CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS
- FIRST PERIOD—1588?-1596
- LOVE'S LABOUR LOST (1591)—Plot probably original.
- TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA (1591)—The Shepherdess Felismena in George of Montmayor's Diana.
- COMEDY OF ERRORS (1591)—Menæchmi of Plautus and earlier play.
- ROMEO AND JULIET (1591)—Italian romance in Painter's Palace of Pleasure and Broke's Romeus and Juliet.
- HENRY VI. 1, 2, and 3 (1592)—Retouched old plays, probably with Marlowe.
- RICHARD III. (1592-3)—Holinshed's Chronicle.
- RICHARD II. (1593-4?)— do.
- TITUS ANDRONICUS (1594)—Probably chiefly by Kyd, retouched.
- KING JOHN (1594)—Old play retouched.
- SECOND PERIOD—1596-1601-2
- MERCHANT OF VENICE (1594)—Italian novels, Gesta Romanorum, and earlier plays.
- MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (1595)—North's Plutarch, Chaucer, Ovid.
- ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (1595)—Painter's Palace of Pleasure.
- TAMING OF THE SHREW (1596?)—Old play retouched, and Supposes of G. Gascoigne, Shakespeare's in part only.
- HENRY IV. 1 and 2 (1597?)—Holinshed and earlier play.
- MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR (1597-8)—Italian novels (?).
- HENRY V. (1599).
- MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (1599)—Partly from Italian.
- AS YOU LIKE IT (1599)—Lodge's Rosalynde, Euphues' Golden Legacie.
- TWELFTH NIGHT (1599)—B. Riche's Apolonius and Silla.
- THIRD PERIOD—1602-1608
- JULIUS CÆSAR (1601)—North's Plutarch.
- HAMLET (1601-2)—Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques.
- TROILUS AND CRESSIDA (1603?)—Probably Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseide and Chapman's Homer.
- OTHELLO (1604)—Cinthio's Hecatommithi.
- MEASURE FOR MEASURE (1604?)—Cinthio's Epithia.
- MACBETH (1605-6?)—Holinshed.
- LEAR (1606)— do.
- TIMON OF ATHENS (1607?)—Palace of Pleasure and Plutarch written with G. Wilkins (?) and W. Rowley (?).
- PERICLES (1607-8)—Gower's Confessio Amantis, with G. Wilkins (?).
- ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (1608)—North's Plutarch.
- CORIOLANUS (1608)— do.
- FOURTH PERIOD—1608-1613
- CYMBELINE (1610-11?)—Holinshed and Ginevra in Boccaccio's Decamerone.
- WINTER'S TALE (1610-11)—Green's Dorastus and Fawnia.
- TEMPEST (1611?)—S. Jourdain's Discovery of the Bermudas.
- HENRY VIII. (1612-13)—Draft by S. completed by Fletcher and perhaps Massinger.
- POEMS
- VENUS AND ADONIS (1593).
- RAPE OF LUCRECE (1594).
- SONNETS (1591-94?).
The evidence as to chronology is three-fold—(1) External, such as entries in registers of Stationers' Company, contemporary references, or details as to the companies of actors; (2) External and internal combined, such as references in the plays to events or books, etc.; (3) Internal, content and treatment, progressive changes in versification, presence of frequency of rhyme, etc. The genius of S. was so intensely dramatic that it is impossible to say confidently when he speaks in his own character. The sonnets, written probably 1591-94 have, however, been thought to be of a more personal nature, and to contain indications as to his character and history, and much labour and ingenuity have been expended to make them yield their secrets. It is generally agreed that they fall into two sections, the first consisting of sonnets 1 to 126 addressed to a young man, probably Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the friend and patron of S., and 9 years his junior; and the second from 127 to 154 addressed or referring to a woman in whose snares the writer had become entangled, and by whom he was betrayed. Some, however, have held that they are allegorical, or partly written on behalf of others, or that the emotion they express is dramatic and not personal.
There are contemporary references to S. which show him to have been generally held in high regard. Thus Ben Jonson says, "I loved the man, and do honour to his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any," and Chettle refers to "His demeanour no lesse civil than exelent in the qualities he professes." The only exception is a reference to him in Greene's Groat's-worth of Wit, as "an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tyger's heart wrapt in a player's hide supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you ... and is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a countrie." He is said to have written rapidly and with facility, rarely requiring to alter what he had set down. In addition to his generally received works, others have been attributed to him, some of which have been already mentioned: the only two which appear to have serious claims to consideration are The Two Noble Kinsmen, partly by Fletcher, and Edward III., of which part of Act I. and the whole of Act II. have been thought to be Shakespeare's. On the other hand a theory has been propounded that none of the plays bearing his name were really his, but that they were written by [Bacon] (q.v.). This extraordinary view has been widely supported, chiefly in America, and has been sometimes maintained; with considerable ability and misplaced ingenuity.
SUMMARY.—B. 1564, ed. at Stratford School, f. falls into difficulties c. 1577, m. Ann Hathaway 1582, goes to London end of 1585, finds employment in theatres and acts in chief companies of the time, first in "The Theatre" afterwards the "Rose," the "Curtain," the "Globe" and "Blackfriars," appearing in Jonson's Every Man in his Humour and Sejanus. Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, earlier plays, and perhaps most of sonnets pub. by 1595, when he was friend of Southampton and known at Court, purchases New Place at Stratford, falls into trouble c. 1600, having lost friends in Essex's conspiracy, and has unfortunate love affair; emerges from this into honour and peace, retires to Stratford and d. 1616. Productive period c. 1588-1613, 4 divisions, first (1588-96), second (1596-1601), third (1601-1608), fourth (1608-1613). Of 37 plays usually attributed, only 16 pub. in his life.
As might have been expected, there is a copious literature devoted to Shakespeare and his works. Among those dealing with biography may be mentioned Halliwell Phillipps's Outline of the Life of Shakespeare (7th ed., 1887), Fleay's Shakespeare Manual (1876), and Life of Shakespeare (1886). Life by S. Lee (1898), Dowden's Shakespeare, his Mind and Art (1875), Drake's Shakespeare and his Times (1817), Thornberry's Shakespeare's England (1856), Knight's Shakespeare (1843). See also Works by Guizot, De Quincey, Fullom, Elze, and others. Criticisms by Coleridge, Hazlitt, Swinburne, T.S. Baynes, and others. Concordance by Mrs. Cowden Clarke. Ed., Rowe (1709), Pope (1725), Theobald (1733), Johnson (1765), Capell (1768), Steevens's improved re-issue of Johnson (1773), Malone (1790), Reed's 1st Variorum (1803), 2nd Variorum (1813), 3rd Variorum by Jas. Boswell the younger (1821), Dyce (1857), Staunton (1868-70), Camb. by W.G. Clark and Dr. Aldis Wright (1863-66), Temple (ed. I. Gollancz, 1894-96), Eversley Shakespeare (ed. Herford, 1899).
SHARP, WILLIAM ("FIONA MACLEOD") (1856-1905). —Wrote under this pseudonym a remarkable series of Celtic tales, novels, and poems, including Pharais, a Romance of the Isles, The Mountain Lovers, The Sin-Eater (1895), The Washer of the Ford, and Green Fire (1896), The Laughter of Peterkin (1897), The Dominion of Dreams (1899), The Divine Adventure (1900), Drostan and Iseult (1902). He was one of the earliest and most gifted promoters of the Celtic revival. In verse are From the Hills of Dream, Through the Ivory Gate, and The Immortal Hour (drama). Under his own name he wrote Earth's Voices, Sospiri di Roma, Sospiri d'Italia, poems, and books on Rossetti, Shelley, Browning, and Heine; also a few novels.
SHAW, HENRY WHEELER ("JOSH BILLINGS") (1818-1885). —Humorist, b. in Massachusetts. After working on steam-boats and farming, he became an auctioneer, and settled at Poughkeepsie. Stripped of the fantastic spelling by which he first succeeded in catching the public attention, the shrewd and droll maxims of his Farmers' Allminax have something in common with Franklin's Poor Richard. Other books with the same features are Josh Billings' Sayings, Everybody's Friend, Josh Billings' Trump Kards, etc.
SHELLEY, MRS. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT (GODWIN) (1797-1851). —Novelist, b. in London, the only child of [William Godwin] (q.v.) and [Mary Wollstonecraft], his wife (q.v.). In 1814 she went to the Continent with [P.B. Shelley] (q.v.), and m. him two years later. When abroad she saw much of Byron, and it was at his villa on the Lake of Geneva that she conceived the idea of her famous novel of Frankenstein (1818), a ghastly but powerful work. None of her other novels, including The Last Man and Lodore, had the same success. She contributed biographies of foreign artists and authors to Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia, and ed. her husband's poems.
SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE (1792-1822). —Poet, s. of Sir Timothy S., was b. at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, and ed. at Brentford, Eton, and Univ. Coll., Oxf., whence for writing and circulating a pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism, he was expelled. One immediate result of this was a difference with his f., which was deepened into a permanent breach by his marriage in the following year to Harriet Westbrook, the pretty and lively dau. of a retired innkeeper. The next three years were passed in wandering about from place to place in Ireland, Wales, the Lake District, and other parts of the kingdom, and in the composition of Queen Mab (1813), the poet's first serious work. Before the end of that period he had separated from his wife, for which various reasons have been assigned, one being her previous desertion of him, and the discovery on his part of imperfect sympathy between them; the principal one, however, being that he had conceived a violent passion for Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (see [Shelley, Mrs. M.W.]), dau. of[ William Godwin] (q.v.), with whom he eloped to Italy in 1814, and whom he m. in 1816, his first wife having drowned herself. The custody of his two children, whom he had left with their mother, was refused him by the Court of Chancery. In Switzerland he had made the acquaintance of Byron, with whom he afterwards lived in intimacy in Italy. Returning to England in 1815 he wrote his first really great poem, Alastor (1816), followed by the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, Prince Athanase, Rosalind and Helen, and Laon and Cythna, afterwards called the Revolt of Islam (1817). In 1818 he left England never to return, and went to Italy, and in the next two years—while at Rome—produced his two greatest works, the tragedy of The Cenci (1819) and Prometheus Unbound (1820). He removed to Venice in 1820 in the company of Byron, and there wrote Julian and Maddalo, a poetic record of discussions between them. Epipsychidion, Hellas, and Adonais, a lament for Keats, were all produced in 1821. After a short residence at Pisa he went to Lerici on the Gulf of Spezzia, where he indulged in his favourite recreation of boating, and here on July 8, 1823, he went, in company with a friend, Mr. Williams, on that fatal expedition which cost him his life. His body was cast ashore about a fortnight later, and burnt, in accordance with the quarantine law of the country, on a pyre in the presence of Byron, Leigh Hunt, and Trelawny. His ashes were carefully preserved and buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome near those of Keats. The character of S. is a singularly compounded one. By the unanimous testimony of his friends, it was remarkable for gentleness, purity, generosity, and strong affection: on the other hand he appears to have had very inadequate conceptions of duty and responsibility, and from his childhood seems to have been in revolt against authority of every kind. The charge of Atheism rests chiefly on Mab, the work of a boy, printed by him for private circulation, and to some extent repudiated as personal opinion. As a poet he stands in the front rank: in lyrical gift, shown in Prometheus, Hellas, and some of his shorter poems, such as "The Skylark," he is probably unsurpassed, and in his Cenci he exhibits dramatic power of a high order. Among his shorter poems are some which reach perfection, such as the sonnet on "Ozymandias," "Music when soft voices die," "I arise from dreams of thee," "When the lamp is shattered," the "Ode to the West Wind," and "O world! O life! O time!" During his short life of 30 years he was, not unnaturally, the object of much severe judgment, and his poetic power even was recognised by only a few. Posterity has taken a more lenient view of his serious errors of conduct, while according to his genius a shining place among the immortals.
The best ed. of the Works is that of Buxton Forman (4 vols.). There are ed. of the Poems by W.M. Rossetti (1894), Dowden (1891), etc. Lives by Medwin (1847), J.A. Symonds (1887), W.M. Rossetti, Prof. Dowden, T. Jefferson Hogg, and others.
SHENSTONE, WILLIAM (1714-1763). —Poet, s. of Thomas S., owner of a small estate at Hales Owen, Shropshire. At this place, called the Leasowes, the poet was b. In 1732 he went to Oxf. On his father's death he retired to the Leasowes where he passed his time, and ran through his means in transforming it into a marvel of landscape gardening, visited by strangers from all parts of the kingdom. The works of S. consist of poems and prose essays. Of the former two, The Schoolmistress, a humorous imitation of Spenser, with many quaint and tender touches, and the Pastoral Ballad in four parts, perhaps the best of its kind in the language, survive. The essays also display good sense and a pointed and graceful style. The last years of S. were clouded by financial embarrassments and perhaps also by disappointed affections. After his death his works, were coll. and pub. by Dodsley.
SHERIDAN, RICHARD BRINSLEY (1751-1816). —Dramatist and orator, b. in Dublin, the s. of an actor, was ed. at Harrow. In 1772 he eloped with Miss Linley, a famous singer, went with her to France, fought two duels, and m. her in 1773. S. has a reputation of the highest in two distinct walks, those of the dramatist and the Parliamentary orator. By his three great comedies, The Rivals (1775), The School for Scandal (1777), and The Critic (1779), he raised himself to the first place among the writers of the comedy of manners; and by his speeches, specially those in support of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, he has a position among the greatest of Parliamentary orators. Unfortunately he had little turn for business, and too great a love of pleasure and conviviality, which led to lifelong pecuniary embarrassment, completed by the destruction by fire of Drury Lane Theatre, of which he had become proprietor. As a politician S. supported the Whig party, and held the offices of Under-Sec. for Foreign Affairs, Sec. to the Treasury, and Treasurer of the Navy. He was also confidential adviser to George IV. when Prince of Wales, but like everybody else who had to do with him suffered from the ingratitude of "the first gentleman in Europe." The accounts long prevalent of the poverty and misery of his last years have been shown to be greatly exaggerated, though he was in reduced circumstances. As a dramatist S. shines in the construction of amusing situations, and in a sparkling flow of witty dialogue which never flags. His only other play was Pizarro (1799), a patriotic melodrama.
Lives by Walkins (1817), T. Moore (1825), and Mrs. Oliphant (1883).
SHERLOCK, WILLIAM (1641?-1707). —Divine and controversialist, b. at Southwark, ed. at Eton and Camb., took orders, and became in 1684 Master of the Temple, and in 1691 Dean of St. Paul's. He exercised a powerful influence in the Church. His most popular work was his Discourse concerning Death, and his principal controversial effort was his Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity. Other works were on Future Judgment and on The Divine Providence. His son, THOMAS SHERLOCK (1678-1761), who was also Master of the Temple, became Bishop successively of Bangor, Salisbury, and London, and was, like his f., a noted controversialist. His best known work is his Tryal of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus (1729).
SHERWOOD, MRS. MARY MARTHA (BUTT) (1775-1851). —Writer of children's books, m. in 1803 Captain H. Sherwood, and went to India, where she took much interest in soldiers' children. Among her books, many of which attained great popularity, are Susan Gray, Little Henry and his Bearer, and The Fairchild Family.
SHIRLEY, JAMES (1596-1666). —Dramatist, b. in London, ed. at Merchant Taylor's School, London, and at Oxf. and Camb., became a master of St. Alban's Grammar School, and afterwards joined the Roman Catholic Church, and going to London wrote for the stage, producing 39 plays. His talents and his religion recommended him to Queen Henrietta Maria, and he appears to have led a fairly prosperous life until the interdict of plays by Parliament in 1642. In the Civil War he bore arms on the Royalist side, and during the Commonwealth he returned to his occupation of schoolmaster. The Restoration does not appear to have improved his fortunes much; he was burnt out in the great fire of 1666, and very soon afterwards he and his wife d. on the same day. The plays of S. include The Traitor (1631), The Cardinal (1641), The Gamester (1633), Hyde Park (1632), and The Lady of Pleasure (1635). He also wrote poems, including the well-known lines beginning "The Glories of our mortal State." S. has fancy, liveliness, and the style of a gentleman, but he lacks depth and interest. He is less gross than most of his contemporaries.
Other plays are The Ball (1632), The Maid's Revenge (1626), The Grateful Servant (1629), Bird in a Cage (1633), The Example (1634). The Constant Maid (c. 1640), Doubtful Heir, or Rosania (1640), Court Secret (1653), Contention of Ajax and Ulysses (1659), etc.
SHORTHOUSE, JOSEPH HENRY (1834-1903). —Novelist, b. at Birmingham, where he was a chemical manufacturer. Originally a Quaker, he joined the Church of England. His first, and by far his best book, John Inglesant, appeared in 1881, and at once made him famous. Though deficient in its structure as a story, and not appealing to the populace, it fascinates by the charm of its style and the "dim religious light" by which it is suffused, as well as by the striking scenes occasionally depicted. His other novels, The Little Schoolmaster Mark, Sir Percival, The Countess Eve, and A Teacher of the Violin, though with some of the same characteristics, had no success comparable to his first. S. also wrote an essay, The Platonism of Wordsworth.
SIBBES, RICHARD (1577-1635). —Divine, was at Camb., where he held various academic posts, of which he was deprived by the High Commission on account of his Puritanism. He was the author of several devotional works expressing intense religious feeling—The Saint's Cordial (1629), The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax, etc. He was a man of great learning.
SIDNEY, or SYDNEY, ALGERNON (1622-1683). —Political writer, s. of the 2nd Earl of Leicester, and grand-nephew of Sir Philip S., in his youth travelled on the Continent, served against the Irish Rebels, and on the outbreak of the Civil War, on the side of the Parliament. He was one of the judges on the trial of Charles I., and though he did not attend, he thoroughly approved of the sentence. He opposed the assumption of the supreme power by Cromwell. After the Restoration he lived on the Continent, but receiving a pardon, returned in 1677 to England. He, however, retained the republican principles which he had all his life advocated, fell under the suspicion of the Court, and was in 1683, on the discovery of the Rye House Plot, condemned to death on entirely insufficient evidence, and beheaded on Tower Hill, December 7, 1683. Though no charge of personal venality has been substantiated, yet it appears to be certain that he received money from the French King for using his influence against war between the two countries, his object being to prevent Charles II. from obtaining command of the war supplies. S. was deeply versed in political theory, and wrote Discourses concerning Government, pub. in 1698.
SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP (1554-1586). —Poet and romancist, s. of Sir Henry S., Deputy of Ireland, and Pres. of Wales, b. at the family seat of Penshurst, and ed. at Shrewsbury School and Oxf. He was at the French Court on the fateful August 24, 1572—the massacre of St. Bartholomew—but left Paris soon thereafter and went to Germany and Italy. In 1576 he was with his f. in Ireland, and the next year went on missions to the Elector Palatine and the Emperor Rudolf II. When his father's Irish policy was called in question, he wrote an able defence of it. He became the friend of Spenser, who dedicated to him his Shepherd's Calendar. In 1580 he lost the favour of the Queen by remonstrating against her proposed marriage with the Duke of Anjou. His own marriage with a dau. of Sir Francis Walsingham took place in 1583. In 1585 he was engaged in the war in the Low Countries, and met his death at Zutphen from a wound in the thigh. His death was commemorated by Spenser in his Astrophel. S. has always been considered as the type of English chivalry; and his extraordinary contemporary reputation rested on his personal qualities of nobility and generosity. His writings consist of his famous pastoral romance of Arcadia, his sonnets Astrophel and Stella, and his Apologie for Poetrie, afterwards called Defence of Poesie. The Arcadia was originally written for the amusement of his sister, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, the "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," of Ben Jonson. Though its interest now is chiefly historical, it enjoyed an extraordinary popularity for a century after its appearance, and had a marked influence on the immediately succeeding literature. It was written in 1580-81 but not pub. until 1590, and is a medley of poetical prose, full of conceits, with occasional verse interspersed. His Defence of Poesie, written in reply to [Gosson] (q.v.), is in simple and vigorous English. S. also made a translation of the Psalms.
Poems ed. by Grosart, Apologie by Arber and others, Astrophel by Gray, Arber, and others. Life by Fulke Greville (1652), ed. by Sir E. Brydges (1816). Arcadia (facsimile), by Somner. Lives by J.A. Symonds, Fox Bourne, and others.
SIGOURNEY, MRS. LYDIA (HUNTLEY) (1791-1865). —American verse writer, was an extraordinarily copious writer of smooth, sentimental verse, which had great popularity in its day. Her most ambitious effort was a blank verse poem, Traits of the Aborigines of America (1822). Other books were Connecticut Forty Years Since, Pocahontas, etc.
SIMMS, WILLIAM GILMORE (1806-1870). —Novelist, etc., b. at Charleston, South Carolina, began his literary life with journalism. He then for some time tried poetry, but without any distinct success except occasionally in Southern Passages and Pictures (1839). But in fiction, which he began in 1833 with Martin Faber, he was more successful, though rather an imitator of Cooper. The Yemassee (1835) is generally considered his best novel. He was less happy in his attempts at historical romance, such as Count Julian and The Damsel of Darien. During the war, in which he was naturally a strong partisan of the South, he was ruined, and his library was burned; and from these disasters he never recovered. He had a high repute as a journalist, orator, and lecturer. He was the first Southerner to achieve any name in literature.
