him is given by Bede, how
having fallen asleep in the stable he dreamed that one came to him
desiring a song, and on his asking “What shall I sing?” replied
“Sing to me of the beginning of created things.” Therefore he
began to sing and, on awaking, remembered his song and added to
it. Thereafter he told what had befallen him to the bailiff who
was over him, who repeated the tale to the Abbess Hilda. She
having called together certain learned and pious persons, C. was
brought before them, told his story, and recited his verses. A
part of Scripture was read to him, which he was asked to turn into
verse; and this being done he was received into the Abbey where,
for the rest of his life, he lived as a monk, and continued to make
his holy songs. Much that was formerly attributed to C. is now
held to be of later date. All that is known to be his is a Northumbrian
version of Bede’s Latin paraphrases of C.’s first song: although
by some the authorship of “The Dream of the Holy Rood,” and of
a fragment on “The Temptation and Fall of Man” is claimed for
him.

English Literature from Beginning to Norman Conquest, Stopford
Brooke (1898), and History of Early English Literature, by the same
(1892).

CAIRD, EDWARD (1835-1908).
—Philosopher, younger
brother of John C. (q.v.), was b. at Greenock, and ed. at Glasgow and
Oxf., where he became Fellow and Tutor of Merton Coll. In 1866 he
was appointed to the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, which he
held until 1893, when he became Master of Balliol Coll., from which he
retired in 1907. He has written Critical Philosophy of Kant (1877),
Hegel (1883), Evolution of Religion, Social Philosophy and Religion of
Comte (1885), Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers (1904).

CAIRD, JOHN (1820-1898).
—Theologian, b., at Greenock,
and ed. at Glasgow, entered the Church of Scotland, of which he
became one of the most eloquent preachers. After being a minister
in the country and in Edinburgh, he was translated to Glasgow, becoming
in 1862 Prof. of Divinity in the Univ. of that city, and in
1873 Principal. A sermon on Religion in Common Life, preached
before Queen Victoria, made him known throughout the Protestant
world. He wrote an Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion
(1880), and a vol. on Spinoza (1888).

CALAMY, EDMUND (1600-1666).
—Puritan Divine, b. in
London, and ed. at Camb., was one of the principal authors of a
famous controversial work bearing the title Smectymnuus, made up of
the initials of the various writers, and pub. in 1641 in reply to Bishop
Hall’s Divine Right of Episcopacy. His other chief work is The
Godly Man’s Ark. A Presbyterian, he was a supporter of monarchy,
and favoured the Restoration, after which he was offered,
but declined, the see of Coventry and Lichfield. He was a member
of the Savoy Conference. The passing of the Act of Uniformity led
to his retiring from ministerial work. He is said to have d. of
melancholy caused by the great fire of London.

CALDERWOOD, DAVID (1575-1650).
—Scottish Church
historian, belonged to a good family, and about 1604 became minister
of Crailing, Roxburghshire. Opposing the designs of James VI. for
setting up Episcopacy, he was imprisoned 1617, and afterwards had
to betake himself to Holland, where his controversial work, Altare
Damascenum, against Episcopacy, was pub. In 1625 he returned
to Scotland, and began his great work, The Historie of the Kirk of
Scotland, which was pub. in an abridged form (1646). The complete
work was printed (1841-49) for the Woodrow Society. C. became
minister of Pencaitland, East Lothian, about 1640, and was one of
those appointed to draw up The Directory for Public Worship in
Scotland.

CALVERLEY, CHARLES STUART (1831-1884).
—Poet and
translator, s. of the Rev. H. Blayds (who assumed the name of
Calverley), was ed. at Harrow, Oxf., and Camb. He was called to
the Bar in 1865, and appeared to have a brilliant career before
him, when a fall on the ice in 1866 changed him from a distinguished
athlete to a life-long invalid. Brilliant as a scholar, a musician,
and a talker, he is perhaps best known as one of the greatest of
parodists. He pub. Verses and Translations (1862), and Fly-leaves
(1872). He also translated Theocritus (1869).

CAMDEN, WILLIAM (1551-1623).
—Antiquary and historian,
b. in London, and ed. at Christ’s Hospital, St. Paul’s School,
and Oxf., was in 1575 appointed Second Master in Westminster
School, and Head Master in 1593, and spent his vacations in travelling
over England collecting antiquarian information. His great
work, Britannia, was pub. in 1586, and at once brought him fame
both at home and abroad. It is a work of vast labour and erudition,
written in elegant Latin. In 1597 C. was made Clarencieux King-at-Arms
which, setting him free from his academic duties, enabled
him to devote more time to his antiquarian and historical labours.
His other principal works are Annals of the Reign of Elizabeth
(printed 1615-1623), Monuments and Inscriptions in Westminster
Abbey (1600), and a coll. of Ancient English Historians. He was
buried in Westminster Abbey. The Camden Society for historical
research, founded in 1838, is named after him.

CAMPBELL, GEORGE (1719-1796).
—Theologian and philosopher,
was a minister of the Church of Scotland at Aberdeen,
and Principal and Prof. of Divinity in Marischal Coll. there. His
Dissertation on Miracles (1763), in answer to Hume, was in its
day considered a masterly argument, and was admitted to be so by
Hume himself. His other principal works were The Philosophy of
Rhetoric (1776), which is still a standard work, and A Translation of
the Four Gospels with Notes.

CAMPBELL, JOHN, 1ST LORD CAMPBELL (1779-1861).
—Lawyer
and biographer, s. of the minister of Cupar-Fife, had a
highly successful career as a lawyer, and held the offices successively
of Solicitor and Attorney-General, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Lord
Chief Justice, and Lord Chancellor. His contributions to literature
were Lives of the Chancellors and Lives of the Chief Justices. These
works, though deficient in research and accuracy, often unfair in
judgments of character, and loose and diffuse in style, are interesting
and full of information.

CAMPBELL, JOHN FRANCIS (1822-1885).
—Celtic scholar,
ed. at Eton and Edin., was afterwards Sec. to the Lighthouse
Commission. He was an authority on Celtic folk-lore, and pub.
Popular Tales of the West Highlands (4 vols., 1860-62), and various
Gaelic texts.

CAMPBELL, LEWIS (1830-1908).
—Scholar, s. of a naval
officer, ed. at Edin., Glasgow, and Oxf., took orders, and was
Vicar of Milford, Hants, until 1863, when he was appointed Prof.
of Greek at St. Andrews. He brought out ed. of Sophocles
and other works on the Greek classics, and in conjunction with
E. Abbott The Life and Letters of Prof. Jowett (q.v.), with whom
he had collaborated in editing the Republic of Plato. He also ed.
the poems of Thomas Campbell, to whom he was related.