SKELTON, JOHN (1460?-1529). —Poet, b. in Norfolk, and ed. at Oxf. and Camb., of both of which he was cr. Poet Laureate, and perhaps held the same office under the King. He was appointed tutor to Henry VIII., and notwithstanding his sharp tongue, enjoyed some favour at Court. In 1498 he entered the Church, and became Rector of Diss in his native county. Hitherto he seems to have produced some translations only, but about this time he appears to have struck upon the vein which he was to work with such vigour and popularity. He turned his attention to abuses in Church and State, which he lashed with caustic satire, conveyed in short doggerel rhyming lines peculiar to himself, in which jokes, slang, invectives, and Latin quotations rush out pell-mell. His best works in this line are Why come ye not to Court? and Colin Clout, both directed against the clergy, and the former against Wolsey in particular. Piqued at his inconstancy (for S. had previously courted him) the Cardinal would have imprisoned him, had he not taken sanctuary in Westminster, where he remained until his death. Other works of his are The Tunning (brewing) of Elynor Rummynge, a coarsely humorous picture of low life, and the tender and fanciful Death of Philip Sparrow, the lament of a young lady over her pet bird killed by a cat.
SKELTON, SIR JOHN (1831-1897). —Miscellaneous writer. B. in Edinburgh, ed. at the Univ. there, and called to the Scottish Bar 1854, he was Sec. and ultimately Chairman of the Local Government Board for Scotland. He wrote Maitland of Lethington and the Scotland of Mary Stuart (1887), The Crookit Meg (1880), and The Table Talk of Shirley. He contributed to Fraser's and Blackwood's Magazines. He received the degree of LL.D. from Edin. 1878, and was made K.C.B. 1897.
SKENE, WILLIAM FORBES (1807-1892). —Historian, 2nd s. of James S. of Rubislaw, friend of Sir Walter Scott, was a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, and Clerk of the Bills in the Court of Session. He wrote and ed. historical works of considerable authority, The Highlanders of Scotland (1837), and his most important work, Celtic Scotland (1876-80), and ed. of The Four Ancient Books of Wales (1868), and other Celtic writings.
SKINNER, JOHN (1721-1807). —Historian and song-writer, s. of a schoolmaster at Birse, Aberdeenshire, was ed. at Marischal Coll. Brought up as a Presbyterian, he became an Episcopalian and ministered to a congregation at Longside, near Peterhead, for 65 years. He wrote The Ecclesiastical History of Scotland from the Episcopalian point of view, and several songs of which The Reel of Tullochgorum and The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn are the best known, and he also rendered some of the Psalms into Latin. He kept up a rhyming correspondence with Burns.
SKIPSEY, JOSEPH (1832-1903). —Poet, b. near North Shields, and from childhood worked in the mines. He pub. a few pieces of poetry in 1859, and soon after left working underground and became caretaker of Shakespeare's house at Stratford-on-Avon. During the last 30 years of his life he pub. several vols. of poetry, including The Collier Lad and Carols from the Coal Fields; and he ed. some vols. for the "Canterbury Poets." Memoir by R.S. Watson (1908).
SMART, CHRISTOPHER (1722-1771). —Poet, s. of the steward to Lord Vane, was b. at Shipbourne, Kent, and by the bounty of the Duchess of Cleveland sent to Camb. Here his ill-balanced mind showed itself in wild folly. Leaving the Univ. he came to London and maintained himself by conducting and writing for periodicals. His Poems on Several Occasions, which contained "The Hop Garden," was issued in 1752, and The Hilliad in 1753 against "Sir" John Hill, a notoriety of the day who had attacked him. His mind ultimately gave way, and it was in confinement that he produced by far his most remarkable work, the Song to David, a most original and powerful poem. Unfortunate to the last, he d. in the King's Bench prison, to which he had been committed for debt. He also translated Horace.
SMEDLEY, FRANK (1818-1864). —Novelist, was the author of several novels which had considerable popularity, including Frank Fairleigh (1850), Lewis Arundel (1852), and Harry Coverdale's Courtship (1855). S. was a life-long cripple.
SMILES, SAMUEL (1812-1904). —Biographer and miscellaneous writer, b. at Haddington, ed. at the Grammar School there, studied medicine at Edin., and settled in practice in his native town. Subsequently he betook himself to journalism, and ed. a paper in Leeds. Afterwards he was sec. to various railways. His leisure was devoted to reading and writing, and his first publication was The Life of George Stephenson (1857). Self-Help, his most popular work, followed in 1859; it had an immense circulation, and was translated into 17 languages. It was followed up by Character (1871), Thrift (1875), and Duty (1880). The Lives of the Engineers and Industrial Biography appeared in 1863, The Huguenots, their Settlements, Churches, and Industries in England and Ireland (1867), and The Huguenots in France a little later. He also wrote biographies of Telford and James Watt, and of the Scottish naturalists, Edwards the shoemaker and Dick the baker. He received the degree of LL.D. from Edin. in 1878.
SMITH, ADAM (1723-1790). —Philosopher and economist, b. at Kirkcaldy, Fife, the s. of the Controller of Customs there. His f. d. shortly before his birth. The first and only adventure in his tranquil life was his being kidnapped by gipsies. After being at the Grammar School of Kirkcaldy, he went to the Univ. of Glasgow, whence he proceeded to Oxf. On the conclusion of his Univ. course he returned to Kirkcaldy, going subsequently to Edinburgh, where he was soon recognised as a man of unusual intellect. In 1751 he was appointed to the Chair of Logic at Glasgow, which he next year exchanged for that of Moral Philosophy, and in 1759 he pub. his Theory of the Moral Sentiments. He received in 1762 the degree of LL.D. from his Univ., and two years later resigned his chair and became travelling tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch, accompanying him to the Continent. He remained for nearly a year in Paris, and made the acquaintance of the brilliant circle of savans in that city. Returning to Kirkcaldy in 1766 he lived there with his mother for nearly ten years in retirement and close study, the results of which were given to the world in 1776 in the publication of his epoch-making work, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). This book may be said to have founded the science of political economy, and to have created a new department of literature; and very few works have, to the same extent, influenced the practical history of the world. In 1778 S. was made a Commissioner of Customs, and settled in Edinburgh; and in 1787 he was elected Lord Rector of the Univ. of Glasgow. In addition to the works above mentioned, he wrote various essays on philosophical subjects, and an account of the last days of David Hume. The style of his works was plain and lucid, and he had a remarkable faculty of apt illustration.
SMITH, ALBERT (1816-1860). —Humorous writer, studied medicine, and for a short time assisted his f. in practice. He was one of the original contributors to Punch, and among his books are The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury and The Scattergood Family. He also lectured and gave entertainments, including The Ascent of Mont Blanc, which were highly popular.
SMITH, ALEXANDER (1830-1867). —Poet and essayist, s. of a Paisley pattern-designer, at first followed the same occupation in Glasgow, but having become known as a poet of promise was, in 1854, appointed Sec. of Edin. Univ. After contributing to the Glasgow Citizen he pub. A Life Drama (1853), which received much admiration. Thereafter appeared War Sonnets (in conjunction, with [S. Dobell], q.v.), City Poems (1857), and Edwin of Deira (1861). In prose he wrote Dreamthorpe (essays), A Summer in Skye, and two novels, Alfred Hagart's Household and Miss Dona M'Quarrie. His poems were in a rich and glowing style, but by some good judges were held to show fancy rather than imagination. He belonged to what was called the "spasmodic" school of poetry.
SMITH, MRS. CHARLOTTE (TURNER) (1749-1806). —Was m. at 15 to a West Indian merchant, who by a series of misfortunes and imprudences was reduced from affluence to poverty. She had in her youth shown considerable promise as a poetess, and in her misfortunes she was able to maintain herself and her family by her pen. In addition to a poem, Beachy Head, and sonnets, she wrote several novels of more than usual merit, including Emmeline (1788), and, her best work, The Old English Manor House.
SMITH, HORACE (1779-1849), SMITH, JAMES (1775-1839). —Humorists, s. of a London lawyer who was solicitor to the Board of Ordnance. James succeeded his f.; Horace became a successful stockbroker. Both brothers were distinguished for brilliant wit and humour. Their first great hit was Rejected Addresses (1812), extremely clever parodies on leading contemporary poets. To this jeu d'esprit James contributed among others imitations of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Crabbe, while Horace's share included Scott and Moore. James pub. little more, but anonymously gave Charles Matthews assistance in his entertainments. Horace pub. several novels which, with perhaps the exception of Brambletye House, are now forgotten. He also wrote The Address to a Mummy, a remarkable poem in which wit and true sentiment are admirably combined. Both brothers were highly esteemed not only for their social qualities, but for their benevolence and goodness of heart.
SMITH, SYDNEY (1771-1845). —Miscellaneous writer, b. at Woodford, Essex, the s. of a gentleman of independent means, and ed. at Winchester and Oxf., took orders 1794, becoming curate of Amesbury. He came to Edinburgh as tutor to a gentleman's s., was introduced to the circle of brilliant young Whigs there, and assisted in founding the Edinburgh Review. He then went to London, where he was for a time preacher at the Foundling Hospital, and lectured on moral philosophy at the Royal Institution. His brilliant wit and general ability made him a favourite in society, while by his power of clear and cogent argument he exercised a strong influence on the course of politics. His Plymley Letters did much to advance the cause of Catholic emancipation. He received various preferments, and became a canon of St. Paul's. In politics he was a Whig, in his Church views an Erastian; and in the defence of his principles he was honest and courageous. Though not remarkable for religious devotion he was a hard-working and, according to his lights, useful country parson. By the death of a younger brother he in his later years came into a considerable fortune.
SMITH, WALTER CHALMERS (1824-1908). —B. in Aberdeen and ed. there and at Edin., was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland at Orwell, Glasgow, and Edinburgh successively, a distinguished preacher and a man of kindly nature and catholic sympathies. He attained considerable reputation as a poet. Among his works are The Bishop's Walk (1861), Olrig Grange (1872), Hilda among the Broken Gods (1878), Raban (1880), Kildrostan (1884), and A Heretic (1890). Some of these were written under the names of "Orwell" and Hermann Kunst. He received the degrees of D.D. and LL.D.
SMITH, SIR WILLIAM (1813-1893). —Lexicographer, ed. at Univ. Coll., London, was a contributor to the Penny Magazine and compiled or ed. many useful works of reference, including Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1842), and dictionaries of the Bible, of Christian Antiquities, and Christian Biography, etc., also various school series and educational handbooks, including The Classical Dictionary. He held various academical degrees, including Ph.D. of Leipsic, and was knighted in 1892.
SMITH, WILLIAM ROBERTSON (1846-1894). —Theologian and Semitic scholar, s. of the Free Church minister of Keig, Aberdeenshire, studied for the ministry of that Church. In 1870 he was appointed Prof. of Hebrew, etc., in its coll. at Aberdeen, a position which he had to resign on account of his advanced critical views. He became joint ed. of The Encyclopædia Britannica, and in 1883 Prof. of Arabic at Camb. S. was a man of brilliant and versatile talents, a mathematician as well as a scholar, somewhat uncompromising and aggressive in the exposition and defence of his views. His works include The Old Testament in the Jewish Church (1881), and The Religion of the Semites (1889).
SMOLLETT, TOBIAS GEORGE (1721-1771). —Novelist, 2nd s. of Archibald S., of Dalquhurn, Dumbartonshire, and ed. at Glasgow, proceeded to London in 1739 with the view of having a tragedy, The Regicide, put on the stage, in which, however, he failed. In this disappointment he took service as surgeon's mate on one of the vessels of the Carthagena expedition, 1741, an experience which he turned to account in his novels. On his return he settled in London, and endeavoured to acquire practice as a physician, but was not very successful, and having discovered where his talent lay, he thenceforth devoted himself to literature. Roderick Random appeared in 1748, The History of an Atom (1749), Peregrine Pickle in 1751, Ferdinand, Count Fathom in 1753, Sir Lancelot Greaves in 1766, and Humphrey Clinker, generally considered his best novel, in 1770. Besides these works, however, he translated Voltaire, wrote a History of England in continuation of Hume's, an Ode to Independence, travels and satires, and contributed to various periodicals. He was repeatedly involved in acrimonious controversy, and on one occasion fined and imprisoned for a libel, which, with various private misfortunes, embittered his life, and he d. disappointed and worn out near Leghorn. Had he lived four years longer he would have succeeded to his grandfather's estate of Bonhill. The novels of S. display great narrative power, and he has a remarkable comic vein of a broad type, which enables him to present ludicrous scenes and circumstances with great effect. There is, however, a strong infusion of coarseness in his treatment of his subjects.
SOMERVILLE, MRS. MARY (FAIRFAX) (1780-1872). —Mathematician and writer on science, dau. of Admiral Sir William G. Fairfax, b. at Jedburgh, was twice m., first to Mr. Greig, an officer in the Russian Navy, and second to her cousin Dr. William S. Although she had early manifested a taste for study, and specially for science, she had, until after the death of her first husband, little opportunity of following out her favourite subjects. With Dr. S., who was in full sympathy with her scientific tastes, she went to reside in London, and there her talents made her known in scientific circles. In 1823 she was requested by Lord Brougham to popularise the Mechanique Celeste of La Place. This she did with great success, publishing her work as The Celestial Mechanism of the Heavens (1830). She also pub. The Connection of the Physical Sciences (1834), and other works. She received a pension from Government, and d. aged 92 at Naples, where she had resided for the last ten or twelve years of her life.
SOMERVILLE, WILLIAM (1675-1742). —Poet, a Warwickshire squire of literary tastes, wrote among others a poem, The Chase, in 4 books, which has some passages of considerable descriptive power.
SOTHEBY, WILLIAM (1757-1833). —Poet and translator, belonged to a good family, and was ed. at Harrow. In early life he was in the army. He pub. a few dramas and books of poems, which had no great popularity, and are now forgotten; his reputation rests upon his admirable translations of the Oberon of Wieland, the Georgics of Virgil, and the Iliad and Odyssey. The last two were begun when he was upwards of 70, but he lived to complete them. His Georgics is considered one of the best translations from the classics in the language.
SOUTH, ROBERT (1634-1716). —Divine, s. of a London merchant, was b. at Hackney, and ed. at Westminster School and Oxf., where in 1660 he was appointed Univ. Orator. He became domestic chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and in 1663 the degree of D.D. was conferred upon him. After accompanying an embassy to Poland he became Rector of Islip, and a chaplain to Charles II. Thereafter he steadily declined higher preferment, including the bishopric of Rochester. He was opposed to the Romanising measures of James II., but owing to his views as to the duty of passive obedience he declined to associate himself in any way with the Revolution, to which nevertheless he submitted. He was an expert controversialist, but it is chiefly by his sermons, which are among the classics of English divinity, that he is remembered. He has the reputation of being the wittiest of English preachers, and this characteristic is sometimes present to a degree not quite suitable to the subjects treated.
SOUTHERNE, THOMAS (1660-1746). —Dramatist, b. in Dublin, and ed. at Trinity Coll. there, came to London and studied law at the Middle Temple. Afterwards he entered the army and saw service. He wrote ten plays, of which two were long acted and are still remembered, The Fatal Marriage (1694) and Oroonoko (1696), in the latter of which he appeals passionately against the slave-trade. Unlike most preceding dramatists he was a practical man, succeeded in his theatrical management, and retired on a fortune. Other plays are The Loyal Brother (1682), The Disappointment (1684), The Wives' Excuse (1692), The Spartan Dame (1719), etc.
SOUTHEY, MRS. CAROLINE ANNE (BOWLES) (1786-1854). —Poetess, dau. of a captain in the navy, submitted a poem, Ellen Fitzarthur to [Southey] (q.v.), which led to a friendship, and to a proposed joint poem on Robin Hood, not, however, carried out, and eventually to her becoming the poet's second wife. She wrote various other works, including Chapters on Churchyards and Tales of the Factories.
SOUTHEY, ROBERT (1774-1843). —Poet, biographer, etc., s. of an unsuccessful linen-draper in Bristol, where he was b., was sent to Westminster School, and in 1792 went to Oxf. His friendship with Coleridge began in 1794, and with him he joined in the scheme of a "pantisocracy" (see [Coleridge]). In 1795 he m. his first wife, Edith Fricker, and thus became the brother-in-law of Coleridge. Shortly afterwards he visited Spain, and in 1800 Portugal, and laid the foundations of his thorough knowledge of the history and literature of the Peninsula. Between these two periods of foreign travel he had attempted the study of law, which proved entirely uncongenial; and in 1803 he settled at Greta Hall, Keswick, to which neighbourhood the Coleridges had also come. Here he set himself to a course of indefatigable literary toil which only ended with his life. Thalaba had appeared in 1801, and there followed Madoc (1805), The Curse of Kehama (1810), Roderic, the Last of the Goths (1814), and A Vision of Judgment (1821); and in prose a History of Brazil, Lives of Nelson (1813), Wesley (1820), and Bunyan (1830), The Book of the Church (1824), History of the Peninsular War (1823-32), Naval History, and The Doctor (1834-37). In addition to this vast amount of work he had been from 1808 a constant contributor to the Quarterly Review. In 1839 when he was failing both in body and mind he m., as his second wife, Miss Caroline Ann Bowles, who had for 20 years been his intimate friend, and by whom his few remaining years were soothed. Though the name of S. still bulks somewhat largely in the history of our literature, his works, with a few exceptions, are now little read, and those of them (his longer poems, Thalaba and Kehama) on which he himself based his hopes of lasting fame, least of all. To this result their length, remoteness from living interests, and the impression that their often splendid diction is rather eloquence than true poetry, have contributed. Some of his shorter poems, e.g., "The Holly Tree," and "The Battle of Blenheim" still live, but his fame now rests on his vigorous prose and especially on his classic Life of Nelson. Like Wordsworth and Coleridge, S. began life as a democratic visionary, and was strongly influenced by the French Revolution, but gradually cooled down into a pronounced Tory. He was himself greater and better than any of his works, his life being a noble record of devotion to duty and unselfish benevolence. He held the office of Poet Laureate from 1813, and had a pension from Government. He declined a baronetcy.
Life and Correspondence (6 vols., 1849-50) by his younger son, Rev. C. Southey. Life by Dowden in Men of Letters (1880).
SOUTHWELL, ROBERT (1561?-1595). —Poet, b. at Horsham St. Faith's, Norfolk, of good Roman Catholic family, and ed. at Douay, Paris, and Rome, he became a Jesuit, and showed such learning and ability as to be appointed Prefect of the English Coll. In 1586 he came to England with Garnett, the superior of the English province, and became chaplain to the Countess of Arundel. His being in England for more than 40 days then rendered him liable to the punishment of death and disembowelment, and in 1592 he was apprehended and imprisoned in the Tower for three years, during which he was tortured 13 times. He was then put on trial and executed, February 22, 1595. He was the author of St. Peter's Complaint and The Burning Babe, a short poem of great imaginative power, and of several prose religious works, including St. Mary Magdalene's Teares, A Short Rule of Good Life, The Triumphs over Death, etc.
SPEDDING, JAMES (1808-1881). —Editor of Bacon's works, s. of a Cumberland squire, and ed. at Bury St. Edmunds and Camb., was for some years in the Colonial Office. He devoted himself to the ed. of Bacon's works, and the endeavour to clear his character against the aspersions of Macaulay and others. The former was done in conjunction with Ellis and Heath, his own being much the largest share in their great ed. (1861-74); and the latter, so far as possible, in The Life and Letters, entirely his own. In 1878 he brought out an abridged Life and Times of Francis Bacon. He strongly combated the theory that B. was the author of Shakespeare's plays. His death was caused by his being run over by a cab. He enjoyed the friendship of many of his greatest contemporaries, including Carlyle, Tennyson, and Fitzgerald.
SPEED, JOHN (1552?-1629). —Historian, b. at Farington, Cheshire, and brought up to the trade of a tailor, had a strong taste for history and antiquities, and wrote a History of Great Britain (1611), which was long the best in existence, in collecting material for which he had assistance from Cotton, Spelman, and other investigators. He also pub. useful maps of Great Britain and Ireland, and of various counties, etc. In 1616 appeared his Cloud of Witnesses confirming ... the truth of God's most holie Word. His maps were coll. and with descriptions pub. in 1611 as Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain.
SPEKE, J.H., (see under [GRANT, J.A.])
SPELMAN, SIR HENRY (1564?-1641). —Historian and antiquary, b. at Congham, Norfolk, studied at Camb., and entered Lincoln's Inn. He wrote valuable works on legal and ecclesiastical antiquities, including History of Sacrilege (pub. 1698), Glossarium Archæologicum (1626 and 1664), a glossary of obsolete law-terms, A History of the English Councils (1639), and Tenures by Knight-service (1641). His writings have furnished valuable material for subsequent historians. He sat in Parliament and on various commissions, and in recompense of his labours was voted a grant of £300.
SPENCE, JOSEPH (1699-1768). —Anecdotist, b. at Kingsclere, Hants, and ed. at Winchester and Oxf., he entered the Church, and held various preferments, including a prebend at Durham, and was Prof. of Poetry at Oxf. He wrote an Essay on Pope's Odyssey, which gained for him the friendship of the poet, of whose conversation he made notes, collecting likewise anecdotes of him and of other celebrities which were pub. in 1820, and are of great value, inasmuch as they preserve much matter illustrative of the literary history of the 18th century which would otherwise have been lost.