CAMPBELL, THOMAS (1777-1844).
—Poet, was the youngest
s. of Alexander C., a merchant in Glasgow, where he was b. After
leaving the Univ. of that city, where he gained some distinction
by his translations from the Greek, and acting for some time as
a tutor, he went to Edin. to study law, in which, however, he
did not make much progress, but gained fame by producing in 1799,
at the age of 21, his principal poem, The Pleasures of Hope. In
spite of some of the faults of youth, the vigour of thought and description,
and power of versification displayed in the poem, as well
as its noble feeling for liberty, made it a marvellous performance for
so young a man. His other larger poems are Gertrude of Wyoming
(1809), O’Connor’s Child, and Theodric (1824). It is not, however,
for these that he will be chiefly remembered, but for his patriotic
and war lyrics, Ye Mariners of England, Hohenlinden, and The Battle
of the Baltic, which are imperishable. C. was also distinguished as
a critic, and his Specimens of the British Poets (1819) is prefaced by an
essay which is an important contribution to criticism. C. resided
in London from 1803 until the year of his death, which took place at
Boulogne, whither he had repaired in search of health. In addition
to the works mentioned he wrote various compilations, including
Annals of Great Britain, covering part of the reign of George III.
In 1805 he received a Government pension, and he was Lord Rector
of Glasgow Univ. 1826-29. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Life and Letters, Beattie (1840); Poems, Aldine ed. (1875, new,
1890).

CAMPION, THOMAS (c. 1575-1620).
—Poet and musician,
b. at Witham, Essex, and ed. at Camb., and on the Continent,
studied law at Gray’s Inn, but discarding it, practised medicine in
London. He wrote masques, and many fine lyrics remarkable for
their metrical beauty, of which “Cherry Ripe” and “Lesbia” are
well known. He also wrote Epigrams in Latin, and Observations on
the Arte of Poesie (1602). He composed the music for most of his
songs.

CANNING, GEORGE (1770-1827).
—Statesman, was b. in
London, the s. of a lawyer. He lost his f. while still an infant, and
was brought up by an uncle, who sent him to Eton and Oxf. In
1793 he entered Parliament as a supporter of Pitt, and soon became
one of the most brilliant debaters in the House. After filling various
offices, including that of Foreign Sec., with striking ability, he
was in 1827 appointed Prime Minister, but d., deeply mourned by
the nation, a few months later. He has a place in literature as the
leading spirit in the Anti-Jacobin, a paper started during the French
Revolution, in support of the English Constitution, and which, with
Gifford for ed., had many of the most eminent men of the day as
contributors. C. wrote the Needy Knife-grinder, The Loves of the
Triangles, parts II. and III., a parody on E. Darwin’s Loves of the
Plants, The Progress of Man, etc. His coll. Poems were pub. 1823.

CAPGRAVE, JOHN (1393-1464).
—Historian and theologian,
b. at Lynn, became an Augustinian Friar, and at length Provincial of
the Order in England. He studied probably at Camb., visited Rome,
and was a client of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, whose life he
wrote. He was the author of numerous theological and historical
works, some of which are of considerable importance, including in
Latin, Nova Legenda Angliæ, De Illustribus Henricis: lives of German
Emperors, English Kings, etc., of the name of Henry, and in English,
monotonous and dull, lives of St. Gilbert and St. Katharine, and a
Chronicle reaching to 1417.

CAREW, RICHARD (1555-1620).
—Translator and antiquary,
a county gentleman of Cornwall, ed. at Oxf., made a translation
of the first five cantos of Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered (1594),
more correct than that of Fairfax. Other works were A Survey of
Cornwall (1602), and an Epistle concerning the Excellencies of the
English Tongue (1605).

CAREW, THOMAS (1594?-1639).
—Poet, s. of Sir Matthew
C., was ed. at Oxf., entered the Middle Temple, and was one
of the first and best of the courtly poets who wrote gracefully on
light themes of Court life and gallantry. C.’s poems have often
much beauty and even tenderness. His chief work is Coelum
Britannicum. He lived the easy and careless life of a courtier of
the day, but is said to have d. in a repentant frame. His poems,
consisting chiefly of short lyrics, were coll. and pub. after his
death. One of the most beautiful and best known of his songs is
that beginning “He that loves a rosy cheek.”

CAREY, HENRY (d. 1743).
—Dramatist and song-writer,
was believed to be an illegitimate s. of George Savile, Marquis
of Halifax. He wrote innumerable burlesques, farces, songs, etc.,
often with his own music, including Chrononhotonthologos (1734), a
burlesque on the mouthing plays of the day, and The Dragon of
Wantley (1744?). His poem, Namby Pamby, in ridicule of Ambrose
Phillips (q.v.), added a word to the language, and his Sally in our
Alley is one of our best-known songs. God Save the King was also
claimed for him, but apparently without reason.

CARLETON, WILLIAM (1794-1869).
—Novelist, s. of a poor
Irish cottar, b. and brought up among the Irish peasantry, acquired
an insight into their ideas and feelings which has never been equalled.
His finest work is in his short stories, collected under the title of
Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, of which two series were
pub. in 1830 and 1832 respectively. He also wrote several longer
novels, of which the best is Fardorougha the Miser (1837), a work of
great power. Others are The Misfortunes of Barny Branagan (1841),
Valentine M’Clutchy (1845), Rody the Rover (1847), The Squanders
of Castle Squander (1854), and The Evil Eye. C. received a pension
of £200 from Government.

CARLYLE, ALEXANDER (1722-1805).
—Autobiographer, s.
of the Minister of Cummertrees, Dumfriesshire, was ed. at Edin.
and Leyden, and entering the Church became Minister of Inveresk,
and was associated with Principal Robertson as an ecclesiastical
leader. He was a man of great ability, shrewdness, and culture, and
the friend of most of the eminent literary men in Scotland of his day.
He left an autobiography in MS., which was ed. by Hill Burton,
and pub. in 1860, and which is one of the most interesting contemporary
accounts of his time. His stately appearance gained
for him the name of “Jupiter” C.

CARLYLE, THOMAS (1795-1881).
—Historian and essayist,
was b. at Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire. His f., James C., was a
stonemason, a man of intellect and strong character, and his mother
was, as he said, “of the fairest descent, that of the pious, the just,
and the wise.” His earliest education was received at the parish
school of Ecclefechan (the Entepfuhl of Sartor Resartus). Thence
he went to the Grammar School of Annan, and in 1809 to the
Univ. of Edin., the 90 miles to which he travelled on foot.
There he read voraciously, his chief study being mathematics.
After completing his “Arts” course, he went on to divinity with
the view of entering the Church, but about the middle of his course
found that he could not proceed. He became a schoolmaster first at
Annan and then at Kirkcaldy, where he formed a profound friendship
with Edward Irving (q.v.), and met Margaret Gordon, afterwards
Lady Bannerman, believed by some to be the prototype
of Blumine in Sartor. Returning in 1819 to Edin. he for a time
studied law and took pupils; but his health was bad, he suffered
from insomnia and dyspepsia, and he tired of law. He was also
sorely bestead by mental and spiritual conflicts, which came to a
crisis in Leith Walk in June 1821 in a sudden uprising of defiance to
the devil and all his works, upon which the clouds lifted. For the
next two years, 1822-24, he acted as tutor to Charles Buller (whose
promising political career was cut short by his premature death)
and his brother. On the termination of this engagement he decided
upon a literary career, which he began by contributing articles
to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia. In 1824 he translated Legendre’s
Geometry (to which he prefixed an essay on Proportion), and Goethe’s
Wilhelm Meister; he also wrote for the London Magazine a Life
of Schiller. About this time he visited Paris and London, where
he met Hazlitt, Campbell, Coleridge, and others. Thereafter he
returned to Dumfriesshire. In the following year (1826) he m. Jane Baillie Welsh, and settled in Edin. Here his first work
was Specimens of German Romance (4 vols.) A much more important
matter was his friendship with Jeffrey and his connection
with the Edinburgh Review, in which appeared, among others, his
essays on Richter, Burns, Characteristics, and German Poetry. In
1828 C. applied unsuccessfully for the Chair of Moral Philosophy in
St. Andrews, and the same year he went to Craigenputtock, a small
property in Dumfriesshire belonging to Mrs. C., where they remained
for several years, and where many of his best essays and Sartor
Resartus were written, and where his correspondence with Goethe
began. In 1831 he went to London to find a publisher for Sartor,
but was unsuccessful, and it did not appear in book form until 1838,
after having come out in Fraser’s Magazine in 1833-34. The year
last mentioned found him finally in London, settled in Cheyne Row,
Chelsea, his abode for the rest of his life. He immediately set to
work on his French Revolution. While it was in progress he in 1835
lent the MS. to J.S. Mill, by whose servant nearly the whole of the
first vol. was burned, in spite of which misfortune the work was ready
for publication in 1837. Its originality, brilliance, and vividness
took the world by storm, and his reputation as one of the foremost
men of letters in the country was at once and finally established.
In the same year he appeared as a public lecturer, and delivered
four courses on German Literature, Periods of European Culture,
Revolutions of Modern Europe, and Heroes and Hero-Worship, the
last of which was pub. as a book in 1841. Although his writings
did not yet produce a large income, his circumstances had become
comfortable, owing to Mrs. C. having succeeded to her patrimony in
1840. Books now followed each other rapidly, Chartism had appeared
in 1839, Past and Present came out in 1843, and Letters and
Speeches of Oliver Cromwell in 1845, the last named being perhaps
the most successful of his writings, inasmuch as it fully attained the
object aimed at in clearing Cromwell from the ignorant or malevolent
aspersions under which he had long lain, and giving him his
just place among the greatest of the nation. In 1850 he pub. his
fiercest blast, Latter Day Pamphlets, which was followed next year
by his biography of his friend John Sterling (q.v.). It was about
this time, as is shown by the Letters and Memoirs of Mrs. C., that a
temporary estrangement arose between his wife and himself, based
apparently on Mrs. C.’s part upon his friendship with Lady Ashburton,
a cause of which C. seems to have been unconscious. In
1851 he began his largest, if not his greatest work, Frederick the
Great, which occupied him from that year until 1865, and in connection
with which he made two visits to Germany in 1852 and 1858.
It is a work of astonishing research and abounds in brilliant
passages, but lacks the concentrated intensity of The French Revolution.
It is, however, the one of his works which enjoys the highest
reputation in Germany. In 1865 he was elected Lord Rector of the
Univ. of Edin., and delivered a remarkable address to the students by
whom he was received with enthusiasm. Almost immediately afterwards
a heavy blow fell upon him in the death of Mrs. C., and in the
discovery, from her diary, of how greatly she had suffered, unknown
to him, from the neglect and want of consideration which, owing to
absorption in his work and other causes, he had perhaps unconsciously
shown. Whatever his faults, of which the most was made
in some quarters, there can be no doubt that C. and his wife were
sincerely attached to each other, and that he deeply mourned her.
In 1866 his Reminiscences (pub. 1881) were written. The Franco-German
War of 1870-71 profoundly interested him, and evoked a
plea for Germany. From this time his health began to give way
more and more. In 1872 his right hand became paralysed. In
1874 he received the distinction of the Prussian Order of Merit, as
the biographer of its founder, and in the same year, Mr. Disraeli
offered him the choice of the Grand Cross of the Bath or a baronetcy
and a pension, all of which he declined. The completion of his 80th
year in 1875 was made the occasion of many tributes of respect and
veneration, including a gold medal from some of his Scottish
admirers. He d. on February 5, 1881. Burial in Westminster
Abbey was offered, but he had left instructions that he should lie
with his kindred. He bequeathed the property of Craigenputtock
to the Univ. of Edin.

C. exercised a very powerful influence upon the thought of his age,
not only by his own writings and personality, but through the
many men of distinction both in literature and active life whom he
imbued with his doctrines; and perhaps no better proof of this
exists than the fact that much that was new and original when first
propounded by him has passed into the texture of the national
ideas. His style is perhaps the most remarkable and individual in
our literature, intensely strong, vivid, and picturesque, but utterly
unconventional, and often whimsical or explosive. He had in a
high degree the poetic and imaginative faculty, and also irresistible
humour, pungent sarcasm, insight, tenderness, and fierce indignation.

All the works of C. shed light on his personality, but Sartor
Resartus especially may be regarded as autobiographical. Froude’s
Thomas Carlyle … First 40 Years of his Life (1882), Thomas Carlyle … His
Life in London, by the same (1884), Letters and
Memories of Jane Welsh Carlyle (1883), various Lives and Reminiscences
by Prof. Masson and Nichol, etc.