SPENCER, HERBERT (1820-1903). —Philosopher, b. at Derby, the s. of a teacher, from whom, and from his uncle, mentioned below, he received most of his education. His immediate family circle was strongly Dissenting in its theological atmosphere, his f., originally a Methodist, having become a Quaker, while his mother remained a Wesleyan. At 13 he was sent to the care of his uncle, Thomas S., a clergyman, near Bath, but a Radical and anti-corn-law agitator. Declining a Univ. career he became a school assistant, but shortly after accepted a situation under the engineer of the London and Birmingham railway, in which he remained until the great railway crisis of 1846 threw him out of employment. Previous to this he had begun to write political articles in the Nonconformist; he now resolved to devote himself to journalism, and in 1848 was appointed sub-ed. of the Economist. Thereafter he became more and more absorbed in the consideration of the problems of sociology and the development of the doctrine of evolution as applied thereto, gradually leading up to the completion of a system of philosophy which was the work of his life. His fundamental proposition is that society, like the individual, is an organism subject to evolution, and the scope of this idea is gradually expanded so as to embrace in its sweep the whole range of cognisible phenomena. Among the books which he pub. in exposition of his views may be mentioned Social Statics (1850), Principles of Psychology (1855), First Principles (1862), Principles of Biology (1867), Data of Ethics (1879), Principles of Sociology (1877), Political Institutions (1882), and Man versus the State (1884). His works have been translated into most European languages—some of them into Chinese and Japanese. The most characteristic qualities of S. as a thinker are his powers of generalisation and analysis. He left an autobiography, in which he subjects his own personality to analysis with singular detachment of mind.
Life by David Duncan, LL.D., Life by A.J. Thompson. See also Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Fishe (1874), and books on S. and his philosophy by Hudson (1894), White (1897), and Macpherson (1890).
SPENCER, WILLIAM ROBERT (1769-1834). —Poet, ed. at Harrow and Oxf., belonged to the Whig set of Fox and Sheridan. He wrote graceful vers de societé, made translations from Bürger, and is best remembered by his well-known ballad of Gelert. After a life of extravagance he d. in poverty in Paris.
SPENSER, EDMUND (1552?-1599). —Poet, was b. in East Smithfield, London, the s. of John S., described as gentleman and journeyman in the art of cloth-making, who had come to London from Lancashire. In 1561 the poet was sent to Merchant Taylor's School, then newly opened, and in 1569 he proceeded to Pembroke Hall, Camb., as a sizar, taking his degree in 1576. Among his friends there were Edward Kirke, who ed. the Shepheard's Calendar, and Gabriel Harvey, the critic. While still at school he had contributed 14 sonnet-visions to Van de Noot's Theatre for Worldlings (1569). On leaving the Univ. S. went to the north, probably to visit his relations in Lancashire, and in 1578, through his friend Harvey, he became known to Leicester and his brother-in-law, Philip Sidney. The next year, 1579, saw the publication of The Shepheard's Calendar in 12 eclogues. It was dedicated to Sidney, who had become his friend and patron, and was received with acclamation, all who had ears for poetry perceiving that a new and great singer had arisen. The following year S. was appointed sec. to Lord Grey of Wilton, Deputy for Ireland, a strict Puritan, and accompanied him to Ireland. At the same time he appears to have begun the Faerie Queen. In 1581 he was appointed Registrar of Chancery, and received a grant of the Abbey and Castle of Enniscorthy, which was followed in 1586 by a grant of the Castle of Kilcolman in County Cork, a former possession of the Earls of Desmond with 3000 acres attached. Simultaneously, however, a heavy blow fell upon him in the death of Sidney at the Battle of Zutphen. The loss of this dear friend he commemorated in his lament of Astrophel. In 1590 he was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh, who persuaded him to come to England, and presented him to the Queen, from whom he received a pension of £50, which does not, however, appear to have been regularly paid, and on the whole his experiences of the Court did not yield him much satisfaction. In the same year his reputation as a poet was vastly augmented by the publication of the first three books of the Faerie Queen, dedicated to Elizabeth. The enthusiasm with which they were received led the publisher to bring out a collection of other writings of S. under the general title of Complaints, and including Mother Hubbard's Tale (a satire on the Court and on the conflict then being waged between the old faith and the new), Teares of the Muses, and The Ruins of Time. Having seen these ventures launched, S. returned to Kilcolman and wrote Colin Clout's come Home Again, one of the brightest and most vigorous of his poems, not, however, pub. until 1595. In the following year appeared his Four Hymns, two on Love and Beauty and two on Heavenly Love and Beauty, and the Prothalamion on the marriage of two daughters of the Earl of Worcester. He also pub. in prose his View of Ireland, a work full of shrewd observation and practical statesmanship. In 1594 he was m. to Elizabeth Boyle, whom he had courted in Amoretti, and his union with whom he now celebrated in the magnificent Epithalamion, by many regarded as his most perfect poem. In 1595 he returned to England, taking with him the second part of the Faerie Queen, pub. in 1596. In 1598 he was made Sheriff of Cork, and in the same year his fortunes suffered a final eclipse. The rebellion of Tyrone broke out, his castle was burned, and in the conflagration his youngest child, an infant, perished, he himself with his wife and remaining children escaping with difficulty. He joined the President, Sir T. Norris, who sent him with despatches to London, where he suddenly d. on January 16, 1599, as was long believed in extreme destitution. This, however, happily appears to be at least doubtful. He was buried in Westminster Abbey near Chaucer, and a monument was erected to his memory in 1620 by the Countess of Dorset.
The position of S. in English poetry is below Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton only. The first far excels him in narrative and constructive power and in humour, and the last in austere grandeur of conception; but for richness and beauty of imagination and exquisite sweetness of music he is unsurpassed except by Shakespeare. He has been called the poets' poet, a title which he well merits, not only by virtue of the homage which all the more imaginative poets have yielded him, but because of the almost unequalled influence he has exercised upon the whole subsequent course and expression of English poetry, which he enriched with the stanza which bears his name, and which none since him have used with more perfect mastery. His faults are prolixity, indirectness, and want of constructive power, and consequently the sustained sweetness and sumptuousness of his verse are apt to cloy. His great work, the Faerie Queen, is but a gorgeous fragment, six books out of a projected twelve; but probably few or none of its readers have regretted its incompleteness. In it Protestantism and Puritanism receive their most poetic and imaginative presentation and vindication.
SUMMARY.—B. 1552, ed. Merchant Taylor's School and Camb., became known to Leicester and Sir P. Sidney 1578, pub. Shepheard's Calendar 1579, appointed sec. to Lord Deputy of Ireland 1580, and began Faerie Queen, receives various appointments and grants 1581-6, pub. Astrophel in memory of Sidney 1586, visited by Raleigh and by him presented to Queen Elizabeth, who pensioned him 1590, and in same year pub. first three books of Faerie Queen, Teares of Muses, etc., writes Colin Clout, pub. 1595, and in 1596 pub. Four Hymns and Prothalamion, m. E. Boyle 1594, whom he had courted in Amoretti, and now celebrated in the Epithalamion, returned to England 1595, Sheriff of Cork 1598, in which year the rebellion broke out and ruined his fortunes, returned to London and d. 1599.
There have been very numerous ed. of the works, among which may be mentioned the Globe (1899), and Dr. Grosart's (10 vols., 1882-84). There is an excellent biography by Dean Church (1879).
SPOTTISWOOD, JOHN (1565-1639). —Historian, s. of John S., minister of Midcalder and Superintendent of Lothian. Entering the Church he gained the favour of James VI., and was his chief instrument in his endeavours to restore Episcopal church-government in Scotland. He became Archbishop successively of Glasgow and St. Andrews, and in 1635 Lord Chancellor of Scotland. On the rising caused by the introduction of the service-book, he had to flee from Scotland, and was excommunicated by the General Assembly (1638). He wrote a History of the Church and State of Scotland, pub. 1655. It is, of course, written from the Episcopalian standpoint, as Calderwood's is from the Presbyterian.
SPRAGUE, CHARLES (1791-1875). —Poet, b. at Boston, Mass., had some reputation as a writer of prize poems, odes, and domestic poems. To the first class belong Curiosity and Shakespeare Ode, and to the latter, The Family Meeting and I see Thee Still, an elegy on his sister.
SPRAT, THOMAS (1635-1713). —Divine and writer of memoirs, b. at Beaminster, Dorset, ed. at Oxf., was a mathematician, and one of the group of scientific men among whom the Royal Society, of which he was one of the first members and the historian, had its origin. He wrote a Life of his friend Cowley the poet, and an account of Young's plot for the restoration of James II. His History of the Royal Society is his principal work, but he also wrote poems, and had a high reputation as a preacher. His literary style gives him a distinguished place among English writers. He held various, high preferments, and d. Bishop of Rochester.
SPURGEON, CHARLES HADDON (1834-1892). —B. at Kelvedon, Essex, left the Independents and joined the Baptist communion and became, at the age of 20, pastor of New Park Street Chapel, London, where he attained an unprecedented popularity. In 1859 the Metropolitan Tabernacle was erected for him. He was a decided Calvinist in his theological views, and was strongly opposed to modern critical movements. He possessed in an eminent degree two of the great requisites of effective oratory, a magnificent voice and a command of pure idiomatic Saxon English. His sermons, composed and pub. weekly, had an enormous circulation, and were regularly translated into several languages. In addition to his pastoral labours he superintended an almshouse, a pastor's coll., and an orphanage; and he was likewise a voluminous author, publishing, in addition to his sermons, numerous works, including The Treasury of David (a commentary on the Psalms).
STANHOPE, PHILIP HENRY, 5TH EARL STANHOPE (1805-1875). —Historian, was b. at Walmer, and ed. at Oxf. He sat in the House of Commons for Wootton Bassett and Hertford, held some minor official appointments under Peel, and identified himself with many useful measures, specially in regard to literature and art. His writings, which are all remarkable for industrious collection of facts, careful and impartial sifting and weighing of evidence, and a clear, sober, and agreeable style, include History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles (1836-63), and histories of the War of the Spanish Succession (1832), and of the Reign of Queen Anne (1870), besides Lives of the younger Pitt (1861) and of Lord 'Chesterfield. As an author he is best known as Viscount Mahon.
STANLEY, ARTHUR PENRHYN (1815-1881). —Historian, biographer, and theologian, s. of Edward S., Bishop of Norwich, b. at Alderley, Cheshire, of which his f. was then rector, ed. at Rugby and Oxf., became a Fellow of Univ. Coll. Taking orders in 1839 he became Canon of Canterbury 1851, and of Christ Church 1858, and Dean of Westminster 1864. He was also Prof. of Ecclesiastical History at Oxf. 1856. His ecclesiastical position was Erastian and latitudinarian, and his practical aim in Church politics comprehension. He gave great offence to the High Church party by his championing of Colenso, W.G. Ward, Jowett, and others, by his preaching in the pulpits of the Church of Scotland and in other ways, and his latitudinarianism made him equally obnoxious to many others. On the other hand, his singular personal charm and the fascination of his literary style secured for him a very wide popularity. He was a prolific author, his works including Life of Dr. Arnold (of Rugby) (1844), whose favourite pupil he was, and Memorials of Canterbury (1854), Sinai and Palestine (1855), Lectures on the Eastern Church (1861), History of the Jewish Church (1863, etc.), Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (1867), Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland (1872), besides various commentaries. In his historical writings he aimed rather at conveying a vivid and picturesque general effect than at minute accuracy of detail or philosophical views. His masterpiece is his Life of Dr. Arnold, which is one of the great biographies in the language. His wife was Lady Augusta Bruce, to whom he was m. in 1868.
STANLEY, SIR HENRY MORTON (1841-1904). —Traveller in Africa, b. in America, went to find, and found, Livingstone, and wrote an account of his adventures in the quest, How I found Livingstone. Other works were In Darkest Africa and Through the Dark Continent.
STANLEY, THOMAS (1625-1678). —Philosopher and scholar, connected with the Derby family, ed. at Camb., was the author of some poems and of a biographical History of Philosophy (4 vols., 1655-62). He was learned in the classics, and translated from the Latin and late Greek as well as from the Italian and Portuguese, and ed. Æschylus. His poetry is thoughtful and gracefully expressed.
STANYHURST, RICHARD (1547-1618). —Translator, was at Oxf., and studied law at Furnivall's Inn and Lincoln's Inn. He collaborated with [Holinshed] (q.v.). His principal literary achievement was a grotesquely stiff, clumsy, and prosaic translation of the first four books of the Æneid into English hexameters. He also translated some of the Psalms.
STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE, L.H.D., LL.D., (1833-1908). —American poet and critic. Poems Lyric and Idyllic (1860), Alice of Monmouth (1864), The Blameless Prince (1869), Victorian Poets (1875-87), Lyrics and Idylls (1879), Poets of America (1885), Victorian Anthology (1896), American Anthology (1896), etc.
STEELE, SIR RICHARD (1672-1729). —Essayist and dramatist, s. of a Dublin attorney, who d. when his s. was 5 years old, was on the nomination of the Duke of Ormond, sent to the Charterhouse School, where his friendship with Addison began, and thence went to Oxf., but left without taking a degree, and enlisted in the Horse Guards, for which he was disinherited by a rich relation. He, however, gained the favour of his colonel, Lord Cutts, himself a poet, and rose to the rank of captain. With the view of setting before himself a high ideal of conduct (to which unhappily he was never able to attain), he at this time wrote a treatise on morals entitled The Christian Hero (1701). Abandoning this vein, he next produced three comedies, The Funeral, or Grief à la Mode (1702), The Tender Husband (1703), and The Lying Lover (1704). Two years later he was appointed Gentleman Waiter to Prince George of Denmark, and in 1707 he was made Gazetteer; and in the same year he m. as his second wife Mary Scurlock, his "dear Prue," who seems, however, to have been something of a termagant. She had considerable means, but the incorrigible extravagance of S. soon brought on embarrassment. In 1709 he laid the foundations of his fame by starting the Tatler, the first of those periodicals which are so characteristic a literary feature of that age. In this he had the invaluable assistance of Addison, who contributed 42 papers out of a total of 271, and helped with others. The Tatler was followed by the Spectator, in which Addison co-operated to a still greater extent. It was even a greater success, and ran to 555 numbers, exclusive of a brief revival by Addison in which S. had no part, and in its turn was followed by the Guardian. It is on his essays in these that the literary fame of S. rests. With less refinement and delicacy of wit than Addison, he had perhaps more knowledge of life, and a wider sympathy, and like him he had a sincere desire for the reformation of morals and manners. In the keen political strife of the times he fought stoutly and honestly on the Whig side, one result of which was that he lost his office of Gazetteer, and was in 1714 expelled from the House of Commons to which he had just been elected. The next year gave a favourable turn to his fortunes. The accession of George I. brought back the Whigs, and S. was appointed to various offices, including a commissionership on forfeited estates in Scotland, which took him to Edinburgh, where he was welcomed by all the literati there. Nothing, however, could keep him out of financial embarrassments, and other troubles followed: his wife d.; differences, arose with Addison, who d. before a reconciliation could be effected. The remaining years were clouded by financial troubles and ill-health. His last work was a play, The Conscious Lovers (1722). He left London and lived at Hereford and at Carmarthen, where he d. after a partial loss of his faculties from paralysis.
Lives by Austin Dobson (1886) and G.A. Aitken (1889). Ed., Plays by Aitken (1893), Essays (selected) Clarendon Press (1885), Tatler, Aitken (1898), Spectator, H. Morley (1868), Gregory Smith (1897-8), Aitken (1898).
STEEVENS, GEORGE (1736-1800). —Shakespearian commentator, ed. at Eton and Camb. He issued various reprints of quarto ed. of Shakespeare, and assisted Dr. Johnson in his ed., and also in his Lives of the Poets. In 1793 he himself brought out a new ed. of Shakespeare, in which he dealt somewhat freely with the text. He was in constant controversy with Ritson and other literary antiquaries, and was also an acute detector of literary forgeries, including those of Chatterton and Ireland.
STEEVENS, GEORGE WARRINGTON (1869-1900). —Journalist and miscellaneous writer, b. at Sydenham, and ed. at City of London School and Oxf., took to journalism, in which he distinguished himself by his clearness of vision and vivid style. Connected successively with the National Observer, the Pall Mall Gazette, and the Daily Mail, he utilised the articles which appeared in these and other publications in various books, such as The Land of the Dollar (America) (1897), With Kitchener to Kartoum, and The Tragedy of Dreyfus. His most striking work, however, was Monologues of the Dead (1895). He went as war correspondent to South Africa in 1900, and d. of enteric fever at Ladysmith.
STEPHEN, SIR JAMES (1789-1859). —Statesman and historical writer, s. of James S., Master in Chancery, ed. at Camb., and called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn 1811. After practising with success, accepted appointment of permanent counsel to Colonial Office and Board of Trade 1825, and was subsequently, 1826-47, permanent Under-Sec. for the Colonies, in which capacity he exercised an immense influence on the colonial policy of the empire, and did much to bring about the abolition of the slave trade. Impaired health led to his resignation, when he was made K.C.B. and a Privy Councillor. He was afterwards Prof. of Modern History at Camb. 1849-59, and of the same subject at the East India Coll. at Haileybury 1855-57. He wrote Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography (1849) and Lectures on the History of France (1852).
STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE (1832-1904). —Biographer and critic, s. of the above, was b. in London, and ed. at Eton, King's Coll., London, and Camb., where he obtained a tutorial Fellowship, and took orders. He came under the influence of Mill, Darwin, and H. Spencer, and devoted himself largely to the study of economics. His religious views having undergone a change, he gave up the clerical character and his Fellowship, and became a pronounced Agnostic. In 1865 he definitely adopted a literary career, and contributed to the Saturday Review, Fraser's Magazine, and other periodicals. In 1873 he pub. a collection of his essays as Free Thinking and Plain Speaking, which he followed up with An Agnostic's Apology (1893). He became ed. in 1871 of the Cornhill Magazine, in which appeared the essays afterwards coll. as Hours in a Library (3 series, 1874-79). His chief work was The History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876-81). He also wrote Science of Ethics (1882), and biographies of Dr. Johnson (1878), Pope (1880). Swift (1882), and George Eliot (English Men of Letters Series). In 1882 he became ed. of the Dictionary of National Biography, to which he devoted much labour, besides contributing many of the principal articles. The English Utilitarians appeared in 1900. As a biographical and critical writer he holds a very high place. His first wife was a dau. of Thackeray. In recognition of his literary eminence he was made a K.C.B.
Life and Letters by F.W. Maitland (1906).
STEPHENS, THOMAS (1821-1875). —Welsh historian and critic, b. at Pont Nedd Fechan, Glamorganshire, s. of a shoemaker. His works include The Literature of the Kymry (1849), The History of Trial by Jury in Wales, and an essay in which he demolished the claim of the Welsh under Madoc to the discovery of America. He also wrote on the life and works of the bard Aneurin. The critical methods which he adopted in his works often made him unpopular with the less discriminating enthusiasts for the glory of Wales, but he earned the respect of serious scholars.
STERLING, JOHN (1806-1844). —Essayist and miscellaneous writer, s. of Edward S., a well-known writer in the Times, was b. in Bute, and ed. at Glasgow and Camb. At the latter he became acquainted with a group of brilliant men, including F.D. Maurice, Trench, and Monckton Milnes. He took orders and became curate to [Julius Hare] (q.v.); but intellectual difficulties and indifferent health led to his resignation within a year, and the rest of his life was passed in alternating between England and warmer climes. He wrote for Blackwood's Magazine, the London and Westminster, and Quarterly Reviews, and pub. Essays and Tales, The Election, a humorous poem, Strafford, a tragedy, and Richard Cœur de Lion, a serio-comic poem of which three books out of eight were pub. His memory, perpetuated in a remarkable memoir by Carlyle, lives rather by what he was than by anything he did. His character and intellect appear to have exercised a singular influence on the eminent men he numbered among his friends.
STERNE, LAURENCE (1713-1768). —Novelist, s. of an officer in the army, and the great-grandson of an Archbishop of York, was b. at Clonmel, where his father's regiment happened to be stationed, and passed part of his boyhood in Ireland. At the age of 10 he was handed over to a relation, Mr. Sterne of Elvington in Yorkshire, who put him to school at Halifax, and thereafter sent him to Camb. He entered the Church, a profession for which he was very indifferently fitted, and through family influence procured the living of Sutton, Yorkshire. In 1741 he m. a lady—Miss Lumley—whose influence obtained for him in addition an adjacent benefice, and he also became a prebendary of York. It was not until 1760 that the first two vols. of his famous novel, Tristram Shandy, appeared. Its peculiar and original style of humour, its whimsicality, and perhaps also its defiance of conventionality, and even its frequent lapses into indecorum, achieved for it an immediate and immense popularity. S. went up to London and became the lion of the day. The third and fourth vols. appeared in 1761, the fifth and sixth in 1762, the seventh and eighth in 1765, and the last in 1767. Meanwhile he had pub. the Sermons of Mr. Yorick (1760), and his remaining work, The Sentimental Journey appeared in 1768. From the time of his finding himself a celebrity his parishioners saw but little of him, his time being passed either in the gaieties of London or in travelling on the Continent. Latterly he was practically separated from his wife and only dau., to the former of whom his behaviour had been anything but exemplary. His health, which had begun to give way soon after his literary career had commenced, finally broke down, and he fell into a consumption, of which he d. in London on March 18, 1768, utterly alone and unattended. His body was followed to the grave by one coach containing his publisher and another gentleman; and it was exhumed and appeared in a few days upon the table of the anatomical professor at Camb. He d. in debt, but a subscription was raised for his wife and dau., the latter of whom m. a Frenchman, and is said to have perished under the guillotine. Worthless as a man, S. possessed undoubted genius. He had wit, originality, and pathos, though the last not seldom runs into mawkishness, and an exquisitely delicate and glancing style. He has contributed some immortal characters to English fiction, including Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. His great faults as a writer are affectation and a peculiarly deliberate kind of indecency, which his profession renders all the more offensive; and he was by no means scrupulous in adopting, without acknowledgment, the good things of previous writers.