SUMMARY.—B. 1795, ed. Edin., studies for Church but gives
it up, tries law, then tutor, takes to literature and writes for encyclopædias
and magazines, and translates, m. 1826 Jane Welsh,
settles in Edin., writes essays in Edinburgh Review, goes to Craigenputtock
1828, writes Sartor and corresponds with Goethe,
Sartor appears in Fraser’s Magazine 1833-4, settles in London 1834,
pub. French Revolution 1837, lectures, pub. Heroes, and Chartism
and Sartor as a book 1839, Past and Present 1843, Oliver Cromwell
1845, Latter Day Pamphlets 1850, writes Frederick the Great 1851-65,
Lord Rector of Edin. Univ. 1865, Mrs. C. d. 1865, writes Reminiscences
1866 (pub. 1881), d. 1881.

CARRUTHERS, ROBERT (1799-1878).
—Journalist and miscellaneous
writer, b. in Dumfriesshire, was for a time a teacher in
Huntingdon, and wrote a History of Huntingdon (1824). In 1828
he became ed. of the Inverness Courier, which he conducted with
great ability. He ed. Pope’s works with a memoir (1853), and
along with Robert Chambers (q.v.) ed. the first ed. of Chambers’s
Cyclopedia of English Literature (1842-44). He received the degree
of LL.D. from Edin.

CARTE, THOMAS (1686-1754).
—Historian, b. near Rugby,
and ed. at Oxf., took orders, but resigned his benefice at Bath
when required to take the oath of allegiance to George I. He was
sec. to Francis Atterbury (q.v.), and was involved in the consequences
of his conspiracy, but escaped to France, where he
remained until 1728. After his return he pub. a life of the Duke of
Ormonde (1736), and a History of England to 1654 in 4 vols. (1747-54),
the latter a work of great research, though dry and unattractive
in style.

CARTER, ELIZABETH (1717-1806).
—Miscellaneous writer,
b. at Deal, dau. of a clergyman. Originally backward, she applied
herself to study with such perseverance that she became perhaps
the most learned Englishwoman of her time, being mistress of Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic, besides several modern European
languages. She was also well read in science. She translated
Epictetus 1758, and wrote a small vol. of poems. She was the
friend of Dr. Johnson and many other eminent men. She was of
agreeable and unassuming manners.

CARTWRIGHT, WILLIAM (1611-1643).
—Dramatist, s. of
a gentleman of Gloucestershire, who had run through his fortune
and kept an inn at Cirencester, ed. at Westminster School and
Oxf., entered the Church, was a zealous Royalist, and an eloquent
preacher, and lecturer in metaphysics. He also wrote spirited
lyrics and four plays. He was the friend of Ben Jonson, H.
Vaughan, and Izaak Walton. He d. at Oxf. of camp fever.
Among his plays are The Royal Slave, The Siege, and The Lady
Errant. His virtues, learning, and charming manners made him
highly popular in his day.

CARY, ALICE (1820-1871), and PHOEBE (1824-1871).
—Were
the dau. of a farmer near Cincinnati. The former wrote
Clovernook Papers and Clovernook Children, and other tales, and
some poems. The latter wrote poems and hymns. Both sisters
attained considerable popularity.

CARY, HENRY FRANCIS (1772-1844).
—Translator, was b.
at Gibraltar, and ed. at Oxf., where he was distinguished for his
classical attainments. His great work is his translation of the
Divina Commedia of Dante (1805-1814), which is not only faithful
to the original, but full of poetic fire, and rendered into such fine
English as to be itself literature apart from its merits as a translation.
He also translated from the Greek. C., who was a clergyman,
received a pension in 1841.

CATLIN, GEORGE (1796-1872).
—Painter and writer, b. at
Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, practised for some time as a lawyer, but
yielding to his artistic instincts he took to painting. He spent the 7
years, 1832-39, among the Indians of North America, of whom he
painted about 500 portraits. He became thoroughly acquainted
with their life, and pub. an interesting work, Illustrations of the
Manners, etc., of the North American Indians (1857). His later
years were spent chiefly in Europe.

CAVE, EDWARD (1691-1754).
—Publisher, b. near Rugby,
started in 1731 The Gentleman’s Magazine, for which Dr. Johnson
was parliamentary reporter from 1740. He pub. many of Johnson’s
works.

CAVENDISH, GEORGE (1500-1561).
—Biographer, was
Gentleman Usher to Cardinal Wolsey, to whom he was so much
attached that he followed him in his disgrace, and continued to
serve him until his death. He left in MS. a life of his patron, which
is the first separate biography in English, and is the main original
authority of the period. Admitting Wolsey’s faults, it nevertheless
presents him in an attractive light. The simple yet eloquent style
gives it a high place as a biography.

CAXTON, WILLIAM (1422-1491).
—Printer and translator,
b. in the Weald of Kent, was apprenticed to a London mercer. On
his master’s death in 1441 he went to Bruges, and lived there and in
various other places in the Low Countries for over 30 years, engaged
apparently as head of an association of English merchants trading
in foreign parts, and in negotiating commercial treaties between
England and the Dukes of Burgundy. His first literary labour was
a translation of a French romance, which he entitled The Recuyell of
the Historyes of Troye, and which he finished in 1471. About this
time he learned the art of printing, and, after being in the service of
Margaret Duchess of Burgundy, an English princess, returned to his
native country and set up at Westminster in 1476 his printing press,
the first in England. His Recuyell and The Game and Playe of
Chesse had already been printed—the first books in English—on
the Continent. Here was produced the first book printed in England,
The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers (1477). C. obtained
Royal favour, printed from 80 to 100 separate works—many of them
translations of his own—and d. almost with pen in hand in 1491.
His style is clear and idiomatic.

CENTLIVRE, MRS. SUSANNA (1667-1723).
—Dramatist and
actress, was the dau. of a gentleman of the name of either Rawkins
or Freeman, who appears to have belonged either to Lincolnshire or
Ireland, or was perhaps connected with both, and who suffered at
the hands of the Stuarts. She m. at 16, lost her husband in a
year, then m. an officer, who fell in a duel in 18 months, and
finally, in 1706, m. Joseph C., cook to Queen Anne, with whom she
lived happily for the rest of her days. She wrote 18 or 19 plays,
well constructed and amusing, among which may be mentioned
The Perjured Husband (1700), The Busybody (1709), The Warder
(1714), and A Bold Stroke for a Wife (1717). She was a strong Whig,
and sometimes made her plays the medium of expressing her
political opinions.

CHALKHILL, JOHN (fl. 1600).
—Poet, mentioned by Izaak
Walton as having written a pastoral poem, Thealma and Clearchus.
As nothing else is known of him it has been held by some that the
name was a nom-de-plume of W. himself. It has been shown, however,
that a gentleman of the name existed during the reign of
Elizabeth. W. says he was a friend of Spenser, and that his life
was “useful, quiet, and virtuous.”

CHALMERS, GEORGE (1742-1825).
—Antiquary, b. at
Fochabers, Elginshire, emigrated to America and practised law in
Baltimore; but on the outbreak of the Revolutionary War returned
to Britain, and settled in London as a clerk in the Board of Trade.
He pub. in 1780 a History of the United Colonies, and wrote lives of
Sir David Lyndsay, De Foe, and Mary Queen of Scots. His great
work, however, is his Caledonia, of which 3 vols. had been pub. at
his death. It was to have been a complete coll. of the topography
and antiquities of Scotland; and, as it stands, is a monument
of industry and research, though not always trustworthy in
disputed points. Besides those mentioned, C. was the author of
many other works on political, historical, and literary subjects, and
had projected several which he was unable to carry out.

CHALMERS, THOMAS (1780-1847).
—Divine, economist,
and philanthropist, b. at Anstruther, Fife, s. of a shipowner and
merchant, studied at St. Andrews and, entering the ministry of
the Church of Scotland, was first settled in the small parish of
Kilmeny, Fife, but, his talents and eloquence becoming known, he
was, in 1815, translated to Glasgow, where he was soon recognised
as the most eloquent preacher in Scotland, and where also he
initiated his schemes for the management of the poor. In 1823,
he became Prof. of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrews, and in 1828
of Divinity in Edin. In 1834 he began his great scheme of
Church extension, the result of which was that in seven years
£300,000 had been raised, and 220 churches built. In the same
year, 1834, began the troubles and controversies in regard to
patronage and the relations of Church and State, which in 1843
ended in the disruption of the Church, when 470 ministers with
C. at their head, resigned their benefices, and founded the Free
Church of Scotland. C. was chosen its first Moderator and Principal
of its Theological Coll. in Edin. The remaining four years of
his life were spent in organising the new Church, and in works
of philanthropy. He was found dead in bed on the morning of
May 30, 1847. His chief works, which were coll. and pub. in 34
vols., relate to natural theology, evidences of Christianity, political
economy, and general theology and science. Those which perhaps
attracted most attention were his Astronomical Discourses and his
Lectures on Church Establishments, the latter delivered in London to
audiences containing all that was most distinguished in rank and
intellect in the country. The style of C. is cumbrous, and often
turgid, but the moral earnestness, imagination, and force of intellect
of the writer shine through it and irradiate his subjects. And yet
the written is described by contemporaries to have been immeasurably
surpassed by the spoken word, which carried away the hearer
as in a whirlwind. And the man was even greater than his achievements.
His character was one of singular simplicity, nobility, and
lovableness, and produced a profound impression on all who came
under his influence. The character of his intellect was notably
practical, as is evidenced by the success of his parochial administration
and the “Sustentation Fund,” devised by him for the support
of the ministry of the Free Church. He was D.D., LL.D., D.C.L.
(Oxon.), and a Corresponding Member of the Institute of France.

Memoirs (Hanna, 4 vols.). Smaller works by Prof. Blaikie (1897),
Mrs. Oliphant (1893), and many others.

CHAMBERLAYNE, WILLIAM (1619-1689).
—Poet, practised
medicine at Shaftesbury. On the outbreak of the Civil War he
joined the Royalists and fought at the second battle of Newbury.
He wrote a play, Loves Victory (1658), and an epic Pharonnida
(1659). With occasional beauties he is, in the main, heavy and
stiff, and is almost forgotten. He influenced Keats.

CHAMBERS, ROBERT (1802-1871).
—Historical and scientific
writer, was b. at Peebles. Early dependent on his own exertions,
he started business as a bookseller in Edin. at the age of
16, devoting all his spare time to study, to such purpose that in
1824 he pub. Traditions of Edinburgh, a work in which he had the
assistance of Sir W. Scott. Thereafter he poured forth a continuous
stream of books and essays on historical, social, antiquarian, and
scientific subjects. He joined his brother William (q.v.) in establishing
the publishing firm of W. and R. Chambers, and in starting
Chambers’s Journal, to which he was a constant contributor. Later
ventures were The Cyclopedia of English Literature (1842-44), of
which several ed. have appeared (last 1903-6). and Chambers’s
Cyclopædia (10 vols. 1859-68; new 1888-92). Among his own
works may be mentioned Vestiges of Creation, pub. anonymously
(1844), a precursor of Darwinism, A Life of Burns (1851), Popular
Rhymes of Scotland (1847), History of the Rebellions in Scotland,
Domestic Annals of Scotland (1859-61), Ancient Sea Margins (1848),
Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen and The Book of Days (1863). He
was LL.D. of St. Andrews.

CHAMBERS, WILLIAM (1800-1883).
—Publisher and miscellaneous
author, b. at Peebles, started in 1832 with his brother
Robert (q.v.) Chambers’s Journal, and soon after joined him in the
firm of W. and R. Chambers. Besides contributions to the Journal
he wrote several books, including a History of Peeblesshire (1864),
and an autobiography of himself and his brother. C. was a man of
great business capacity, and, though of less literary distinction than
his brother, did much for the dissemination of cheap and useful
literature. He was Lord Provost of Edin. 1865-69, and was an
LL.D. of the Univ. of that city. He restored the ancient church
of St. Giles there.

CHAMIER, FREDERICK (1796-1870).
—Novelist, was in
the navy, in which he rose to the rank of Captain. Retiring in 1827,
he wrote several sea novels somewhat in the style of Marryat, including
Life of a Sailor (1832), Ben Brace, Jack Adams, and Tom
Bowling (1841). He also continued James’s Naval History, and
wrote books of travel.

CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY (1780-1842).
—American
Divine, b. at Newport, Rhode Island, was for a time a minister in
the Congregationalist Church, but became the leader of the Unitarians
in New England. He had a powerful influence on the thought and
literature of his time in America, and was the author of books on
Milton and Fénelon, and on social subjects. The elevation and
amiability of his character caused him to be held in high esteem.
He did not class himself with Unitarians of the school of Priestley,
but claimed to “stand aloof from all but those who strive and pray
for clearer light.”

CHAPMAN, GEORGE (1559-1634).
—Dramatist and translator,
was b. near Hitchin, and probably ed. at Oxf. and Camb.
He wrote many plays, including The Blind Beggar of Alexandria
(1596), All Fools (1599), A Humerous Daye’s Myrthe (1599), Eastward
Hoe (with Jonson), The Gentleman Usher, Monsieur d’Olive, etc.
As a dramatist he has humour, and vigour, and occasional poetic
fire, but is very unequal. His great work by which he lives in
literature is his translation of Homer. The Iliad was pub. in 1611,
the Odyssey in 1616, and the Hymns, etc., in 1624. The work is full
of energy and spirit, and well maintains its place among the many
later translations by men of such high poetic powers as Pope and
Cowper, and others: and it had the merit of suggesting Keats’s
immortal Sonnet, in which its name and memory are embalmed for
many who know it in no other way. C. also translated from
Petrarch, and completed Marlowe’s unfinished Hero and Leander.