Works ed. by Prof. Saintsbury (6 vols., 1894). See also Macmillan's Library of English classics. Lives by P. Fitzgerald (1896); and H.D. Traill in English Men of Letters Series.
STERNHOLD, THOMAS (1500-1549), HOPKINS JOHN (d. 1570). —Were associated in making the metrical version of the Psalms, which was attached to the Prayer-book, and was for 200 years the chief hymn-book of the Church of England. It is a commonplace and tame rendering. The collection was not completed until 1562. It was gradually superseded by the version of Tate and Brady.
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS (1850-1894). —Novelist and essayist, was b. at Edin., the s. of Thomas S., a distinguished civil engineer. His health was extremely delicate. He was destined for the engineering profession, in which his family had for two generations been eminent, but having neither inclination nor physical strength for it, he in 1871 exchanged it for law, and was called to the Bar in 1875, but never practised. From childhood his interests had been literary, and in 1871 he began to contribute to the Edinburgh University Magazine and the Portfolio. A tour in a canoe in 1876 led to the publication in 1878 of his first book, An Inland Voyage. In the same year, The New Arabian Nights, afterwards separately pub. appeared in magazines, and in 1879 he brought out Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. In that year he went to California and m. Mrs. Osbourne. Returning to Europe in 1880 he entered upon a period of productiveness which, in view of his wretched health, was, both as regards quantity and worth, highly remarkable. The year 1881 was marked by his unsuccessful candidature for the Chair of Constitutional Law and History at Edin., and by the publication of Virginibus Puerisque. Other works followed in rapid succession. Treasure Island (1882), Prince Otto and The Child's Garden of Verse (1885), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Kidnapped (1886), Underwoods (poetry), Memories and Portraits (essays), and The Merry Men, a collection of short stories (1887), and in 1888 The Black Arrow. In 1887 he went to America, and in the following year visited the South Sea Islands where, in Samoa, he settled in 1890, and where he d. and is buried. In 1889 The Master of Ballantrae appeared, in 1892 Across the Plains and The Wrecker, in 1893 Island Nights Entertainments and Catriona, and in 1894 The Ebb Tide in collaboration with his step-son, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne. By this time his health was completely broken, but to the last he continued the struggle, and left the fragments St. Ives and Weir of Hermiston, the latter containing some of his best work. They were pub. in 1897. Though the originality and power of S.'s writings was recognised from the first by a select few, it was only slowly that he caught the ear of the general public. The tide may be said to have turned with the publication of Treasure Island in 1882, which at once gave him an assured place among the foremost imaginative writers of the day. His greatest power is, however, shown in those works which deal with Scotland in the 18th century, such as Kidnapped, Catriona, and Weir of Hermiston, and in those, e.g., The Child's Garden of Verse, which exhibit his extraordinary insight into the psychology of child-life; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a marvellously powerful and subtle psychological story, and some of his short tales also are masterpieces. Of these Thrawn Janet and Will of the Mill may be mentioned as examples in widely different kinds. His excursions into the drama in collaboration with W.E. Henley—Deacon Brodie, Macaire, Admiral Guinea, Beau Austin,—added nothing to his reputation. His style is singularly fascinating, graceful, various, subtle, and with a charm all its own.
Works, Edinburgh ed. (28 vols., 1894-98). Life by Grahame Balfour (1901), Letters, S. Colvin (1899).
STEWART, DUGALD (1753-1828). —Philosopher, s. of Matthew S., Prof. of Mathematics at Edin., was b. in the Coll. buildings, and at the age of 19 began to assist his f. in his classes, receiving the appointment of regular assistant two years later. In 1785 he became Prof. of Moral Philosophy, and rendered the chair illustrious by his learning and eloquence, his pupils including Lords Palmerston, Russell, and Lansdowne. S. was, however, rather a brilliant expositor than an original thinker, and in the main followed [Reid] (q.v.). His works include Philosophy of the Human Mind, in three vols., pub. respectively in 1792, 1813, and 1827, Outlines of Moral Philosophy (1793), Philosophical Essays (1810), Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy (1815, part II. 1821), and View of the Active and Moral Powers of Man. He also wrote memoirs of Robertson the historian, Adam Smith, and Reid. The Whig party, which he had always supported, on their accession to power, created for him the office of Gazette-writer for Scotland, in recognition of his services to philosophy. His later years were passed in retirement at Kinneil House on the Forth. His works were ed. by Sir William Hamilton.
STILLINGFLEET, EDWARD (1635-1699). —Theologian, b. at Cranbourne, Dorsetshire, ed. at Camb., entered the Church, and held many preferments, including a Royal Chaplaincy, the Deanery of St. Paul's (1678), and the Bishopric of Worcester (1689). He was a frequent speaker in the House of Lords, and had considerable influence as a Churchman. A keen controversialist, he wrote many treatises, including The Irenicum (advocating compromise with the Presbyterians), Antiquities of the British Churches, and The Unreasonableness of Separation. S. was a good and honest man and had the respect of his strongest opponents.
STIRLING, JAMES HUTCHISON (1820-1909). —Philosopher, b. in Glasgow, and ed. there and at Edin., where he studied medicine, which he practised until the death of his f. in 1851, after which he devoted himself to philosophy. His Secret of Hegel (1865) gave a great impulse to the study and understanding of the Hegelian philosophy both at home and in America, and was also accepted as a work of authority in Germany and Italy. Other works, all characterised: by keen philosophical insight and masterly power of exposition are Complete Text-book to Kant (1881), Philosophy and Theology (1890), What is Thought? or the Problem of Philosophy (1900), and The Categories (1903). Less abstruse are Jerrold, Tennyson, and Macaulay (1868), Burns in Drama (1878), and Philosophy in the Poets (1885).
STIRLING, WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL of (1567-1640). —Poet, s. of A. of Menstrie, and cr. Earl of S. by Charles I., 1633, was a courtier, and held many offices of state. He studied at Glasgow and Leyden, and wrote among other poems, partly in Latin, sonnets and four Monarchicke Tragedies, Darius, Crœsus, The Alexandræan Tragedy, and Julius Cæsar (1603-7), the motive of which is the fall of ambition, and which, though dignified, have little inspiration. He also assisted James I. in his metrical version of the Psalms. He d. insolvent in London. The grant of Nova Scotia which he had received became valueless owing to the French conquests in that region.
STIRLING-MAXWELL, SIR WILLIAM (1818-1878). —Historian and writer on art, s. of Archibald Stirling of Keir, succeeded to the estates and title of his uncle, Sir John Maxwell of Pollok, as well as to Keir, ed. at Camb., afterwards travelled much. He sat in the House of Commons for Perthshire, which he twice represented, 1852-68 and 1874-80, served on various commissions and public bodies, and was Lord Rector successively of the Univ. of St. Andrews and Edin. and Chancellor of that of Glasgow. His works include Annals of the Artists of Spain (1848), The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles V. (1852), and Don John of Austria, pub. posthumously in 1885. They were all distinguished by research and full information, and the last two are standard authorities He m. as his second wife the [Hon. Mrs. Norton] (q.v.).
STOCKTON, FRANCIS RICHARD (1834-1902). —B. at Philadelphia, was an engraver and journalist. He became well known as a writer of stories for children, and of amusing books of which Rudder Grange (1879) is the best known. The Lady and the Tiger was also highly popular. Others are Adventures of Captain Horne, Mrs. Null, Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine, The Hundredth Man, Great Stone of Sardis, Captain's Toll-gate, etc. His work was very unequal in interest.
STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY (1825-1903). —Poet, b. at Hingham, Mass., worked in a foundry, and afterwards in New York Custom House, wrote a Life of Washington, but is chiefly known as a poet, his poetical works including Songs in Summer (1857), The King's Bell, The Lions Cub, etc.
STORER, THOMAS (1571-1604). —Poet, b. in London, and ed. at Oxf., wrote a long poem, The Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal.
STORY, WILLIAM WETMORE (1819-1895). —Sculptor, poet, etc., b. at Salem, Mass., was intended for the law, but became a sculptor and an eminent man of letters. His writings include Roba di Roma (1862), The Tragedy of Nero (1875), The Castle of St. Angelo (1877), He and She (1883), Conversations in a Studio, A Poet's Portfolio (1894), etc.
STOW, JOHN (1525-1605). —Historian and antiquary, b. in London, s. of a tailor, and brought up to the same trade. He had, however, an irresistible taste for transcribing and collecting ancient documents, and pursuing antiquarian and historical researches, to which he ultimately entirely devoted himself. This he was enabled to do partly through the munificence of Archbishop Parker. He made large collections of old books and manuscripts, and wrote and ed. several works of importance and authority, including The Woorkes of Geoffrey Chaucer, Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles (1561), afterwards called Annales of England, ed. of the chronicles of Matthew Paris and others, of Holinshed's Chronicle, and A Survey of London (1598). It is sad to think that the only reward of his sacrifices and labours in the public interest was a patent from James I. to collect "among our loving subjects their voluntary contributions and kind gratuities."
STOWE, MRS. HARRIET BEECHER (1811?-1896). —Novelist and miscellaneous writer, dau. of Dr. Lyman Beecher, a well-known American clergyman, and sister of Henry Ward B., one of the most popular preachers whom America has produced, was b. at Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1811 or 1812. After spending some years as a teacher, she m. the Rev. Calvin E. Stowe. Up till 1852 all she had written was a little vol. of stories which failed to attract attention. In that year, at the suggestion of a sister-in-law, she decided to write something against slavery, and produced Uncle Tom's Cabin, which originally appeared in serial form in a magazine, The National Era. It did not at the time receive much attention, but on its appearance in a separate form it took the world by storm. Its sale soon reached 400,000 copies, and the reprints have probably reached a far greater number. It was translated into numerous foreign languages, and had a powerful effect in hurrying on the events which ultimately resulted in emancipation. Her later works include Dred, The Minister's Wooing, Agnes of Sorrento, The Pearl of Orr's Island, and Old Town Folks. Some of these, especially the last, are in a literary sense much superior to Uncle Tom's Cabin, but none of them had more than an ordinary success. In 1869 an article on Lord Byron involved her in a somewhat unfortunate controversy.
STRICKLAND, AGNES (1796 or 1806-1874). —Historical writer, dau. of Thomas S., of Royden Hall, Suffolk, was ed. by her f., and began her literary career with a poem, Worcester Field, followed by The Seven Ages of Woman and Demetrius. Abandoning poetry she next produced among others Historical Tales of Illustrious British Children (1833), The Pilgrims of Walsingham (1835), Tales and Stories from History (1836). Her chief works, however, are Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest, and Lives of the Queens of Scotland, and English Princesses, etc. (8 vols., 1850-59), Lives of the Bachelor Kings of England (1861), and Letters of Mary Queen of Scots, in some of which she was assisted by her sister Elizabeth. Though laborious and conscientious she lacked the judicial faculty, and her style does not rise above mediocrity.
STRODE, WILLIAM (1600-1645). —Poet, only s. of Philip S., who belonged to an old Devonshire family, he was b. at Plympton, Devonshire, and showing studious tendencies, was sent to Westminster School and Oxf. While at the Univ. he began to manifest his poetic talents, and generally distinguished himself, being elected in 1629 Public Orator. He took orders and, on [Richard Corbet] (q.v.) becoming Bishop of Oxf., became his chaplain. Later he was Rector of E. Bredenham, Norfolk, and of Badley, Northants, and Canon of Christ Church. On the outbreak of the Civil War he attached himself warmly to the cause of the King. He was a High Churchman, and had a reputation as "a witty and sententious preacher, an exquisite orator, and an eminent poet." It is therefore singular that, until the recovery of his poems by Mr. B. Dobell, he had fallen into absolute oblivion. As a poet he shines most in lyrics and elegies. With much of the artificiality of his age he shows gracefulness, a feeling for the country, and occasional gleams of tenderness. His play, The Floating Island, a political allegory, was produced in 1633 and played before the Court then on a visit to Oxf., where it was a subject of complaint that it had more moralising than amusement. Mr. Dobell, who ed. his poems in 1907, claims for S. the poem on "Melancholy" ("Hence all you vain delights"), hitherto attributed to Fletcher.
STRYPE, JOHN (1643-1737). —Ecclesiastical historian, b. at Hackney, and ed. at St. Paul's School and Camb., took orders and, among other livings, held the Rectory of Low Leyton, Essex, for upwards of 60 years. He made a large collection of original documents, chiefly relating to the Tudor period, and was a voluminous author. Among his works are Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer (1694), Life of Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary of State to Edward VI. and Elizabeth (1698), Annals of the Reformation (1709-31), and Ecclesiastical Memorials (1721); besides Lives of Bishop Aylmer and Archbishops Grindal, Parker, and Whitgift. S., who was a painstaking and honest, but dull and unmethodical, writer, remains an authority.
STUART, GILBERT (1742-1786). —Historical writer, s. of George S., Prof. of Humanity (Latin) at Edin. Among his publications were An Historical Dissertation on the English Constitution (1768), Discourse on the Government and Laws of England (1772), A View of Society in Europe (1778), and a History of Scotland (1782). He was a man of extremely jealous and implacable temper, and made venomous attacks on the historical works of Robertson and Henry. His own writings, though well-written, are inaccurate.
STUBBS, WILLIAM (1825-1901). —Historian, s. of a solicitor, b. at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, and ed. there and at the Grammar School of Ripon, and Oxf. In 1848 he became a Fellow of Trinity Coll., and in the same year took orders and was appointed to the coll. living of Navestock in Essex, where he remained for 16 years, during which he began his historical researches, and pub. his earlier works. His first publication was Hymnale Secundum Usum Sarum. In 1858 appeared Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, a calendar of English bishops from Augustine; and then followed ed. of several Chronicles in the Rolls Series. The learning and critical insight displayed in these works commanded the attention and admiration of historical scholars both at home and on the Continent. In 1862 he was appointed librarian of Lambeth Palace, and in 1866 Prof. of Modern History at Oxf. There he pub. in 1870 his Select Charters, and his chief work, The Constitutional History of England (3 vols., 1874-78), which at once became the standard authority on its subject. It deals with the period preceding that with which the great work of Hallam begins. In 1879 he was appointed a Canon of St. Paul's, and in 1884 Bishop of Chester, whence he was translated five years later to Oxf. As an active prelate he was necessarily largely withdrawn from his historical researches; but at Chester he ed. two vols. of William of Malmesbury. S. was greater as a historian than as a writer, but he brought to his work sound judgment, insight, accuracy, and impartiality. He was a member of the French and Prussian Academies, and had the Prussian Order "Pour le Mérite" conferred upon him. Since his death his prefaces to the Rolls Series have been pub. separately.
STUKELEY, WILLIAM (1687-1765). —Antiquary, ed. at Camb., and after practising as a physician took orders in 1729 and held benefices at Stamford and in London. He made antiquarian tours through England, and was one of the founders of the Society of Antiquaries, to which he acted as sec. He pub. Itinerarium Curiosum (1724) and Stonehenge (1740). He made a special study of Druidism, and was called "the Arch-Druid."
SUCKLING, SIR JOHN (1609-1642). —Poet, s. of a knight who had held office as Sec. of State and Comptroller of the Household to James I., was b. at Whitton, Middlesex, ed. at Camb., and thereafter went to Gray's Inn. On the death of his f. in 1627, he inherited large estates. After travelling in France and Italy, he is said to have served for a short time under Gustavus Adolphus. On his return he was knighted, and went to Court, where his wealth, generosity, and wit made him a general favourite. When Charles I. was moving against the Scots S. fitted out a gorgeously appointed troop for his service which, however, were said to have fled at first sight of the Scots army at Duns, an exploit which is ridiculed in the ballad of Sir John Suckling's Campaign. He got into trouble in connection with a plot to rescue Strafford from the Tower, and fled to the Continent. He d. at Paris, it is now believed by his own hand. He was a noted gambler, and has the distinction of being the inventor of the game of cribbage. He wrote four plays, Aglaura (1637), Brennoralt (1646), The Goblins, and The Sad One (unfinished), now forgotten; his fame rests on his songs and ballads, including The Wedding, distinguished by a gay and sparkling wit, and a singular grace of expression.
SURREY, HENRY HOWARD, EARL of (1517?-1547). —Poet, s. of Thomas H., 3rd Duke of Norfolk, was ed. by John Clerke, a learned and travelled scholar, and sec. to his f. He became attached to the Court, was cup-bearer to the King (Henry VIII.), ewerer at the Coronation, and Earl Marshall at the trial of Anne Boleyn. In 1542 he was made a Knight of the Garter a few weeks after the execution of his cousin, Queen Catherine Howard. He suffered imprisonment more than once for being implicated in quarrels and brawls, did a good deal of fighting in Scotland and France, and was the last victim of Henry's insensate jealousy, being beheaded on a frivolous charge of conspiring against the succession of Edward VI. The death of Henry saved Norfolk from the same fate. S. shares with [Sir Thomas Wyatt] (q.v.) the honour of being the true successor of Chaucer in English poetry, and he has the distinction of being, in his translation of the Æneid, the first to introduce blank verse, and, with Wyatt, the sonnet. The poems of S., though well known in courtly circles, were not pub. during his life; 40 of them appeared in Tottel's Miscellany in 1557. He also paraphrased part of Ecclesiastes and a few of the Psalms. The Geraldine of his sonnets was Elizabeth Fitzgerald, dau. of the Earl of Kildare, then a lonely child at Court, her f. being imprisoned in the Tower.
SURTEES, ROBERT SMITH (1802-1864). —Sporting novelist, a country gentleman of Durham, who was in business as a solicitor, but not succeeding, started in 1831 the Sporting Magazine. Subsequently he took to writing sporting novels, which were illustrated by John Leech. Among them are Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour, Ask Mamma, Plain or Ringlets, and Mr. Facey Romford's Hounds.
SWIFT, JONATHAN (1667-1745). —Satirist, was b. at Dublin of English parents. Dryden was his cousin, and he also claimed kin with Herrick. He was a posthumous child, and was brought up in circumstances of extreme poverty. He was sent to school at Kilkenny, and afterwards went to Trinity Coll., Dublin, where he gave no evidence of ability, but displayed a turbulent and unruly temper, and only obtained a degree by "special grace." After the Revolution he joined his mother, then resident at Leicester, by whose influence he was admitted to the household of [Sir William Temple] (q.v.) at Moor Park, Lady T. being her distant kinswoman. Here he acted as sec., and having access to a well-stocked library, made good use of his opportunities, and became a close student. At Moor Park he met many distinguished men, including William III., who offered him a troop of horse; he also met Esther Johnson (Stella), a natural dau. of Sir William, who was afterwards to enter so largely into his life. Dissatisfied, apparently, that Temple did not do more for his advancement, he left his service in 1694 and returned to Ireland, where he took orders, and obtained the small living of Kilroot, near Belfast. While there he wrote his Tale of a Tub, one of the most consummate pieces of satire in any language, and The Battle of the Books, with reference to the "Phalaris" controversy (see [Bentley]), which were pub. together in 1704. In 1698 he threw up his living at the request of Temple, who felt the want of his society and assistance, and returned to Moor Park. On the death of his patron in 1699 he undertook by request the publication of his works, and thereafter returned to Ireland as chaplain to the Lord Deputy, the Earl of Berkeley, from whom he obtained some small preferments, including the vicarage of Laracor, and a prebend in St. Patrick's Cathedral. At this time he made frequent visits to London and became the friend of Addison, Steele, Congreve, and other Whig writers, and wrote various pamphlets, chiefly on ecclesiastical subjects. In 1710, disgusted with the neglect of the Whigs, alike of himself and of the claims of his Church, he abandoned them and attached himself to Harley and Bolingbroke. The next few years were filled with political controversy. He attacked the Whigs in papers in the Examiner in 1710, and in his celebrated pamphlets, The Conduct of the Allies (1712), The Barrier Treaty (1713), and The Public Spirit of the Whigs (1714). In 1713 he was made Dean of St. Patrick's, the last piece of patronage which he received. The steady dislike of Queen Anne had proved an insurmountable obstacle to his further advancement, and her death proved the ruin of the Tories. On the destruction of his hopes S. retired to Ireland, where he remained for the rest of his life a thoroughly embittered man. In 1713 he had begun his Journal to Stella, which sheds so strange a light upon his character, and on his return to Ireland his marriage to her is now generally believed to have taken place, though they never lived together. Now also took place also his final rupture with Miss Van Homrigh (Vanessa), who had been in love with him, with whom he had maintained a lengthened correspondence, and to whom he addressed his poem, Cadenus and Vanessa (1726). Though he disliked the Irish and considered residence in Ireland as banishment, he interested himself in Irish affairs, and attained extraordinary popularity by his Drapier's Letters, directed against the introduction of "Wood's halfpence." In 1726 he visited England and joined with Pope and Arbuthnot in publishing Miscellanies (1727). In the same year, 1726, he pub. Gulliver's Travels, his most widely and permanently popular work. His last visit to England was paid in 1727 and in the following year "Stella," the only being, probably, whom he really loved, d. Though he had a circle of friends in Dublin, and was, owing to his championing the people in their grievances, a popular idol, the shadows were darkening around him. The fears of insanity by which he had been all his life haunted, and which may account for and perhaps partly excuse some of the least justifiable portions of his conduct, pressed more and more upon him. He became increasingly morose and savage in his misanthropy, and though he had a rally in which he produced some of his most brilliant, work—the Rhapsody on Poetry, Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, and; the Modest Proposal (a horrible but masterly piece of irony)—he gradually sank into almost total loss of his facilities, and d. on October 19, 1745.
The character of S. is one of the gloomiest and least attractive among English writers. Intensely proud, he suffered bitterly in youth and early manhood from the humiliations of poverty and dependence, which preyed upon a mind in which the seeds of insanity were latent until it became dominated by a ferocious misanthropy. As a writer he is our greatest master of grave irony, and while he presents the most humorous ideas, the severity of his own countenance never relaxes. The Tale of a Tub and Gulliver's Travels are the greatest satires in the English language, although the concluding part of the latter is a savage and almost insane attack upon the whole human race. His history is a tragedy darkening into catastrophe, and as Thackeray has said, "So great a man he seems that thinking of him is like thinking of an Empire falling."
S. was tall and powerfully made. His eyes, blue and flashing under excitement, were the most remarkable part of his appearance.
SUMMARY.—B. 1667, ed. at Trinity Coll., Dublin, entered household of Sir W. Temple at Moor Park 1692, and became his sec., became known to William III., and met E. Johnson (Stella), left T. in 1694 and returned to Ireland, took orders and wrote Tale of a Tub and Battle of Books (pub. 1704), returned to Sir W.T. 1698, and on his death in 1699 pub. his works, returned to Ireland and obtained some small preferments, visits London and became one of the circle of Addison, etc., deserts the Whigs and joins the Tories 1710, attacking the former in various papers and pamphlets, Dean of St. Patrick's 1713, death of Anne and ruin of Tories destroyed hopes of further preferment, and he returned to Ireland and began his Journal to Stella, Drapier's Letters appeared 1724, visits England, and joins with Pope and Arbuthnot in Miscellanies 1726, pub. Gulliver's Travels 1727, "Stella" d. 1728, gradually lost his faculties and d. 1745.
Lives by Craik (1882), Leslie Stephen (1882), Churton Collins (1893), etc. Works ed. by Sir Walter Scott (19 vols., 1814, etc.) Bonn's Standard Library (1897-1908).
SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES (1837-1909). —Poet, s. of Admiral S. and of Lady Jane Ashburnham, dau. of the 3rd Earl of A., b. in London, received his early education in France, and was at Eton and at Balliol Coll., Oxf., where he attracted the attention of Jowett, and gave himself to the study of Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, with special reference to poetic form. He left Oxf. without graduating in 1860, and in the next year pub. two plays, The Queen Mother and Rosamund, which made no impression on the public, though a few good judges recognised their promise. The same year he visited Italy, and there made the acquaintance of [Walter Savage Landor] (q.v.). On his return he lived for some time in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, with [D.G. Rossetti] (q.v.), and [G. Meredith] (q.v.). The appearance in 1865 of Atalanta in Calydon led to his immediate recognition as a poet of the first order, and in the same year he pub. Chastelard, a Tragedy, the first part of a trilogy relating to Mary Queen of Scots, the other two being Bothwell (1874), and Mary Stuart (1881). Poems and Ballads, pub. in 1866, created a profound sensation alike among the critics and the general body of readers by its daring departure from recognised standards, alike of politics and morality, and gave rise to a prolonged and bitter controversy, S. defending himself against his assailants in Notes on Poems and Reviews. His next works were the Song of Italy (1867) and Songs before Sunrise (1871). Returning to the Greek models which he had followed with such brilliant success in Atalanta he produced Erechtheus (1876), the extraordinary metrical power of which won general admiration. Poems and Ballads, second series, came out in 1878. Tristram of Lyonnesse in heroic couplets followed in 1882, A Midsummer Holiday (1884), Marino Faliero (1885), Locrine (1887), Poems and Ballads, third series (1889), The Sisters (1892), Astrophel (1894), The Tale of Balen (1896), Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards (1899), A Channel Passage (1904), and The Duke of Gandia (1908). Among his prose works are Love's Cross Currents (1905) (fiction), William Blake, a Critical Essay (1867), Under the Microscope (1872), in answer to R. Buchanan's Fleshly School of Poetry, George Chapman, a Critical Essay (1875), A Study of Shakespeare (1879), A Study of Victor Hugo (1886), and A Study of Ben Jonson (1889).
S. belongs to the class of "Poets' poets." He never became widely popular. As a master of metre he is hardly excelled by any of our poets, but it has not seldom been questioned whether his marvellous sense of the beauty of words and their arrangement did not exceed the depth and mass of his thought. The Hymn to Artemis in Atalanta beginning "When the hounds of Spring are on Winter's traces" is certainly one of the most splendid examples of metrical power in the language. As a prose writer he occupies a much lower place, and here the contrast between the thought and its expression becomes very marked, the latter often becoming turgid and even violent. In his earlier days in London S. was closely associated with the pre-Raphaelites, the Rossettis, Meredith, and Burne-Jones: he was thus subjected successively to the classical and romantic influence, and showed the traces of both in his work. He was never m., and for the last 30 years of his life lived with his friend, Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, at the Pines, Putney Hill. For some time before his death he was almost totally deaf.
SYLVESTER, JOSHUA (1563-1618). —Poet and translator, is chiefly remembered by his translation from the French of Du Bartas' Divine Weeks and Works, which is said to have influenced Milton and Shakespeare. He seconded the Counterblast against Tobacco of James I. with his Tobacco Battered and the Pipes Shattered ... by a Volley of Holy Shot thundered from Mount Helicon (1620), and also wrote All not Gold that Glitters, Panthea: Divine Wishes and Meditations (1630), and many religious, complimentary, and other occasional pieces. S., who was originally engaged in commerce, acted later as a sort of factor to the Earl of Essex.
SYMONDS, JOHN ADDINGTON (1840-1893). —Writer on art and literature, s. of a physician in Bristol, was ed. at Harrow and Oxf. His delicate health obliged him to live abroad. He pub. (1875-86) History of the Italian Renaissance, and translated the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. He also pub. some books of poetry, including Many Moods (1878) and Animi Figura (1882), and among his other publications were Introduction to the Study of Dante (1872), Studies of the Greek Poets (1873 and 1876), Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama (1884), and Lives of various poets, including Ben Jonson, Shelley, and Walt Whitman. He also made remarkable translations of the sonnets of Michelangelo and Campanella, and wrote upon philosophical subjects in various periodicals.
SYNGE, JOHN MILLINGTON (1871-1909). —Miscellaneous writer, b. near Dublin, ed. privately and at Trinity Coll., Dublin. He wrote Riders to the Sea, In the Shadow of the Glen (1905), The Well of the Saints (1905), The Play Boy of the Western World (1907), and The Aran Islands (1907).
TABLEY DE, JOHN BYRON LEICESTER WARREN, 3RD LORD (1835-1895). —Poet, eldest s. of the 2nd Lord, ed. at Eton and Oxf., was for a time attached to the British Embassy at Constantinople. He wrote poems of a very high order, some of them pub. under the pseudonyms of "George F. Preston" and "William Lancaster." They include Ballads and Metrical Sketches, The Threshold of Atrides, Glimpses of Antiquity, etc. These were followed by two dramas, Philoctetes (1866) and Orestes (1868). Later works in his own name were Rehearsals (1870), Searching the Net (1873), The Soldier's Fortune, a tragedy. Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical (1893) included selections from former works. After his death appeared Orpheus in Thrace (1901). He was a man of sensitive temperament, and was latterly much of a recluse. He was an accomplished botanist, and pub. a work on the Flora of Cheshire.
TALFOURD, SIR THOMAS NOON (1795-1854). —Poet and biographer, s. of a brewer at Reading, where he was b., and which he represented in Parliament, 1835-41, was ed. at Mill Hill School. He studied law, was called to the Bar in 1821, and became a Judge in 1849. He d. suddenly of apoplexy while charging the Grand Jury at Stafford. He wrote much for reviews, and in 1835 produced Ion, a tragedy, followed by The Athenian Captive (1838), and The Massacre of Glencoe, all of which were acted with success. T. was the friend and literary executor of [Charles Lamb] (q.v.), and pub. in two sections his Memoirs and Letters. In 1837 he introduced the Copyright Bill, which was passed with modifications in 1842.
TANNAHILL, ROBERT (1774-1810). —Poet, b. in Paisley where he was a weaver. In 1807 he pub. a small vol. of poems and songs, which met with success, and carried his hitherto local fame over his native country. Always delicate and sensitive, a disappointment in regard to the publication of an enlarged ed. of his poems so wrought upon a lowness of spirits, to which he was subject, that he drowned himself in a canal. His longer pieces are now forgotten, but some of his songs have achieved a popularity only second to that of some of Burns's best. Among these are The Braes of Balquhidder, Gloomy Winter's now awa' and The Bonnie Wood o' Craigielea.
TATE, NAHUM (1652-1715). —Poet, s. of a clergyman in Dublin, was ed. at Trinity Coll. there. He pub. Poems on Several Occasions (1677), Panacea, or a Poem on Tea, and, in collaboration with Dryden, the second part of Absalom and Achitophel. He also adapted Shakespeare's Richard II. and Lear, making what he considered improvements. Thus in Lear Cordelia is made to survive her f., and marry Edgar. This desecration, which was defended by Dr. Johnson, kept the stage till well on in the 19th century. He also wrote various miscellaneous poems, now happily forgotten. He is best remembered as the Tate of Tate and Brady's metrical version of the Psalms, pub. in 1696. T., who succeeded Shadwell as Poet Laureate in 1690, figures in The Dunciad. NICHOLAS BRADY (1659-1726).—Tate's fellow-versifier of the Psalms, b. at Bandon, and ed. at Westminster and Oxf., was incumbent of Stratford-on-Avon. He wrote a tragedy, The Rape, a blank verse translation of the Æneid, an Ode, and sermons, now all forgotten.
TATHAM, JOHN (fl. 1632-1664). —Dramatist. Little is known of him. He produced pageants for the Lord Mayor's show and some dramas, Love Crowns the End, The Distracted State, The Scots Figgaries, or a Knot of Knaves, The Rump, etc. He was a Cavalier, who hated the Puritans and the Scotch, and invented a dialect which he believed to be their vernacular tongue.
TAUTPHOEUS, BARONESS (MONTGOMERY) (1807-1893). —Dau. of an Irish gentleman, m. the Baron T., Chamberlain at the Court of Bavaria. She wrote several novels dealing with German life of which the first, The Initials (1850), is perhaps the best. Others were Cyrilla (1883), Quits (1857), and At Odds (1863).
TAYLOR, BAYARD (1825-1878). —Poet, b. in Pennsylvania of Quaker descent, began to write by the time he was 12. Apprenticed to a printer, he found the work uncongenial and, purchasing his indentures, went to Europe on a walking tour, and thereafter he was a constant and enterprising traveller. After his return from Europe he ed. a paper, got on the staff of the New York Tribune, and pub. several books of travel and poetry, among which are Views Afoot (1846), an account of his travels in Europe, and El Dorado (1850), which described the Californian gold-fields. After some experience and some disappointments in the diplomatic sphere, he settled down to novel-writing, his first venture in which, Hannah Thurston (1863), was very successful, and was followed by John Godfrey's Fortunes (1864), partly autobiographical, and The Story of Kenneth (1866). His poetic works include Poems of the Orient (1854), Poet's Journal (1862), Masque of the Gods (1872), Lars (1873), The Prophet (1874), a tragedy, Prince Deucalion, and Home Pastorals (1875). In 1878 he was appointed to the German Embassy, and d. in Berlin in the following year. His translation of Goethe's Faust is perhaps his best work. He was a man of untiring energy and great ability and versatility, but tried too many avenues to fame to advance very far in any of them.
TAYLOR, SIR HENRY (1800-1886). —Dramatist, s. of a gentleman farmer in the county of Durham. After being at sea for some months and in the Naval Stores Department, he became a clerk in the Colonial Office, and remained there for 48 years, during which he exercised considerable influence on the colonial policy of the Empire. In 1872 he was made K.C.M.G. He wrote four tragedies—Isaac Comnenus (1827), Philip van Artevelde (1834), Edwin the Fair (1842), and St. Clement's Eve (1862); also a romantic comedy, The Virgin Widow, which he renamed A Sicilian Summer, The Eve of the Conquest and other Poems (1847). In prose he pub. The Statesman (1836), Notes from Life (1847), Notes from Books (1849), and an Autobiography. Of all these Philip van Artevelde was perhaps the most successful. T. was a man of great ability and distinction, but his dramas, with many of the qualities of good poetry, lack the final touch of genius.
TAYLOR, ISAAC (1787-1865). —Philosophical and historical writer, artist, and inventor, was the most eminent member of a family known as the Taylors of Ongar, which has shown a remarkable persistence of ability in various departments, but especially in art and literature. His grandfather and f., who bore the same name, were both eminent engravers, and the latter was the author of various books for children. T. was brought up to the hereditary art of engraving, in which he displayed pre-eminent skill, his work gaining the admiration of D.G. Rossetti. He decided, however, to devote himself to literature, and for 40 years continued to produce works of originality and value, including Elements of Thought (1823), Natural History of Enthusiasm (1829), Spiritual Despotism (1831), Ancient Christianity (1839), Restoration of Belief (1855), The Physical Theory of Another Life, History of Transmission of Ancient Books, and Home Education, besides numerous contributions to reviews and other periodicals. Besides his literary and artistic accomplishments T. was an important inventor, two of his inventions having done much to develop the manufacture of calico. Two of his sisters had considerable literary reputation. ANN T., afterwards MRS. GILBERT (1782-1866), and JANE (1783-1824) were, like their brother, taught the art of engraving. In 1804-5 they jointly wrote Original Poems for Infant Minds, followed by Rhymes for the Nursery and Hymns for Infant Minds. Among those are the little poems, "My Mother" and "Twinkle, twinkle, little Star," known to all well-conditioned children. Jane was also the author of Display, a tale (1815), and other works, including several hymns, of which the best known is "Lord, I would own Thy tender Care." The hereditary talents of the family were represented in the next generation by CANON ISAAC T. (1829-1901), the s. of Isaac last mentioned, who, in addition to The Liturgy and the Dissenters, pub. works in philology and archæology, including Words and Places and Etruscan Researches; and by JOSIAH GILBERT, s. of Ann T., an accomplished artist, and author of The Dolomite Mountains, Cadore, or Titian's Country, and ed. of the Autobiography of his mother.
TAYLOR, JEREMY (1613-1667). —Divine, was b. at Camb. His f., though of gentle descent, followed the trade of a barber, and Jeremy entered Caius Coll. as a sizar. After his graduation in 1634 he was asked to preach in London, where his eloquence attracted the attention of Laud, who sent him to Oxf., caused him to be elected a Fellow of All Souls Coll., and made him his chaplain. He also became a chaplain to the King, and soon attaining a great reputation as a preacher, was presented to the living of Uppingham. In 1639 he m. his first wife, and in 1643 he was made Rector of Overstone. On the outbreak of the Civil War T. sided with the King, and was present, probably as a chaplain, at the battle fought in 1645 near Cardigan Castle, when he was taken prisoner. He was soon released, but the Royalist cause being practically lost, he decided to remain in Wales, and with two friends started a school at Newtonhall, Caermarthenshire, which had some success. T. also found a friend in Lord Carbery, whose chaplain he became. During the period of 13 years from 1647-60, which were passed in seeming obscurity, he laid the foundations and raised the structure of his splendid literary fame. The Liberty of Prophesying (that is, of preaching), one of the greatest pleas for toleration in the language, was pub. in 1647, The Life of Christ in 1649, Holy Living in 1650, and Holy Dying in 1651. These were followed by various series of sermons, and by The Golden Grove (1655), a manual of devotion which received its title from the name of the seat of his friend Lord Carbery. For some remarks against the existing authorities T. suffered a short imprisonment, and some controversial tracts on Original Sin, Unum Necessarium (the one thing needful), and The Doctrine and Practice of Repentance involved him in a controversy of some warmth in which he was attacked by both High Churchmen and Calvinists. While in Wales T. had entered into a second marriage with a lady of some property which, however, was seriously encroached upon by the exactions of the Parliamentarians. In 1657 he ministered privately to an Episcopalian congregation in London, and in 1658 accompanied Lord Conway to Ireland, and served a cure at Lisburn. Two years later he pub. Ductor Dubitantium, or the Rule of Conscience in all her General Measures, a learned and subtle piece of casuistry which he dedicated to Charles II. The Restoration brought recognition of T.'s unswerving devotion to the Royalist cause; he was made Bishop of Down and Connor, and to this was added the administration of the see of Dromore. In his new position, though, as might have been expected, he showed zeal, diligence, and benevolence, he was not happy. He did not, probably could not, entirely practise his own views of absolute toleration, and found himself in conflict with the Presbyterians, some of whose ministers he had extruded from benefices which they had held, and he longed to escape to a more private and peaceful position. He d. at Lisburn of a fever caught while ministering to a parishioner. T. is one of the great classical writers of England. Learned, original, and impassioned, he had an enthusiasm for religion and charity, and his writings glow with an almost unequalled wealth of illustration and imagery, subtle argument, and fullness of thought. With a character of stainless purity and benevolence, and gracious and gentle manners, he was universally beloved by all who came under the spell of his presence.
TAYLOR, JOHN (1580-1653). —Known as the "Water Poet," b. at Gloucester of humble parentage, was apprenticed to a London waterman, and pressed for the navy. Thereafter he returned to London and resumed his occupation on the Thames, afterwards keeping inns first at Oxf., then in London. He had a talent for writing rollicking verses, enjoyed the acquaintance of Ben Jonson, and other famous men, superintended the water pageant at the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth 1613, and composed the "triumphs" at the Lord Mayor's shows. He made a journey on foot from London as far as to Braemar, of which he wrote an account, The Pennyless Pilgrimage ... of John Taylor, the King's Majesty's Water Poet (1618). He visited the Queen of Bohemia at Prague in 1620, and made other journeys, each of which was commemorated in a book. His writings are of little literary value, but have considerable historical and antiquarian interest.
TAYLOR, PHILIP MEADOWS (1808-1876). —Novelist, b. at Liverpool, s. of a merchant there. When still a boy went out to a mercantile situation in Calcutta, but in 1826 got a commission in the army of the Nizam of Hyderabad. From this he rose to a high civil position in the service of the Nizam, and entirely reorganised his government. He wrote several striking novels dealing with Indian life, including Confessions of a Thug (1639), Tara, and A Noble Queen. He left an autobiography, The Story of my Life, ed. by his dau.
TAYLOR, THOMAS (1758-1835). —Translator, b. in London and ed. at St. Paul's School, devoted himself to the study of the classics and of mathematics. After being a bank clerk he was appointed Assistant Secretary to the Society for the encouragement of Arts, etc., in which capacity he made many influential friends, who furnished the means for publishing his various translations, which include works of Plato, Aristotle, Proclus, Porphyry, Apuleius, etc. His aim indeed was the translation of all the untranslated writings of the ancient Greek philosophers.
TAYLOR, TOM (1817-1880). —Dramatist, b. at Sunderland, ed. at Glasgow and Camb., and was Prof. of English Literature in London Univ. from 1845-47. In 1846 he was called to the Bar, and from 1854-71 he was Sec. to the Local Government Board. He was the author of about 100 dramatic pieces, original and adapted, including Still Waters run Deep, The Overland Route, and Joan of Arc. He was likewise a large contributor to Punch, of which he was ed. 1874-80, and he ed. the autobiographies of Haydon and Leslie, the painters, and wrote Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
TAYLOR, WILLIAM (1765-1836). —Translator, etc., s. of a merchant, travelled on the Continent, learned German, and became an enthusiastic student of German literature, which he was one of the first to introduce to his fellow-countrymen. His articles on the subject were coll. and pub. as Historic Survey of German Poetry (1828-30). He translated Bürger's Lenore, Lessing's Nathan, and Goethe's Iphigenia. He also wrote Tales of Yore (1810) and English Synonyms Described (1813).
TEMPLE, SIR WILLIAM (1628-1699). —Statesman and essayist, s. of Sir John T., Master of the Rolls in Ireland, was b. in London, and ed. at Camb. He travelled on the Continent, was for some time a member of the Irish Parliament, employed on various diplomatic missions, and negotiated the marriage of the Prince of Orange and the Princess Mary. On his return he was much consulted by Charles II., but disapproving of the courses adopted, retired to his house at Sheen, which he afterwards left and purchased Moor Park, where Swift was for a time his sec. He took no part in the Revolution, but acquiesced in the new régime, and was offered, but refused, the Secretaryship of State. His works consist for the most part of short essays coll. under the title of Miscellanea, but longer pieces are Observations upon the United Provinces, and Essay on the Original and Nature of Government. Apart from their immediate interest they mark a transition to the simpler, more concise, and more carefully arranged sentences of modern composition.
TENNANT, WILLIAM (1784-1848). —Poet and scholar, a cripple from his birth, was b. at Anstruther (commonly called Anster) in Fife. As a youth he was clerk to his brother, a corn-merchant, but devoted his leisure to the study of languages, and the literature of various countries. In 1813 he became parish schoolmaster of Lasswade, near Edinburgh, thereafter classical master at Dollar Academy, and in 1835 Prof. of Oriental Languages at St. Andrews. In 1812 he pub. Anster Fair, a mock-heroic poem, in ottava rima, full of fancy and humour, which at once brought him reputation. In later life he produced two tragedies, Cardinal Beaton and John Baliol, and two poems, The Thane of Fife and Papistry Stormed. He also issued a Syriac and Chaldee Grammar.