CHAPONE, HESTER (MULSO) (1727-1801).
—Miscellaneous
writer, dau. of a gentleman of Northamptonshire, was m. to a
solicitor, who d. a few months afterwards. She was one of the
learned ladies who gathered round Mrs. Montague (q.v.), and was
the author of Letters on the Improvement of the Mind and Miscellanies.

CHARLETON, WALTER (1619-1707).
—Miscellaneous
writer, ed. at Oxf., was titular physician to Charles I. He was a
copious writer on theology, natural history, and antiquities, and
pub. Chorea Gigantum (1663) to prove that Stonehenge was built
by the Danes. He was also one of the “character” writers, and
in this kind of literature wrote A Brief Discourse concerning the
Different Wits of Men (1675).

CHATTERTON, THOMAS (1752-1770).
—Poet, b. at Bristol,
posthumous s. of a schoolmaster, who had been a man of some reading
and antiquarian tastes, after whose death his mother maintained
herself and her boy and girl by teaching and needlework. A black-letter
Bible and an illuminated music-book belonging to her were
the first things to give his mind the impulse which led to such
mingled glory and disaster. Living under the shadow of the great
church of St. Mary Redcliffe, his mind was impressed from infancy
with the beauty of antiquity, he obtained access to the charters
deposited there, and he read every scrap of ancient literature that
came in his way. At 14 he was apprenticed to a solicitor named
Lambert, with whom he lived in sordid circumstances, eating in the
kitchen and sleeping with the foot-boy, but continuing his favourite
studies in every spare moment. In 1768 a new bridge was opened,
and C. contributed to a local newspaper what purported to be a
contemporary account of the old one which it superseded. This
attracted a good deal of attention. Previously to this he had been
writing verses and imitating ancient poems under the name of
Thomas Rowley, whom he feigned to be a monk of the 15th century.
Hearing of H. Walpole’s collections for his Anecdotes of Painting in
England, he sent him an “ancient manuscript” containing biographies
of certain painters, not hitherto known, who had flourished
in England centuries before. W. fell into the trap, and wrote asking
for all the MS. he could furnish, and C. in response forwarded
accounts of more painters, adding some particulars as to himself
on which W., becoming suspicious, submitted the whole to T. Gray
and Mason (q.v.), who pronounced the MS. to be forgeries. Some
correspondence, angry on C.’s part, ensued, and the whole budget
of papers was returned. C. thereafter, having been dismissed by
Lambert, went to London, and for a short time his prospects seemed
to be bright. He worked with feverish energy, threw off poems,
satires, and political papers, and meditated a history of England;
but funds and spirits failed, he was starving, and the failure to
obtain an appointment as ship’s surgeon, for which he had applied,
drove him to desperation, and on the morning of August 25, 1770, he
was found dead from a dose of arsenic, surrounded by his writings torn
into small pieces. From childhood C. had shown a morbid familiarity
with the idea of suicide, and had written a last will and testament,
“executed in the presence of Omniscience,” and full of wild and
profane wit. The magnitude of his tragedy is only realised when it
is considered not only that the poetry he left was of a high order of
originality and imaginative power, but that it was produced at an
age at which our greatest poets, had they died, would have remained
unknown. Precocious not only in genius but in dissipation, proud
and morose as he was, an unsympathetic age confined itself mainly
to awarding blame to his literary and moral delinquencies.
Posterity has weighed him in a juster balance, and laments the
early quenching of so brilliant a light. His coll. works appeared in
1803, and another ed. by Prof. Street in 1875. Among these are
Elinoure and Juga, Balade of Charitie, Bristowe Tragedie, Ælla, and
Tragedy of Godwin.

The best account of his life is the Essay by Prof. Masson.

CHAUCER, GEOFFREY (1340?-1400).
—Poet, was b. in
London, the s. of John C., a vintner of Thames Street, who had also
a small estate at Ipswich, and was occasionally employed on service
for the King (Edward III.), which doubtless was the means of his
son’s introduction to the Court. The acquaintance which C. displays
with all branches of the learning of his time shows that he must
have received an ample education; but there is no evidence
that he was at either of the Univ. In 1357 he appears as a page
to the Lady Elizabeth, wife of Lionel Duke of Clarence, and in
1359 he first saw military service in France, when he was made a
prisoner. He was, however, ransomed in 1360. About 1366 he was
married to Philippa, dau. of Sir Payne Roet, one of the ladies of the
Duchess of Lancaster, whose sister Katharine, widow of Sir Hugh
Swynford, became the third wife of John of Gaunt. Previous to this
he had apparently been deeply in love with another lady, whose rank
probably placed her beyond his reach; his disappointment finding
expression in his Compleynt to Pité. In 1367 he was one of the
valets of the King’s Chamber, a post always held by gentlemen, and
received a pension of 20 marks, and he was soon afterwards one of
the King’s esquires. In 1369 Blanche, the wife of John of Gaunt,
died, which gave occasion for a poem by C. in honour of her
memory, The Dethe of Blaunche the Duchesse. In the same year he
again bore arms in France, and during the next ten years he was
frequently employed on diplomatic missions. In 1370 he was sent
to Genoa to arrange a commercial treaty, on which occasion he may
have met Petrarch, and was rewarded by a grant in 1374 of a
pitcher of wine daily. In the same year he got from the corporation
of London a lease for life of a house at Aldgate, on condition of keeping
it in repair; and soon after he was appointed Comptroller of the
Customs and Subsidy of Wool, Skins, and Leather in the port of
London; he also received from the Duke of Lancaster a pension of
£10. In 1375 he obtained the guardianship of a rich ward, which
he held for three years, and the next year he was employed on a
secret service. In 1377 he was sent on a mission to Flanders to
treat of peace with the French King. After the accession of
Richard II. in that year, he was sent to France to treat for the
marriage of the King with the French Princess Mary, and thereafter
to Lombardy, on which occasion he appointed John Gower (q.v.) to
act for him in his absence in any legal proceedings which might
arise. In 1382 he became Comptroller of the Petty Customs of the
port of London, and in 1385 was allowed to appoint a deputy, which,
enabled him to devote more time to writing. He had in 1373
begun his Canterbury Tales, on which he was occupied at intervals
for the rest of his life. In 1386 C. was elected Knight of the Shire
for Kent, a county with which he appears to have had some connection,
and where he may have had property. His fortunes now
suffered some eclipse. His patron, John of Gaunt, was abroad, and
the government was presided over by his brother Gloucester, who
was at feud with him. Owing probably to this cause, C. was in
December, 1386, dismissed from his employments, leaving him
with no income beyond his pensions, on which he was obliged to
raise money. His wife also died at the same time. In 1389, however,
Richard took the government into his own hands, and
prosperity returned to C., whose friends were now in power, and he
was appointed Clerk of the King’s works. This office, however, he
held for two years only, and again fell into poverty, from which he
was rescued in 1394 by a pension from the King of £20. On the
accession of Henry IV. (1399) an additional pension of 40 marks
was given him. In the same year he took a lease of a house at
Westminster, where he probably d., October 25, 1400. He is buried
in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, where a monument to him
was erected by Nicholas Brigham, a minor poet of the 16th century.
According to some authorities he left two sons, Thomas, who became
a man of wealth and importance, and Lewis, who died young, the
little ten-year-old boy to whom he addressed the treatise on the
Astrolabe. Others see no evidence that Thomas was any relation
of the poet. An Elizabeth C., placed in the Abbey of Barking by
John of Gaunt, was probably his dau. In person C. was inclined to
corpulence, “no poppet to embrace,” of fair complexion with “a
beard the colour of ripe wheat,” an “elvish” expression, and an
eye downcast and meditative.

Of the works ascribed to C. several are, for various reasons, of
greater or less strength, considered doubtful. These include The
Romaunt of the Rose, Chaucer’s Dream, and The Flower and the Leaf.
After his return from Italy about 1380 he entered upon his period
of greatest productiveness: Troilus and Criseyde (1382?), The
Parlement of Foules (1382?), The House of Fame (1384?), and The
Legende of Goode Women (1385), belong to this time. The first of
them still remains one of the finest poems of its kind in the language.
But the glory of C. is, of course, the Canterbury Tales, a work which
places him in the front rank of the narrative poets of the world. It
contains about 18,000 lines of verse, besides some passages in prose,
and was left incomplete. In it his power of story-telling, his
humour, sometimes broad, sometimes sly, his vivid picture-drawing,
his tenderness, and lightness of touch, reach their highest development.
He is our first artist in poetry, and with him begins modern
English literature. His character—genial, sympathetic, and
pleasure-loving, yet honest, diligent, and studious—is reflected in
his writings.

SUMMARY.—B. 1340, fought in France 1359, by his marriage in
1366 became connected with John of Gaunt, employed on diplomatic
missions 1369-79, Controller of Customs, etc., c. 1374, began Canterbury
Tales 1373, elected to Parliament 1386, loses his appointments
1386, Clerk of King’s Works 1389-91, pensioned by Richard II. and
Henry IV., d. c. 1400.

The best ed. of C. is The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (6
vols. 1894), ed. by Prof. Skeat. Others are Thos. Wright’s for the
Percy Society (1842), and Richard Morris’s in Bell’s Aldine Classics
(1866).

CHERRY, ANDREW (1762-1812).
—Dramatist, s. of a bookseller
at Limerick, was a successful actor, and managed theatres in
the provinces. He also wrote some plays, of which The Soldier’s
Daughter is the best. His chief claim to remembrance rests on his
three songs, The Bay of Biscay, The Green Little Shamrock, and Tom
Moody.

CHESTERFIELD, PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, 4TH EARL OF (1694-1773).
—Statesman
and letter-writer, was the eldest s. of the
3rd Earl. After being at Trinity Coll., Camb., he sat in the House
of Commons until his accession to the peerage in 1726. He filled
many high offices, including those of Ambassador to Holland,
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Sec. of State. He was distinguished
for his wit, conversational powers, and grace of manner.
His place in literature is fixed by his well-known Letters addressed
to his natural son, Philip Dormer Stanhope. Though brilliant, and
full of shrewdness and knowledge of the world, they reflect the low
tone of morals prevalent in the age when they were written. He
was the recipient of Johnson’s famous letter as to his “patronage.”

CHETTLE, HENRY (1565-1607?).
—Dramatist. Very little
is known of him. He ed. R. Greene’s Groat’s-worth of Wit (1592),
is believed to have written 13 and collaborated in 35 plays. He also
wrote two satires, Kind Harts Dreame (1593), and Pierre Plainnes
Prentship (1595). He was imprisoned for debt 1599.

Among his own plays, which have considerable merit, is Hoffmann,
which has been reprinted, and he had a hand in Patient Grissill
(1603) (which may have influenced Shakespeare in the Merry Wives
of Windsor), The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, and Jane Shore.

CHILD, FRANCIS J. (1825-1896).
—English scholar, b. at
Boston, Mass., was a prof. at Harvard, one of the foremost students
of early English, and especially of ancient ballads in America. He
ed. the American ed. of English Poets in 130 vols., and English and
Scottish Ballads. He was also a profound student of Chaucer, and
pub. Observations on the Language of Chaucer, and Observations on the
Language of Gower’s Confessio Amantis.

CHILD, MRS. LYDIA MARIA (FRANCIS) (1802-1880).
—Was
the author of many once popular tales, Hobomok, The Rebels,
Philothes, etc.

CHILLINGWORTH, WILLIAM (1602-1644).
—Theologian
and controversialist, b. and ed. at Oxf., was godson of Archbishop
Laud. Falling into theological doubts he subsequently became a
convert to Roman Catholicism, and studied at the Jesuit Coll. at
Douay, 1630. In the following year he returned to Oxf., and
after further consideration of the points at issue, he rejoined the
Church of England, 1634. This exposed him to violent attacks on
the part of the Romanists, in reply to which he pub. in 1637 his
famous polemic, The Religion of the Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation,
characterised by clear style and logical reasoning. For a
time he refused ecclesiastical preferment, but ultimately his scruples
were overcome, and he became Prebendary and Chancellor of Salisbury.
C. is regarded as one of the ablest controversialists of the
Anglican Church.

CHURCH, RICHARD WILLIAM (1815-1890).
—Divine, historian,
and biographer, was b. at Lisbon, and ed. at Oxf., where he
became a friend of J.H. Newman (q.v.). He took orders, and became
Rector of Whatley, Somerset, and in 1871 Dean of St. Paul’s. He
was a leading member of the High Church party, but was held in
reverence by many who did not sympathise with his ecclesiastical
views. Among his writings are The Beginning of the Middle Ages
(1877), and a memoir on The Oxford Movement (1891), pub. posthumously.
He also wrote Lives of Anselm, Dante, Spenser, and Bacon.