TENNYSON, ALFRED, 1ST LORD (1809-1892). —Poet, was the fourth s. of George T., Rector of Somersby, Lincolnshire, where he was b. His f. was himself a poet of some skill, and his two elder brothers, [Frederick T.] (q.v.) and [Charles T. Turner] (q.v.), were poets of a high order. His early education was received from his f., after which he went to the Grammar School of Louth, whence in 1828 he proceeded to Trinity Coll., Camb. In the previous year had appeared a small vol., Poems by Two Brothers, chiefly the work of his brother Charles and himself, with a few contributions from Frederick, but it attracted little attention. At the Univ. he was one of a group of highly gifted men, including [Trench] (q.v.), Monckton Milnes, afterwards [Lord Houghton] (q.v.), [Alford] (q.v.), Lushington, his future brother-in-law, and above all, Arthur Hallam, whose friendship and early death were to be the inspiration of his greatest poem. In 1829 he won the Chancellor's medal by a poem on Timbuctoo, and in the following year he brought out his first independent work, Poems chiefly Lyrical. It was not in general very favourably received by the critics, though Wilson in Blackwood's Magazine admitted much promise and even performance. In America it had greater popularity. Part of 1832 was spent in travel with Hallam, and the same year saw the publication of Poems, which had not much greater success than its predecessor. In the next year Hallam d., and T. began In Memoriam and wrote The Two Voices. He also became engaged to Emily Sellwood, his future wife, but owing to various circumstances their marriage did not take place until 1850. The next few years were passed with his family at various places, and, so far as the public were concerned, he remained silent until 1842, when he pub. Poems in two volumes, and at last achieved full recognition as a great poet. From this time the life of T. is a record of tranquil triumph in his art and of the conquest of fame; and the publication of his successive works became almost the only events which mark his history. The Princess appearing in 1847 added materially to his reputation: in the lyrics with which it is interspersed, such as "The Splendour Falls" and "Tears, idle Tears" he rises to the full mastery of this branch of his art. The year 1850 was perhaps the most eventful in his life, for in it took place his marriage which, as he said, "brought the peace of God into his life," his succession to the Laureateship on the death of Wordsworth, and the publication of his greatest poem, In Memoriam. In 1852 appeared his noble Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington; and two years later The Charge of the Light Brigade. The publication of Maud in 1855 gave his rapidly growing popularity a perceptible set-back, though it has since risen in favour. But this was far more than made up for by the enthusiasm with which the first set of The Idylls of the King was received on its appearance four years later. Enoch Arden, with the Northern Farmer, came out in 1864; The Holy Grail and Gareth and Lynette, both belonging to the Idyll series, in 1869 and 1872 respectively. Three years later in 1875 T. broke new ground by beginning a series of dramas with Queen Mary, followed by Harold (1876), The Falcon (1879), The Cup (1881), The Promise of May (1882), Becket (1884), and Robin Hood (1891). His later poems were The Lovers' Tale (1879) (an early work retouched), Tiresias (1885), Locksley Hall—60 Years after (1886), Demeter and other Poems (1889), including "Crossing the Bar," and The Death of Œnone (1892). T., who cared little for general society, though he had many intimate and devoted friends, lived at Farringford, Isle of Wight, from 1853-69, when he built a house at Aldworth, near Haslemere, which was his home until his death. In 1884 he was raised to the peerage. Until he had passed the threescore years and ten he had, with occasional illnesses, enjoyed good health on the whole. But in 1886 the younger of his two sons d., a blow which told heavily upon him; thereafter frequent attacks of illness followed, and he d. on October 6, 1892, in his 84th year, and received a public funeral in Westminster Abbey.
The poetry of T. is characterised by a wide outlook, by intense sympathy with the deepest feelings and aspirations of humanity, a profound realisation of the problems of life and thought, a noble patriotism finding utterance in such poems as The Revenge, the Charge of the Light Brigade, and the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, an exquisite sense of beauty, marvellous power of vivid and minute description often achieved by a single felicitous phrase, and often heightened by the perfect matching of sense and sound, and a general loftiness and purity of tone. No poet has excelled him in precision and delicacy of language and completeness of expression. As a lyrist he has, perhaps, no superiors, and only two or three equals in English poetry, and even of humour he possessed no small share, as is shown in the Northern Farmer and in other pieces. When the volume, variety, finish, and duration of his work are considered, as well as the influence which he exercised on his time, a unique place must be assigned him among the poets of his country.
SUMMARY.—B. 1809, ed. Camb., Poems by Two Brothers 1827, Poems chiefly Lyrical 1830, his chief works Poems in two Volumes 1842, Princess 1847, In Memoriam 1850, Maud 1855, Idylls of the King 1869-72, Poet Laureate 1850, d. 1892.
Life by his s. (2 vols., 1897). There are also numerous books, biographical and critical, by, among others, W.E. Wace (1881), A.C. Benson, A. Lang, F. Harrison, Sir A. Lyell, C.F.G. Masterman (T. as a Religious Teacher), Stopford Brooke, Waugh, etc.
TENNYSON, FREDERICK (1807-1898). —Poet, was the eldest s. of the Rector of Somersby, Lincolnshire, and brother of [Alfred T.] (q.v.). Ed. at Eton and Camb., he passed most of his life in Italy and Jersey. He contributed to the Poems by Two Brothers, and produced Days and Hours (lyrics) (1854), The Isles of Greece (1890), Daphne (1891), and Poems of the Day and Night (1895). All his works show passages of genuine poetic power.
TENNYSON TURNER, CHARLES (1808-1879). —Poet, elder brother of [Alfred T.] (q.v.), ed. at Camb., entered the Church, and became Vicar of Grasby, Lincolnshire. The name of Turner he assumed in conformity with the will of a relation. He contributed to Poems by Two Brothers, and was the author of 340 sonnets, which were greatly admired by such critics as Coleridge, Palgrave, and his brother Alfred.
THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE (1811-1863). —Novelist, s. of Richmond T., who held various important appointments in the service of the East India Company, and who belonged to an old and respectable Yorkshire family, was b. at Calcutta, and soon after the death of his f., which took place in 1816, sent home to England. After being at a school at Chiswick, he was sent to the Charterhouse School, where he remained from 1822-26, and where he does not appear to have been very happy. Meanwhile in 1818 his mother had m. Major H.W.C. Smythe, who is believed to be, in part at any rate, the original of Colonel Newcome. In 1829 he went to Trinity Coll., Camb., where he remained for a year only, and where he did not distinguish himself particularly as a student, but made many life-long friends, including [Spedding] (q.v.), [Tennyson], [Fitzgerald] (q.v.), and Monckton Milnes (see [Houghton]), and contributed verses and caricatures to two Univ. papers, "The Snob" and "The Gownsman." The following year, 1831, was spent chiefly in travelling on the Continent, especially Germany, when, at Weimar, he visited Goethe. Returning he entered the Middle Temple, but having no liking for legal studies, he soon abandoned them, and turning his attention to journalism, became proprietor, wholly or in part, of two papers successively, both of which failed. These enterprises, together with some unfortunate investments and also, it would seem, play, stripped him of the comfortable fortune, which he had inherited; and he now found himself dependent on his own exertions for a living. He thought at first of art as a profession, and studied for a time at Paris and Rome. In 1836, while acting as Paris correspondent for the second of his journals, he m. Isabella, dau. of Colonel Shawe, an Irish officer, and the next year he returned to England and became a contributor to Fraser's Magazine, in which appeared The Yellowplush Papers, The Great Hoggarty Diamond, Catherine, and Barry Lyndon, the history of an Irish sharper, which contains some of his best work. Other works of this period were The Paris Sketch-book (1840) and The Irish Sketch-book (1843). His work in Fraser, while it was appreciated at its true worth by a select circle, had not brought him any very wide recognition: it was his contributions to Punch—the Book of Snobs and Jeames's Diary—which first caught the ear of the wider public. The turning point in his career, however, was the publication in monthly numbers of Vanity Fair (1847-48). This extraordinary work gave him at once a place beside Fielding at the head of English novelists, and left him no living competitor except Dickens. Pendennis, largely autobiographical, followed in 1848-50, and fully maintained his reputation. In 1851 he broke new ground, and appeared, with great success, as a lecturer, taking for his subject The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century, following this up in 1855 with the Four Georges, first delivered in America. Meanwhile Esmond, perhaps his masterpiece, and probably the greatest novel of its kind in existence, had appeared in 1852, and The Newcomes (1853), The Virginians, a sequel to Esmond, which, though containing much fine work, is generally considered to show a falling off as compared with its two immediate predecessors, came out in 1857-59. In 1860 the Cornhill Magazine was started with T. for its ed., and to it he contributed Lovell the Widower (1860), The Adventures of Philip (1861-62), The Roundabout Papers, a series of charming essays, and Denis Duval, left a mere fragment by his sudden death, but which gave promise of a return to his highest level of performance. In addition to the works mentioned, T. for some years produced Christmas books and burlesques, of which the best were The Rose and the Ring and The Kickleburys on the Rhine. He also wrote graceful verses, some of which, like Bouillabaisse, are in a strain of humour shot through with pathos, while others are the purest rollicking fun. For some years T. suffered from spasms of the heart, and he d. suddenly during the night of December 23, 1863, in his 53rd year. He was a man of the tenderest heart, and had an intense enjoyment of domestic happiness; and the interruption of this, caused by the permanent breakdown of his wife's health, was a heavy calamity. This, along with his own latterly broken health, and a sensitiveness which made him keenly alive to criticism, doubtless fostered the tendency to what was often superficially called his cynical view of life. He possessed an inimitable irony and a power of sarcasm which could scorch like lightning, but the latter is almost invariably directed against what is base and hateful. To human weakness he is lenient and often tender, and even when weakness passes into wickedness, he is just and compassionate. He saw human nature "steadily and saw it whole," and paints it with a light but sure hand. He was master of a style of great distinction and individuality, and ranks as one of the very greatest of English novelists.
SUMMARY.—B. 1811, ed. at Charterhouse and Camb., after trying law turned to journalism, in which he lost his fortune, studied art at Paris and Rome, wrote for Fraser's Magazine and Punch, Barry Lyndon, Book of Snobs, and Jeames's Diary, pub. Vanity Fair 1847-8, Pendennis (1848-50), lectured on Humourists 1851, and on Four Georges in America 1855, pub. Esmond 1852, Newcomes 1853, Virginians 1857-59, ed. Cornhill Magazine 1860, his last great work, Denis Duval, left unfinished, d. 1863.
Lives by Merivale and Marzials (Great Writers), A. Trollope (English Men of Letters), Whibley (Modern English Writers). Article in Dictionary of National Biography by Leslie Stephen.
THEOBALD, LEWIS (1688-1744). —Editor of Shakespeare, and translator, originally an attorney, betook himself to literature, translated from Plato, the Greek dramatists, and Homer, and wrote also essays, biographies, and poems. In 1715 he pub. Shakespeare Restored, etc., in which he severely criticised Pope's ed., and was in consequence rewarded with the first place in The Dunciad, and the adoption of most of his corrections in Pope's next ed. Though a poor poet, he was an acute and discriminating critic, made brilliant emendations on some of the classics, and produced in 1734 an ed. of Shakespeare which gave him a high place among his ed.
THIRWALL, CONNOP (1797-1875). —Historian, was b. at Stepney, the s. of a clergyman, and ed. at the Charterhouse and Camb. He studied law, was called to the Bar in 1825, and in the same year pub. a translation of Schleiermacher's Critical Essay on the Gospel of St. Luke. After this, having changed his mind, he took orders in 1827, and the next year translated, with [Julius Hare] (q.v.), the first vol. of Niebuhr's History of Rome, and pub., also with him, The Philological Museum (1831-33). He was an advocate for the admission of Dissenters to degrees, and in consequence of his action in the matter had to resign his Univ. tutorship. Thereupon Lord Brougham, then Lord Chancellor, presented him to the living of Kirkby Underdale. Between 1835 and 1847 he wrote his great History of Greece, which has a place among historical classics. In 1840 he was made Bishop of St. David's, in which capacity he showed unusual energy in administering his see. The eleven charges which he delivered during his tenure of the see were pronouncements of exceptional weight upon the leading questions of the time affecting the Church. As a Broad Churchman T. was regarded with suspicion by both High and Low Churchmen, and in the House of Lords generally supported liberal movements such as the admission of Jews to Parliament. He was the only Bishop who was in favour of the disestablishment of the Irish Church.
THOMS, WILLIAM JOHN (1803-1885). —Antiquary and miscellaneous writer, for many years a clerk in the secretary's office of Chelsea Hospital, was in 1845 appointed Clerk, and subsequently Deputy Librarian to the House of Lords. He was the founder in 1849 of Notes and Queries, which for some years he also ed. Among his publications are Early Prose Romances (1827-28), Lays and Legends (1834), The Book of the Court (1838), Gammer Gurton's Famous Histories (1846), Gammer Gurton's Pleasant Stories (1848). He also ed. Stow's London, and was sec. of the Camden Society. He introduced the word "folk-lore" into the language.
THOMSON, JAMES (1700-1748). —Poet, s. of the minister of Ednam, Roxburghshire, spent most of his youth, however, at Southdean, a neighbouring parish, to which his f. was translated. He was ed. at the parish school there, at Jedburgh, and at Edin., whither he went with the view of studying for the ministry. The style of one of his earliest sermons having been objected to by the Prof. of Divinity as being too flowery and imaginative, he gave up his clerical views and went to London in 1725, taking with him a part of what ultimately became his poem of Winter. By the influence of his friend Mallet he became tutor to Lord Binning, s. of the Earl of Haddington, and was introduced to Pope, Arbuthnot, Gay, and others. Winter was pub. in 1726, and was followed by Summer (1727), Spring (1728), and Autumn (1730), when the whole were brought together as The Seasons. Previous to 1730 he had produced one or two minor poems and the tragedy of Sophonisba, which, after promising some success, was killed by the unfortunate line, "Oh! Sophonisba, Sophonisba, oh!" being parodied as "Oh! Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, oh!" In 1731 T. accompanied Charles Talbot, s. of the Lord Chancellor, to the Continent, as tutor, and on his return received the sinecure Secretaryship of Briefs which, however, he lost in 1737, through omitting to apply for its continuance to Talbot's successor. He then returned to the drama and produced Agamemnon in 1738, and Edward and Eleanora in 1739. The same year he received from the Prince of Wales a pension of £100, and was made Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands which, after providing for a deputy to discharge the duties, left him £300 a year. He was now in comfortable circumstances and settled in a villa near Richmond, where he amused himself with gardening and seeing his friends. In conjunction with Mallet he wrote, in 1740, the masque of Alfred, in which appeared Rule Britannia, which M. afterwards claimed, or allowed to be claimed, for him, but which there is every reason to believe was contributed by T. In 1745 appeared Tancred and Sigismunda, the most successful of his dramas, and in 1748 Coriolanus. In May of the latter year he pub. The Castle of Indolence, an allegorical poem in the Spenserian stanza, generally considered to be his masterpiece. In August following he caught a chill which developed into a fever, and carried him off in his 48th year. Though T. was undoubtedly a poet by nature, his art was developed by constant and fastidious polishing. To The Seasons, originally containing about 4000 lines, he added about 1400 in his various revisions. He was the first to give the description of nature the leading place, and in his treatment of his theme he showed much judgment in the selection of the details to be dwelt upon. His blank verse, though not equal to that of a few other English poets, is musical and wielded in a manner suitable to his subject. In all his poems he displays the genial temper and kindly sympathies by which he was characterised as a man. He was never m., and lived an easy, indolent life, beloved by his many friends. (See also Lyttelton, Lord)
THOMSON, JAMES (1834-1882). —Poet, b. at Port Glasgow and brought up in the Royal Caledonian Asylum, was for some years an army teacher, but was dismissed for a breach of discipline. He became associated with Charles Bradlaugh, the free-thought protagonist, who introduced him to the conductors of various secularist publications. His best known poem is The City of Dreadful Night, deeply pessimistic. Others are Vane's Story and Weddah and Omel-Bonain. His views resulted in depression, which led to dipsomania, and he d. in poverty and misery. His work has a certain gloomy power which renders it distinctly noteworthy.
THOREAU, HENRY DAVID (1817-1862). —Essayist, poet, and naturalist, was b. at Concord, Massachusetts. His f., of French extraction, from Jersey, was a manufacturer of lead-pencils. He was ed. at Harvard, where he became a good classical scholar. Subsequently he was a competent Orientalist, and was deeply versed in the history and manners of the Red Indians. No form of regular remunerative employment commending itself to him, he spent the 10 years after leaving coll. in the study of books and nature, for the latter of which he had exceptional qualifications in the acuteness of his senses and his powers of observation. Though not a misanthropist, he appears in general to have preferred solitary communion with nature to human society. "The man I meet," he said, "is seldom so instructive as the silence which he breaks;" and he described himself as "a mystic, a transcendentalist, and a natural philosopher." He made such money as his extremely simple mode of life called for, by building boats or fences, agricultural or garden work, and surveying, anything almost of an outdoor character which did not involve lengthened engagement. In 1837 he began his diaries, records of observation with which in ten years he filled 30 vols. In 1839 he made the excursion the record of which he in 1845 pub. as A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers. Two years later, in 1841, he began a residence in the household of Emerson, which lasted for two years, when he assisted in conducting the Dial, and in 1845, after some teaching in New York, he retired to a hut near the solitary Walden Pond to write his Week on the Concord, etc. Later works were Walden (1854), and The Maine Woods (1864), and Cape Cod (1865), accounts of excursions and observations, both pub. after his death. T. was an enthusiast in the anti-slavery cause, the triumph of which, however, he did not live to see, as he d. on May 6, 1862, when the war was still in its earlier stages. The deliberate aim of T. was to live a life as nearly approaching naturalness as possible; and to this end he passed his time largely in solitude and in the open air. As he says, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach." To his great powers of observation he added great powers of reflection, and two of the most characteristic features of his writings are immediateness and individuality in his descriptions of nature, and a remarkable power of giving permanent and clear form to the most subtle and evanescent mental impressions.
TICKELL, THOMAS (1686-1740). —Poet, b. at Bridekirk Vicarage, Cumberland, and ed. at Oxf. became the friend of [Joseph Addison] (q.v.), contributed to the Spectator and Guardian, and accompanied him when he went to Ireland as sec. to the Lord Lieutenant. His translation of the first book of the Iliad came out at the same time as Pope's, and led to a quarrel between the latter and Addison, Pope imagining that the publication was a plot to interfere with the success of his work. On Addison becoming Sec. of State in 1717 he appointed T. Under-Sec. Among the writings of T. are the well-known ballad, Colin and Lucy, Kensington Gardens, a poem, and an Elegy on the death of Addison, of which Macaulay says that it "would do honour to the greatest name in our literature." In 1725 he became sec. to the Lords Justices of Ireland, and retained the post until his death.
TICKNOR, GEORGE (1791-1871). —Historian and biographer, s. of a rich man, was b. at Boston, Mass., and ed. for the law. He, however, gave himself to study and writing, and also travelled much. After being a Prof. at Harvard, 1819-35, he went in the latter year to Europe, where he spent some years collecting materials for his magnum opus, The History of Spanish Literature (1849). He also wrote Lives of Lafayette and Prescott, the historian. His Letters and Journals were pub. in 1876, and are the most interesting of his writings.
TIGHE, MARY (BLACKFORD) (1772-1810). —Poet, dau. of a clergyman, made an unhappy marriage, though she had beauty and amiable manners, and was highly popular in society. She wrote a good deal of verse; but her chief poem was a translation in Spenserian stanza of the tale of Cupid and Psyche, which won the admiration of such men as Sir J. Mackintosh, Moore, and Keats.
TILLOTSON, JOHN (1630-1694). —Divine, s. of a Presbyterian clothier, was b. near Halifax, and ed. at Camb., where his originally Puritan views became somewhat modified. At the Savoy Conference in 1661 he was still a Presbyterian, but submitted to the Act of Uniformity, and became next year Rector of Keddington, and in 1664 preacher at Lincoln's Inn, where he became very popular. In 1672 he was made Dean of Canterbury. He vainly endeavoured to secure the comprehension of the Nonconformists in the Church. After the Revolution he gained the favour of William III., who made him Clerk of the Closet, and Dean of St. Paul's, and in 1691 he succeeded Sancroft as Archbishop of Canterbury. His sermons, which had extraordinary popularity, give him a place in literature, and he was one of those writers who, by greater simplicity and greater attention to clearness of construction, helped to introduce the modern style of composition.
TIMROD, HENRY (1829-1867). —Poet, b. at Charleston, S. Carolina, of German descent, was ruined by the Civil War, and d. in poverty. He wrote one vol. of poems, pub. 1860, which attained wide popularity in the South. He had notable descriptive power.
TOBIN, JOHN (1770-1804). —Dramatist, was for long unsuccessful, but in the year of his death made a hit with The Honey Moon, which had great success, and maintained its place for many years. Other plays were The Curfew and The School for Authors.