CHURCHILL, CHARLES (1731-1764).
—Satirist, s. of a
clergyman, was ed. at Westminster School, and while still a schoolboy
made a clandestine marriage. He entered the Church, and on
the death of his f. in 1758 succeeded him in the curacy and lectureship
of St. John’s, Westminster. In 1761 he pub. the Rosciad, in
which he severely satirised the players and managers of the day.
It at once brought him both fame and money; but he fell into
dissipated habits, separated from his wife, and outraged the proprieties
of his profession to such an extent that he was compelled
to resign his preferments. He also incurred the enmity of those
whom he had attacked, which led to the publication of two other
satirical pieces, The Apology and Night. He also attacked Dr.
Johnson and his circle in The Ghost, and the Scotch in The
Prophecy of Famine. He attached himself to John Wilkes, on a
visit to whom, at Boulogne, he d. of fever.

CHURCHYARD, THOMAS (1520?-1604).
—Poet and miscellaneous
writer, began life as a page to the Earl of Surrey, and subsequently
passed through many vicissitudes as a soldier in Scotland,
Ireland, France, and the Low Countries. He was latterly a hanger-on
at Court, and had a pension of eighteenpence a day from Queen
Elizabeth, which was not, however, regularly paid. He wrote innumerable
pamphlets and broadsides, and some poems, of which
the best are Shore’s Wife (1563), The Worthiness of Wales (1587)
repub. by the Spenser Society (1871), and Churchyard’s Chips (1575),
an autobiographical piece.

CIBBER, COLLEY (1671-1757).
—Actor and dramatist, b.
in London, s. of a Danish sculptor, and ed. at Grantham School.
Soon after his return to London he took to the stage. Beginning
with tragedy, in which he failed, he turned to comedy, and became
popular in eccentric rôles. In 1696 he brought out his first play,
Love’s Last Shift, and produced in all about 30 plays, some of which
were very successful. In 1730 he was made Poet Laureate, and
wrote some forgotten odes of no merit, also an entertaining autobiography.
Pope made him the hero of the Dunciad.

Among other plays are The Nonjuror (1717), Woman’s Wit, She
Would and She Would Not, The Provoked Husband (1728) (with
Vanbrugh).

CLARE, JOHN (1793-1864).
—Poet, s. of a cripple pauper,
was b. at Helpstone near Peterborough. His youth is the record of
a noble struggle against adverse circumstances. With great difficulty
he managed to save one pound, with which he was able to have
a prospectus of his first book of poems printed, which led to an
acquaintance with Mr. Drury, a bookseller in Stamford, by whose
help the poems were pub., and brought him £20. The book, Poems
descriptive of Rural Life (1820), immediately attracted attention.
Various noblemen befriended him and stocked a farm for him.
But unfortunately C. had no turn for practical affairs, and got into
difficulties. He, however, continued to produce poetry, and in
addition to The Village Minstrel, which had appeared in 1821,
pub. The Shepherd’s Calendar (1827), and Rural Muse (1835).
Things, however, went on from bad to worse; his mind gave way,
and he d. in an asylum. C. excels in description of rural scenes and
the feelings and ideas of humble country life.

CLARENDON, EDWARD HYDE, EARL of (1608-1674).
—Lawyer,
statesman, and historian, s. of a country gentleman of good
estate in Wiltshire, was b. at Dinton in that county, and ed. at
Oxf. Destined originally for the Church, circumstances led to
his being sent to London to study law, which he did under his uncle,
Sir Nicholas H., Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. In early life he
was the friend of all the leading men of the day. Entering Parliament
in 1640 he at first supported popular measures, but, on the
outbreak of the Civil War, attached himself to the King, and was
the author of many of his state papers. From 1648 until the
Restoration C. was engaged in various embassies and as a counsellor
of Charles II., who made him in 1658 his Lord Chancellor, an
office in which he was confirmed at the Restoration, when he also
became Chancellor of the Univ. of Oxf., and was likewise raised
to the peerage. His power and influence came to an end, however,
in 1667, when he was dismissed from all his offices, was impeached,
and had to fly to France. The causes of his fall were partly the
miscarriage of the war with Holland, and the sale of Dunkirk, and
partly the jealousy of rivals and the intrigues of place hunters,
whose claims he had withstood. In his enforced retirement he
engaged himself in completing his great historic work, The History
of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, which he had begun in
1641, and which was not pub. until 1702-4. C.’s style is easy,
flowing, diffuse, and remarkably modern, with an occasional want
of clearness owing to his long and involved sentences. His great
strength is in character-painting, in which he is almost unrivalled.
The History was followed by a supplementary History of the Civil
War in Ireland (1721). C. also wrote an autobiography, The Life
of Edward Earl of Clarendon (1759), a reply to the Leviathan of
Hobbes, and An Essay on the Active and Contemplative Life, in
which the superiority of the former is maintained. C. d. at Rouen.
He was a man of high personal character, and great intellect and
sagacity, but lacking in the firmness and energy necessary for the
troublous times in which he lived. His dau. Anne married the
Duke of York, afterwards James II., a connection which involved
him in much trouble and humiliation.

Agar Ellis’s Historical Enquiry respecting the Character of
Clarendon (1827), Life by T.H. Lister (1838), History (Macray, 6
vols., 1888).

CLARKE, CHARLES COWDEN (1787-1877).
—Writer on
Shakespeare, was a publisher in London. He lectured on Shakespeare
and on European literature. Latterly he lived in France
and Italy. His wife, MARY C.-C. (1809-1898), dau. of V. Novello,
musician, compiled a complete Concordance to Shakespeare (1844-45),
and wrote The Shakespeare Key (1879) and, with her husband,
Recollections of Writers (1878).

CLARKE, MARCUS (1846-1881).
—Novelist, b. in London,
the s. of a barrister. After a somewhat wild youth he went to
Australia where, after more than one failure to achieve success in
business, he took to journalism on the staff of the Melbourne Argus,
with brilliant results. He wrote two novels, Long Odds and For the
Term of his Natural Life (1874), the latter, which is generally considered
his masterpiece, dealing in a powerful and realistic manner
with transportation and convict labour. He also wrote many
short tales and dramatic pieces. After a turbulent and improvident
life he d. at 35. In addition to the works above mentioned, he
wrote Lower Bohemia in Melbourne, The Humbug Papers, The
Future Australian Race. As a writer he was keen, brilliant, and
bitter.