TOLAND, JOHN (1670?-1722). —Deistical writer, b. in Ireland of Roman Catholic parentage, completed his education at Glasgow, Edin., and Leyden. Very early in life he had become a Protestant, and at Leyden he studied theology with the view of becoming a Nonconformist minister, but imbibed Rationalistic views. He then resided for some time at Oxf., and in 1696 pub. his first work, Christianity not Mysterious, which was censured by Convocation and gave rise to much controversy. Next year he returned to Ireland, where, however, he was not more popular than in England, and where his book was burned by the common hangman. Returning to England he took to writing political pamphlets, including one, Anglia Libera, in support of the Brunswick succession, which gained him some favour at Hanover, and he was sent on some political business to the German Courts. He then served Harley in Holland and Germany practically as a political spy. His later years were passed in literary drudgery and poverty. Among his numerous writings may be mentioned Account of Prussia and Hanover, Origines Judaicæ, History of the Druids, and a Life of Milton prefixed to an ed. of his prose works.
TOOKE, JOHN HORNE (1736-1812). —Philologist, s. of a poulterer called Horne, added the name of Tooke in 1782 in anticipation of inheriting from his friend W. Tooke, of Purley. He was at Camb. and took orders, but disliking the clerical profession, travelled abroad. Returning he became prominent as a radical politician, and espoused the cause of Wilkes, with whom, however, he afterwards quarrelled. He also supported the revolted American colonists, and was fined and imprisoned for endeavouring to raise a subscription for them. An effort to be admitted to the Bar was unsuccessful; and in 1786 he published his Diversions of Purley, a work on philology which brought him great reputation, and which, containing muck that has been proved to be erroneous, showed great learning and acuteness. T. twice endeavoured unsuccessfully to enter Parliament for Westminster, but ultimately sat for the rotten burgh of Old Sarum, making, however, no mark in the House. He was the author of numerous effective political pamphlets.
TOPLADY, AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE (1740-1778). —Hymn-writer, s. of an officer in the army, was b. at Farnham, ed. at Westminster and Trinity Coll., Dublin, after which he took orders and became incumbent of Broad Hembury. He was a strong Calvinist and entered into a bitter controversy with Wesley. His controversial works are forgotten; but he will always be remembered as the author of "Rock of Ages," perhaps the most widely known of English hymns.
TOURNEUR, or TURNER, CYRIL (1575?-1626). —Dramatist, perhaps s. of Richard T., Lieutenant of the Brill, served in the Low Countries, and was sec. to Sir Edward Cecil in his unsuccessful expedition to Cadiz, returning from which he was disembarked with the sick at Kinsale, where he d. He wrote two dramas, The Revenger's Tragedy (pr. 1607), and The Atheist's Tragedy (pr. 1611), in both of which, especially the former, every kind of guilt and horror is piled up, the author displaying, however, great intensity of tragic power. Of The Revenger Lamb said that it made his ears tingle. Another play of his, Transformed Metamorphosis, was discovered in 1872.
TRAHERNE, THOMAS (1636?-1674). —Poet and theological writer, s. of a shoemaker at Hereford where, or at Ledbury, he was probably b. Very few facts concerning him have been preserved, and indeed his very existence had been forgotten until some of his MS. were discovered on a bookstall in 1896, without, however, anything to identify the author. Their discoverer, Mr. W.T. Brooke, was inclined to attribute them to [Henry Vaughan] (q.v.), in which he was supported by [Dr. Grosart] (q.v.), and the latter was about to bring out a new ed. of Vaughan's poems in which they were to be included. This was, however, prevented by his death. The credit of identification is due to Mr. Bertram Dobell, who had become the possessor of another vol. of MS., and who rejecting, after due consideration, the claims of Vaughan, followed up the very slender clues available until he had established the authorship of Traherne. All the facts that his diligent investigations were successful in collecting were that T. was "entered as a commoner at Brasenose Coll., Oxf., in 1652, took one degree in arts, left the house for a time, entered into the sacred function, and in 1661 was actually created M.A. About that time he became Rector of Crednell, near Hereford ... and in 1669 Bachelor of Divinity;" and that after remaining there for over 9 years he was appointed private chaplain to the Lord Keeper, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, who on his retirement from office retained him as a member of his household at Teddington until his death in 1674, T. himself dying three months later. T. also appears to have been incumbent of Teddington, or perhaps more probably, curate to a pluralist incumbent. The complete oblivion into which T. had fallen is the more remarkable when the quality of his poetry, which places him on a level with Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw, is considered; and that he appears in his own day to have had some reputation as a scholar and controversialist. His Roman Forgeries (1673) achieved some note. His next work, Christian Ethics, which was not pub. until after his death, appears to have fallen dead, and is extremely rare: it is described by Mr. Dobell as "full of eloquence, persuasiveness, sagacity, and piety." Centuries of Meditations consists of short reflections on religious and moral subjects, etc. The Poems constitute his main claim to remembrance and, as already stated, are of a high order. With occasional roughness of metre they display powerful imagination, a deep and rich vein of original thought, and true poetic force and fire. It has been pointed out that in some of them the author anticipates the essential doctrines of the Berkeleian philosophy, and in them is also revealed a personality of rare purity and fascination.
TRELAWNY, EDWARD JOHN (1792-1881). —Biographer, entered the navy, from which, however, he deserted, after which he wandered about in the East and on the Continent. In Switzerland he met Byron and Shelley, and was living in close friendship with the latter when he was drowned, and was one of the witnesses at the cremation of his remains. He took part in the Greek war of independence, and m. the sister of one of the insurgent chiefs. After various adventures in America he settled in London, where he was a distinguished figure in society, and enjoyed the reputation of a picturesque, but somewhat imaginative, conversationalist. He wrote The Adventures of a Younger Son (1831), a work of striking distinction, and the intensely interesting Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author (1858). The last survivor of that brilliant group, he was buried by the side of Shelley.
TRENCH, RICHARD CHENEVIX (1807-1886). —Poet and theologian, b. in Dublin, and ed. at Harrow and Camb., took orders, and after serving various country parishes, became in 1847 Prof. of Theology in King's Coll., London, in 1856 Dean of Westminster, and in 1864 Archbishop of Dublin. As Primate of the Irish Church at its disestablishment, he rendered valuable service at that time of trial. In theology his best known works are his Hulsean Lectures, Notes on the Parables, and Notes on the Miracles. His philological writings, English Past and Present and Select Glossary of English Words are extremely interesting and suggestive, though now to some extent superseded. His Sacred Latin Poetry is a valuable collection of mediæval Church hymns. He also wrote sonnets, elegies, and lyrics, in the first of which he was specially successful, besides longer poems, Justin Martyr and Sabbation.
TREVISA, JOHN of (1326-1412). —Translator, a Cornishman, ed. at Oxf., was Vicar of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, and chaplain to the 4th Lord Berkeley, and Canon of Westbury. He translated for his patron the Polychronicon of Ranulf Higden, adding remarks of his own, and prefacing it with a Dialogue on Translation between a Lord and a Clerk. He likewise made various other translations.
TROLLOPE, ANTHONY (1815-1882). —Novelist, s. of Thomas Anthony T., a barrister who ruined himself by speculation, and of [Frances T.] (q.v.), a well-known writer, was b. in London, and ed. at Harrow and Winchester. His childhood was an unhappy one, owing to his father's misfortunes. After a short time in Belgium he obtained an appointment in the Post Office, in which he rose to a responsible position. His first three novels had little success; but in 1855 he found his line, and in The Warden produced the first of his Barsetshire series. It was followed by Barchester Towers (1857), Doctor Thorne (1858), Framley Parsonage (1861), The Small House at Allington (1864), and The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867), which deal with the society of a small cathedral city. Other novels are Orley Farm, Can you forgive Her?, Ralph the Heir, The Claverings, Phineas Finn, He knew he was Right, and The Golden Lion of Grandpré. In all he wrote about 50 novels, besides books about the West Indies, North America, Australia, and South Africa, a translation of Cæsar, and monographs on Cicero and Thackeray. His novels are light of touch, pleasant, amusing, and thoroughly healthy. They make no attempt to sound the depths of character or either to propound or solve problems. Outside of fiction his work was generally superficial and unsatisfactory. But he had the merit of providing a whole generation with wholesome amusement, and enjoyed a great deal of popularity. He is said to have received £70,000 for his writings.
TROLLOPE, MRS. FRANCES (MILTON) (1780-1863). —Novelist and miscellaneous writer, b. at Stapleton near Bristol, m. in 1809 Thomas A.T., a barrister, who fell into financial misfortune. She then in 1827 went with her family to Cincinnati, where the efforts which she made to support herself were unsuccessful. On her return to England, however, she brought herself into notice by publishing Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832), in which she gave a very unfavourable and grossly exaggerated account of the subject; and a novel, The Refugee in America, pursued it on similar lines. Next came The Abbess and Belgium and Western Germany, and other works of the same kind on Paris and the Parisians, and Vienna and the Austrians followed. Thereafter she continued to pour forth novels and books on miscellaneous subjects, writing in all over 100 vols. Though possessed of considerable powers of observation and a sharp and caustic wit, such an output was fatal to permanent literary success, and none of her books are now read. She spent the last 20 years of her life at Florence, where she d. in 1863. Her third s. was [Anthony T.], the well-known novelist (q.v.). Her eldest s., Thomas Adolphus, wrote The Girlhood of Catherine de Medici, a History of Florence, and Life of Pius IX., and some novels.
TRUMBULL, JOHN (1750-1831). —Poet, b. at Waterbury, Conn., was a lawyer, and became a judge. He wrote much verse, his principal productions being The Progress of Dulness (1772) and McFingal (1782), written in support of the Revolution in imitation of Hudibras.
TUCKER, ABRAHAM (1705-1774). —Philosophic writer, b. in London, and ed. at Oxf., was a country gentleman, who devoted himself to the study of philosophy, and wrote under the name of Edward Search, a work in 7 vols., The Light of Nature Followed (1768-78). It is rather a miscellany than a systematic treatise, but contains much original and acute thinking.
TUCKER, GEORGE (1775-1861). —Economist, etc., b. in Bermuda, became Prof., of Moral Philosophy, etc., in the Univ. of Virginia. He wrote a Life of Jefferson, Political History of the United States, Essays Moral and Philosophical, The Valley of the Shenandoah, a novel, A Voyage to the Moon (satire), and various works on economics.
TUCKER, NATHANIEL BEVERLY (1784-1851). —B. in Virginia, became a Prof., of Law in William and Mary Coll. He wrote a novel, The Partisan Leader (1836), a prophecy of the future disunion which led to the Civil War. It was re-pub. in 1861 as A Key to the Southern Conspiracy. Another novel was George Balcombe.
TUCKERMAN, HENRY THEODORE (1813-1871). —Essayist, etc., b. in Boston, Mass. He was a sympathetic and delicate critic, with a graceful style. He lived much in Italy, which influenced his choice of subjects in his earlier writings. These include The Italian Sketch-book, Isabel, or Sicily, Thoughts on the Poets, The Book of the Artists, Leaves from the Diary of a Dreamer, etc.
TULLOCH, JOHN (1823-1886). —Theologian and historical writer, b. at Bridge of Earn, Perthshire, studied at St. Andrews and Edin. He was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Scotland at Dundee, whence he was translated to Kettins, Forfarshire, and became in 1854 Principal and Prof. of Theology in St. Mary's Coll., St. Andrews. He was a leader of the liberal party in the Church of Scotland, and wrote Literary and Intellectual Revival of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (1883), Movements of Religious Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1884-85), Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth Century, and a book on Pascal, etc.
TUPPER, MARTIN FARQUHAR (1810-1889). —Versifier, s. of a surgeon, was b. in London, ed. at Charterhouse School and Oxf., and called to the Bar in 1835. He, however, believed that literature was his vocation, and wrote many works in prose and verse, only one of which, Proverbial Philosophy, had much success. But the vogue which it had was enormous, especially in America. It is a singular collection of commonplace observations set forth in a form which bears the appearance of verse, but has neither rhyme nor metre, and has long since found its deserved level. He also wrote War Ballads, Rifle Ballads, and Protestant Ballads, various novels, and an autobiography. T. was likewise an inventor, but his ideas in this kind had not much success.
TURBERVILLE, or TURBERVILE, GEORGE (1540?-1610). —Poet, belonging to an ancient Dorsetshire family, was b. at Whitchurch, and ed. at Winchester and Oxf. He became sec. to Thomas Randolph, Ambassador to Russia, and made translations from the Latin and Italian, and in 1570 pub. Epitaphes, Epigrams, Songs, and Sonets. He also wrote books on Falconrie and Hunting, and was one of the first to use blank verse.
TURNER, SHARON (1768-1847). —Historian, b. in London, was a solicitor, and becoming interested in the study of Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon literature, pub. the results of his researches in his History of the Anglo-Saxons (1799-1805). Thereafter he continued the narrative in History of England (1814-29), carrying it on to the end of the reign of Elizabeth. These histories, especially the former, though somewhat marred by an attempt to emulate the grandiose style of Gibbon, were works of real research, and opened up, and to a considerable extent developed, a new field of inquiry. T. also wrote a Sacred History of the World, and a poem on Richard III.
TUSSER, THOMAS (1524?-1580). —Versifier on agriculture, was an Essex man. Having a good voice he was trained in music, and was a chorister in St. Paul's, and afterwards in Norwich Cathedral, and held the post of musician to Lord Paget. He tried farming at different places, but unsuccessfully, which did not, however, prevent his undertaking to instruct others. This he does with much shrewdness and point in his Hundreth Goode Pointes of Husbandrie (1557), expressed in rude but lively verse; thereafter he added Hundreth Goode Pointes of Husserie (Housewifery). The two joined, and with many additions, were repeatedly reprinted as Five Hundredth Pointes of Goode Husbandrie united to as many of Goode Huswifery. Many proverbs may be traced back to the writings of T., who, in spite of all his shrewdness and talent, d. in prison as a debtor.
TYNDALE, WILLIAM (1484?-1536). —Translator of the Bible, belonged to a northern family which, migrating to Gloucestershire during the Wars of the Roses, adopted the alternative name of Huchyns or Hychins, which T. himself bore when at Oxf. in 1510. After graduating there, he went to Camb., where the influence of Erasmus, who had been Prof. of Theology, still operated. He took orders, and in 1522 was a tutor in the household of Sir John Walsh of Old Sodbury, and was preaching and disputing in the country round, for which he was called to account by the Chancellor of the diocese. At the same time he translated a treatise by Erasmus, the Enchiridion Militis Christiani (Manual of the Christian Soldier), and in controversy with a local disputant prophesied that he would cause that "a boye that driveth the plough" should know the Scriptures better than his opponent. Having formed the purpose of translating the New Testament T. went in 1523 to London, and used means towards his admission to the household of Tunstal, Bishop of London, but without success; he then lived in the house of a wealthy draper, Humphrey Monmouth, where he probably began his translation. Finding, however, that his work was likely to be interfered with, he proceeded in 1524 to Hamburg, whence he went to visit Luther at Wittenberg. He began printing his translation at Cologne the following year, but had to fly to Worms, where the work was completed. The translation itself is entirely T.'s work, and is that of a thorough scholar, and shows likewise an ear for the harmony of words. The notes and introduction are partly his own, partly literal translations, and partly the gist of the work of Luther. From Germany the translation was introduced into England, and largely circulated until forcible means of prevention were brought to bear in 1528. In this year T. removed to Marburg, where he pub. The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, a treatise on Justification by Faith, and The Obedience of a Christian Man, setting forth that Scripture is the ultimate authority in matters of faith, and the King in matters of civil government. Thereafter, having been at Hamburg and Antwerp, T. returned to Marburg, and in 1530 pub. his translation of the Pentateuch and The Practice of Prelates, in which he attacked Wolsey and the proposed divorce proceedings of Henry VIII., the latter of whom endeavoured to have him apprehended. Thereafter he was involved in a controversy with Sir Thomas More. In 1533 he returned to Antwerp, Henry's hostility having somewhat cooled, and was occupied in revising his translations, when he was in 1535 betrayed into the hands of the Imperial officers and carried off to the Castle of Vilvorde, where the next year he was strangled and burned. T. was one of the most able and devoted of the reforming leaders, and his, the foundation of all future translations of the Bible, is his enduring monument. He was a small, thin man of abstemious habits and untiring industry.
TYNDALL, JOHN (1820-1893). —Scientific writer, b. at Leighlin Bridge, County Carlow, was in early life employed in the ordnance survey and as a railway engineer. He was next teacher of mathematics and surveying at Queenwood Coll., Hampshire, after which he went to Marburg to study science, and while there became joint author of a memoir On the Magneto-optic Properties of Crystals (1850). After being at Berlin he returned in 1851 to Queenwood, and in 1853 was appointed Prof. of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution, which in 1867 he succeeded Faraday as Superintendent. With [Huxley] (q.v.) he made investigations into the Alpine glaciers. Thereafter he did much original work on heat, sound, and light. In addition to his discoveries T. was one of the greatest popularisers of science. His style, remarkable for lucidity and elegance, enabled him to expound such subjects with the minimum of technical terminology. Among his works are The Glaciers of the Alps (1860), Mountaineering (1861), Fragments of Science, two vols. (1871), including his address to the British Association at Belfast, which raised a storm of controversy and protest in various quarters, Hours of Exercise on the Alps, etc. T. d. from an overdose of chloral accidentally administered by his wife.
TYTLER, ALEXANDER FRASER (1747-1813). —Historian, s. of [William T.] (q.v.), studied at Edin., was called to the Bar in 1770 and raised to the Bench as Lord Woodhouselee in 1802. He was Prof. of History in Edin., and wrote Elements of General History (1801), An Essay on the Principles of Translation (1791), besides various legal treatises.
TYTLER, PATRICK FRASER (1791-1849). —Historian, s. of the above, studied at Edin., and was called to the Bar in 1813. Among his many writings are an Essay on the History of the Moors in Spain, The Life of the Admirable Crichton (1819), History of Scotland (1828-43), and England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary (1839). His History of Scotland, which was the result of 20 years of study and research, is still authoritative.
TYTLER, WILLIAM (1711-1792). —Historical writer, was a lawyer in Edin., and wrote An Inquiry into the Evidence against Mary Queen of Scots, in which he combated the views of Robertson. He discovered the King's Quhair of James I., and pub. in 1783 The Poetical Remains of James I., King of Scotland, with a Life.
UDALL, NICOLAS (1505-1556). —Dramatist and scholar, b. in Hampshire, and ed. at Oxf. In 1534 he became headmaster of Eton, from which he was dismissed for misconduct, 1541. In 1537 he became Vicar of Braintree, in 1551 of Calborne, Isle of Wight, and in 1554 headmaster of Westminster School. He translated part of the Apophthegms of Erasmus, and assisted in making the English version of his Paraphrase of the New Testament. Other translations were Peter Martyr's Discourse on the Eucharist and Thomas Gemini's Anatomia, but he is best remembered by Ralph Roister Doister (1553?), the first English comedy, a rude but lively piece.
UNDERDOWN, THOMAS (fl. 1566-1587). —Translator. He translated the Æthiopian History of Heliodorus 1566; also from Ovid.
UNDERWOOD, FRANCIS HENRY (1825-1894). —Critic and biographer, b. in Massachusetts, was American Consul at Glasgow and Leith. He wrote Hand-books of English Literature, Builders of American Literature, etc., some novels, Lord of Himself, Man Proposes, and Dr. Gray's Quest, and biographies of Lowell, Longfellow, and Whittier.
URQUHART, SIR THOMAS (1611-1660). —Eccentric writer and translator, was ed. at King's Coll., Aberdeen, after leaving which he travelled in France, Spain, and Italy. He was bitterly opposed to the Covenanters, and fought against them at Turriff in 1639. His later life was passed between Scotland, England (where he was for some time a prisoner in the Tower), and the Continent, where he lived, 1642-45. A man of considerable ability and learning, his vanity and eccentricity verged upon insanity, and he is said to have d. from the effects of an uncontrollable fit of joyful laughter on hearing news of the Restoration. Among his extravagances was a genealogy of his family traced through his f. to Adam, and through his mother to Eve, he himself being the 153rd in descent. He pub. Trissotetras, a work on trigonometry (1645), an invective against the Presbyterians (1652), a scheme for a universal language, Logopandecteision (1653), and a partial translation of Rabelais (1653), a further portion being pub. in 1693. In the last he was assisted by Peter Anthony Motteux, a Frenchman who had established himself in England, who continued the work.
USK, THOMAS (d. 1388). —Poet, b. in London, was sec. to John of Northampton, the Wyclifite Lord Mayor of London, whom he betrayed to save himself, in which, however, he failed, being executed in 1388. During his imprisonment, which lasted from 1384 until his death, he composed The Testament of Love, a didactic poem long attributed to Chaucer.
USSHER, JAMES (1581-1656). —Divine and scholar, b. in Dublin, the s. of a lawyer there, and ed. at Trinity Coll., took orders, and became Chancellor of St. Patrick's, Dublin, 1605, and Prof. of Divinity, 1607-21. On the Irish clergy, in 1715, deciding to assert themselves as an independent church, U. had the main hand in drawing up the constitution, certain features of which led to the suspicion of his being in favour of Puritanism. To defend himself he went in 1619 to England, and had a conference with the King (James I.), in which he so completely succeeded that he was in 1621 made Bishop of Meath, and four years later Archbishop of Armagh. He constantly used his influence in favour of reform, and endeavoured to introduce such modifications of Episcopacy as would conciliate and comprehend the Presbyterians. During the troubles which led to the Civil War U. maintained the unlawfulness of taking up arms against the King. The Rebellion in Ireland in 1641 drove him away, and he settled first at Oxf., but ultimately at the house of Lady Peterborough at Reigate, where he d. in 1656. His works dealt chiefly with ecclesiastical antiquities and chronology, his magnum opus being Annales, a chronology of the world from the creation to the dispersion of the Jews in the reign of Vespasian, a work which gained him great reputation on the Continent as well as at home. The date of the creation was fixed as 4004 B.C., which was long universally received. It has, of course, been altogether superseded, alike by the discovery of ancient records, and by geology.
VANBRUGH, SIR JOHN (1664-1726). —Dramatist and architect, b. in London of Flemish descent, was in France from 1683 to 1685, studying architecture, for which he had early shown a taste. The next year he got a commission in the army, and in 1690 he was a prisoner first at Vincennes and then in the Bastille. In 1696 he began his dramatic career with The Relapse, which had great success. Æsop followed in 1697, and The Provoked Wife in the same year. The latter was severely handled by [Jeremy Collier] (q.v.) in his Short View, etc., which produced a vindication by the author. In addition to these he wrote or collaborated in various other plays. His leading features as a dramatist are the naturalness of his dialogue and his lively humour. Like all his contemporaries he is frequently extremely gross. He obtained great fame as an architect, as well as a dramatist. Among his most famous designs are Castle Howard, Blenheim Palace, and Dalkeith Palace. He was knighted by George I., was controller of the Royal works, and succeeded Wren as architect to Greenwich Hospital. In addition to the plays above mentioned V. wrote The Confederacy and The Country House. He was a handsome and jovial person, and highly popular in society.
VAUGHAN, HENRY (1622-1695). —Poet, b. in the parish of Llansaintffraed, Brecknock, and as a native of the land of the ancient Silures, called himself "Silurist." He was at Jesus Coll., Oxf., studied law in London, but finally settled as a physician at Brecon and Newton-by-Usk. In his youth he was a decided Royalist and, along with his twin brother Thomas, was imprisoned. His first book was Poems, with the Tenth Satire of Juvenal Englished. It appeared in 1646. Olor Iscanus (the Swan of Usk), a collection of poems and translations, was surreptitiously pub. in 1651. About this time he had a serious illness which led to deep spiritual impressions, and thereafter his writings were almost entirely religious. Silex Scintillans (Sparks from the Flint), his best known work, consists of short poems full of deep religious feeling, fine fancy, and exquisite felicities of expression, mixed with a good deal that is quaint and artificial. It contains "The Retreat," a poem of about 30 lines which manifestly suggested to Wordsworth his Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, and "Beyond the Veil," one of the finest meditative poems in the language. Flores Solitudinis (Flowers of Solitude) and The Mount of Olives are devout meditations in prose. The two brothers were joint authors of Thalia Rediviva: the Pastimes and Diversions of a Country Muse (1678), a collection of translations and original poems.
VAUGHAN, ROBERT (1795-1868). —A minister of the Congregationalist communion, Prof. of History in London Univ., 1830-43, and Pres. of the Independent Coll., Manchester, 1843-57. He founded, and for a time ed. the British Quarterly. He wrote, among various other works, A History of England under the Stuarts, Revolutions of History, and a Life of Wycliffe.
VEITCH, JOHN (1829-1894). —Philosophic and miscellaneous writer, b. at Peebles, ed. at Univ. and New Coll., Edin., was assistant to [Sir Wm. Hamilton] (q.v.), 1856-60, Prof. of Logic at St. Andrews, 1860-64, and Glasgow, 1864-94. He was a voluminous and accomplished writer, his works including Lives of Dugald Stewart (1857) and Sir W. Hamilton (1869), Tweed and other Poems (1875), History and Poetry of the Scottish Border (1877), Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry (1887), Merlin and other Poems (1889), Border Essays (1896), and Dualism and Monism (1895).
VERY, JONES (1813-1880). —Essayist and poet, b. at Salem, Mass., where he became a clergyman and something of a mystic. He pub. one small volume, Essays and Poems, the latter chiefly in the form of the Shakespearian sonnet. Though never widely popular, he appealed by his refined, still thoughtfulness to a certain small circle of minds.
WACE (fl. 1170). —Chronicler, b. in Jersey, and ed. at Caen, was influenced by the Chronicle of [Geoffrey of Monmouth] (q.v.), and based upon it a French metrical romance, Brut. Later, at the command of Henry II., he rewrote with additions a chronicle of the life of William the Conqueror and entitled it Roman de Rou.
WADE, THOMAS (1805-1875). —Poet, b. at Woodbridge, pub. poems, dramas, sonnets, and a translation of Dante's Inferno. Among his writings are Tasso and the Sisters (1825), Mundi et Cordis Carmina (1835); Duke Andrea (1828), and The Jew of Arragon (1830), both tragedies, and the Phrenologists (1830), a farce.
WAKEFIELD, GILBERT (1756-1801). —Scholar and controversialist, b. at Nottingham, ed. at Camb., took orders, but becoming a Unitarian renounced them and acted as classical tutor in various Unitarian academies. He was a strong defender of the French Revolution, and was imprisoned for two years for writing a seditious pamphlet. He pub. ed. of various classical writers, and among his theological writings are Early Christian Writers on the Person of Christ (1784), An Examination of Paine's Age of Reason (1794), and Silva Critica (1789-95), illustrations of the Scriptures.
WALLACE, LEWIS (1827-1905). —Novelist, b. at Brookville, Indiana, served with distinction in the Mexican and Civil Wars, and rose to the rank of General. He was also a politician of some note, and was Governor of Utah and Minister to Turkey. His novel, Ben Hur (1880), dealing with the times of Christ, had great popularity, and was followed by The Fair God, The Prince of India, and other novels, and by a work on the Boyhood of Christ.
WALLER, EDMUND (1606-1687). —Poet, b. at Coleshill, Herts, and ed. at Eton and Camb., belonged to an old and wealthy family, and in early childhood inherited the estate of Beaconsfield, Bucks, worth £3500 a year. He was related to John Hampden, and was distantly connected with Oliver Cromwell, his own family, however, being staunch Royalists. He studied law at Lincoln's Inn, and at the age of 16 became a member of Parliament, in which he sat for various constituencies for the greater part of his life, and in which his wit and vivacity, as well as his powers of adapting his principles to the times, enabled him to take a prominent part. In 1631 he added to his fortune by marrying Anne Banks, a London heiress, who d. in 1634, and he then paid assiduous but unsuccessful court to Lady Dorothea Sidney, to whom, under the name of Sacharissa, he addressed much of his best poetry. Though probably really a Royalist in his sympathies, W. supported the popular cause in Parliament, and in 1641 conducted the case against Sir Francis Crawley for his opinion in favour of the legality of ship-money. His speech, which was printed, had an enormous circulation and brought him great fame. Two years later, however, he was detected in a plot for seizing London for the King, was expelled from the House, fined £10,000, and banished. On this occasion he showed cowardice and treachery, humiliating himself in the most abject manner, and betraying all his associates. He went to the Continent, living chiefly in France and Switzerland, and showing hospitality to Royalist exiles. Returning by permission in 1652 he addressed some laudatory verses, among the best he wrote, to Cromwell, on whose death nevertheless he wrote a new poem entitled, On the Death of the late Usurper, O.C. On the Restoration the accommodating poet was ready with a congratulatory address to Charles II., who, pointing out its inferiority as a poem to that addressed to Cromwell, elicited the famous reply, "Poets, Sire, succeed better in fiction than in truth." The poem, however, whatever its demerits, succeeded in its prime object, and the poet became a favourite at Court, and sat in Parliament until his death. In addition to his lighter pieces, on which his fame chiefly rests, W. wrote an epic, The Summer Islands (Bermudas), and a sacred poem, Divine Love. His short poems, such as "On a Girdle," often show fancy and grace of expression, but are frequently frigid and artificial, and exhibit absolute indifference to the charms of Nature. As a man, though agreeable and witty, he was time-serving, selfish, and cowardly. Clarendon has left a very unflattering "character" of him. He m. a second time and had five sons and eight daughters.
WALLER, JOHN FRANCIS (1810-1894). —Poet, b. at Limerick, and ed. at Trinity Coll., Dublin, became a contributor to and ultimately ed. of the Dublin University Magazine, usually writing under the pseudonym of "Jonathan Freke Slingsby." His works include Ravenscroft Hall (1852), The Dead Bridal (1856), and Peter Brown (1872).
WALPOLE, HORATIO or HORACE (1717-1797). —Miscellaneous writer, third s. of Sir Robert W., the great minister of George II., was b. in London, and ed. at Eton and Camb., after which he travelled on the Continent with [Gray], the poet (q.v.). His f. bestowed several lucrative appointments upon him, and he sat in Parliament for various places, but never took any prominent part in public business. By the death of his nephew, the 3rd Earl, he became in 1791 4th Earl of Orford. In 1747 he purchased the villa of Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, the conversion of which into a small Gothic Castle and the collection of the works of art and curios with which it was decorated was the main interest of his subsequent life. His position in society gave him access to the best information on all contemporary subjects of interest, and he was as successful in collecting gossip as curios. He also erected a private press, from which various important works, including Gray's Bard, as well as his own writings, were issued. Among the latter are Letter from Xo Ho to his Friend Lien Chi at Pekin (1757), The Castle of Otranto, the forerunner of the romances of terror of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis, The Mysterious Mother (1768), a tragedy of considerable power, Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, Anecdotes of Painting, Catalogue of Engravers (1763), Essay on Modern Gardening, Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of George II., Memoirs of the Reign of George III., and above all his Letters, 2700 in number, vivacious, interesting, and often brilliant. W. never m.
WALPOLE, SIR SPENCER (1839-1907). —Historian, s. of the Right Hon. Spencer W., Home Sec. in the three Derby Cabinets, belonged to the same family as Sir Robert W. Ed. at Eton he became a clerk in the War Office, and was thereafter successively Inspector of Fisheries 1867, Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Man 1882, and Sec. to the Post Office, where he made a reputation as an efficient administrator, and was made K.C.B. in 1898. He pub. History of England from 1815 in 6 vols., bringing the story down to 1858, and followed it up with The History of Twenty-five Years. He also wrote Lives of Spencer Percival, Prime Minister 1809-12, who was assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons in the latter year, and who was his maternal grandfather, and of Earl Russell. His latest book was Studies in Biography. He wrote with much knowledge, and in a clear and sober style.
WALTON, IZAAK (1593-1683). —Biographer, and author of The Compleat Angler, s. of a yeoman, was b. at Stafford. Of his earlier years little is known. He carried on business as a hosier in London, in which he made a modest competence, which enabled him to retire at 50, the rest of his long life of 90 years being spent in the simple country pleasures, especially angling, which he so charmingly describes. He was twice m., first to Rachel Floud, a descendant of Archbishop Cranmer, and second to Ann Ken, half-sister of the author of the Evening Hymn. His first book was a Life of Dr. Donne (1640), followed by Lives of Sir Henry Wotton (1651), Richard Hooker (1662), George Herbert (1670), and Bishop Sanderson (1678). All of these, classics in their kind, short, but simple and striking, were coll. into one vol. His masterpiece, however, was The Compleat Angler, the first ed. of which was pub. in 1653. Subsequent ed. were greatly enlarged; a second part was added by [Charles Cotton] (q.v.). With its dialogues between Piscator (angler), Venator (hunter), and Auceps (falconer), full of wisdom, kindly humour, and charity, its charming pictures of country scenes and pleasures, and its snatches of verse, it is one of the most delightful and care-dispelling books in the language. His long, happy, and innocent life ended in the house of his son-in-law, Dr. Hawkins, Prebendary of Winchester, where in the Cathedral he lies buried.
WARBURTON, BARTHOLOMEW ELIOT GEORGE (1810-1852). —Miscellaneous writer, b. in County Galway, travelled in the East, and pub. an account of his experiences, The Crescent and the Cross, which had remarkable success, brought out an historical work, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers (1849), and ed. Memoirs of Horace Walpole and his Contemporaries. He perished in the burning of the steamer Amazon.
WARBURTON, WILLIAM (1698-1779). —Theologian, b. at Newark, where his f. was an attorney. Intended for the law, he was for a few years engaged in its practice, but his intense love of, and capacity for, study led him to enter the Church, and in 1728 he was presented to the Rectory of Brand-Broughton, where he remained for many years. His first important work was The Alliance between Church and State (1736), which brought him into notice. But it was entirely eclipsed by his Divine Legation of Moses, of which the first part appeared in 1737, and the second in 1741. The work, though learned and able, is somewhat paradoxical, and it plunged him into controversies with his numerous critics, and led to his publishing a Vindication. It, however, obtained for him the appointment of chaplain to Frederick, Prince of Wales. In 1739 W. gained the friendship of Pope by publishing a defence of The Essay on Man. Through Pope he became acquainted with most of the men of letters of the time, and he was made by the poet his literary executor, and had the legacy of half his library, and the profits of his posthumous works. On the strength of this he brought out an ed. of Pope's works. He also pub. an ed. of Shakespeare with notes, which was somewhat severely criticised, and his Doctrine of Grace, a polemic against Wesley. He became Dean of Bristol in 1757 and Bishop of Gloucester in 1759. W. was a man of powerful intellect, but his temper was overbearing and arrogant.
"WARD, ARTEMUS", (see [BROWN, C.F.]).
WARD, ROBERT PLUMER (1765-1846). —Novelist and politician, b. in London, ed. at Oxf., and called to the Bar 1790, held various political offices, and wrote some books on the law of nations; also three novels, Tremaine, or the Man of Refinement, full of prolix discussions; De Vere, or the Man of Independence, in which Canning is depicted under the character of Wentworth; and De Clifford, or the Constant Man.
WARD, WILLIAM GEORGE (1812-1882). —Theologian, ed. at Winchester and Oxf., and came under the influence of J.H. Newman, whose famous Tract No. XC. he defended, and whom he followed into the Church of Rome. In 1844 he pub. The Ideal of a Christian Church from the Romanist point of view, whence his soubriquet of "Ideal Ward." He was lecturer on Moral Philosophy at St. Edward's Coll., Ware, and wrote various treatises on controversial theology.
WARDLAW, ELIZABETH, LADY (1677-1727). —Poetess, dau. of Sir Charles Halkett of Pitfirrane, and wife of Sir Henry Wardlaw of Pitreavie, is believed to have written the pseudo-ancient ballad of "Hardyknute." The ballad of "Sir Patrick Spens" and others have also, but doubtfully, been attributed to her.
WARNER, SUSAN (1819-1885). —Writer of tales, b. at New York, and wrote, under the name of "Elizabeth Wetherell," a number of stories, of which The Wide, Wide World (1851) had an extraordinary popularity. Others were Queechy (1852), The Old Helmet (1863), and Melbourne House (1864). They have no particular literary merit or truth to nature, and are rather sentimental and "gushy."
WARNER, WILLIAM (1558-1609). —Poet, b. in London or Yorkshire, studied at Oxf., and was an attorney in London. In 1585 he pub. a collection of seven tales in prose entitled Pan his Syrinx, and in 1595 a translation of the Menæchmi of Plautus. His chief work was Albion's England, pub. in 1586 in 13 books of fourteen-syllabled verse, and republished with 3 additional books in 1606. The title is thus explained in the dedication, "This our whole island anciently called Britain, but more anciently Albion, presently containing two kingdoms, England and Scotland, is cause ... that to distinguish the former, whose only occurrants I abridge from our history, I entitle this my book Albion's England." For about 20 years it was one of the most popular poems of its size—it contains about 10,000 lines—ever written, and he and Spenser were called the Homer and Virgil of their age. They must, however, have appealed to quite different classes. The plain-spoken, jolly humour, homely, lively, direct tales, vigorous patriotic feeling, and rough-and-tumble metre of Warner's muse, and its heterogeneous accumulation of material—history, tales, theology, antiquities—must have appealed to a lower and wider audience than Spenser's charmed verse. The style is clear, spirited, and pointed, but, as has been said, "with all its force and vivacity ... fancy at times, and graphic descriptive power, it is poetry with as little of high imagination in it as any that was ever written." In his narratives W. allowed himself great latitude of expression, which may partly account for the rapidity with which his book fell into oblivion.
WARREN, SAMUEL (1807-1877). —Novelist, b. in Denbighshire, s. of a Nonconformist minister. After studying medicine at Edin. he took up law, and became a barrister, wrote several legal text-books, and in 1852 was made Recorder of Hull. He sat in the House of Commons for Midhurst 1856-59, and was a Master in Lunacy 1859-77. He was the author of Passages from the Diary of a late Physician, which appeared (1832-37) first in Blackwood's Magazine, as did also Ten Thousand a Year (1839). Both attracted considerable attention, and were often reprinted and translated. His last novel, Now and Then, had little success. W. entertained exaggerated ideas as to the importance of his place in literature.
WARTON, JOSEPH (1722-1800). —Critic, elder s. of the Rev. Thomas W., Prof. of Poetry at Oxf., was ed. at Basingstoke School, (of which his f. was headmaster), Winchester, and Oxf. He took orders, held various benefices, and became headmaster of Winchester Coll., and Prebendary of Winchester and of St. Paul's. He pub. miscellaneous verses, 2 vols. of Odes (1744 and 1746), in which he displayed a then unusual feeling for nature, and revolted against the critical rules of Pope and his followers. He was a good classical scholar, and made an approved translation of the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil. He and his brother [Thomas] (q.v.) were friends of Johnson, and members of the Literary Club. His last work of importance was an Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, of which the first vol. appeared in 1757, and the second in 1782, and which gave an impulse to the romantic movement in English literature. He also ed. Pope's works, and had begun an ed. of Dryden when he d.
WARTON, THOMAS (1728-1790). —Literary historian and critic, younger s. of Thomas W., Prof. of Poetry at Oxf., and brother of the above, was ed. under his f. at Basingstoke and at Oxf. At the age of 19 he pub. a poem of considerable promise, The Pleasures of Melancholy, and two years later attracted attention by The Triumph of Isis (1749), in praise of Oxf., and in answer to Mason's Isis. After various other poetical excursions he pub. Observations on Spenser's Faery Queen (1754), which greatly increased his reputation, and in 1757 he was made Prof. of Poetry at Oxf., which position he held for 10 years. After bringing out one or two ed. of classics and biographies of college benefactors, he issued, from 1774-81, his great History of English Poetry, which comes down to the end of the Elizabethan age. The research and judgment, and the stores of learning often curious and recondite, which were brought to bear upon its production render this work, though now in various respects superseded, a vast magazine of information, and it did much to restore our older poetry to the place of which it had been unjustly deprived by the classical school. His ed. of Milton's minor poems has been pronounced by competent critics to be the best ever produced. W. was a clergyman, but if the tradition is to be believed that he had only two sermons, one written by his f. and the other printed, and if the love of ease and of ale which he celebrates in some of his verses was other than poetical, he was more in his place as a critic than as a cleric. As a poet he hardly came up to his own standards. He was made Poet Laureate in 1785, and in the same year Camden Prof. of History, and was one of the first to detect the Chatterton forgeries, a task in which his antiquarian lore stood him in good stead.
WATERLAND, DANIEL (1683-1740). —Theologian, b. at Waseley Rectory, Lincolnshire, and ed. at Camb., took orders, and obtained various preferments, becoming Master of Magdalene Coll., Camb. 1713, Chancellor of York 1722, and Archdeacon of Middlesex 1730. He was an acute and able controversialist on behalf of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, on which he wrote several treatises. He was also the author of a History of the Athanasian Creed (1723).
WATERTON, CHARLES (1782-1865). —Naturalist, belonged to an old Roman Catholic family in Yorkshire, and was ed. at Stonyhurst Coll. Sent out in 1804 to look after some family estates in Demerara, he wandered through the wildest parts of Guiana and Brazil, in search of plants and animals for his collections. His adventures were related in his highly-spiced and entertaining Wanderings in South America, etc. (1825), in which he details certain surprising episodes in connection with the capture of serpents, and specially of a cayman, on the back of which he rode. He also wrote an interesting account of his family.
WATSON, JOHN (1850-1907) "IAN MACLAREN". —Novelist and theological writer, b. at Manningtree, where his f. was an Inland Revenue official, ed. at Stirling and Edin., and the New Coll. there. He came, after serving in a country charge, to Sefton Park Presbyterian Church, Liverpool, where he was a popular preacher, and took a prominent part in the social and religious life of the city. He wrote, under the name of "Ian Maclaren," several novels belonging to the "Kailyard" school, including Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush and The Days of Auld Lang Syne, which had great popularity both at home and in America. He also wrote religious works, of which The Mind of the Master is the best known.
WATSON, ROBERT (1730-1781). —Historian, s. of an apothecary in St. Andrews, where and at Edin. and Glasgow, he was ed. He became Prof. of Logic, and afterwards Principal of St. Salvador's Coll., at St. Andrews, and wrote a History of Philip II. of Spain, and part of a continuation on Philip III., which were long standard works.
WATSON, THOMAS (1557?-1592). —Poet, b. in London, was at Oxf., and studied law. He was a scholar, and made translations, one of which was a Latin version of the Antigone of Sophocles. In 1582 he pub. Hecatompathia, or The Passionate Centurie of Love, consisting of 100 eighteen-line poems, which he called sonnets. It was followed by Amyntas (1585) and Teares of Fansie (1593).
WATTS, ALARIC ALEXANDER (1797-1864). —Poet, b. in London, had an active career as a journalist. He founded the United Service Gazette, and ed. various newspapers and an annual, the Literary Souvenir. His poems were coll. as Lyrics of the Heart. His numerous journalistic ventures finally resulted in bankruptcy.
WATTS, ISAAC (1674-1748). —Poet and theologian, b. at Southampton, where his f. kept a school, and ed. at a Nonconformist academy at Stoke Newington, became minister of an Independent congregation in Mark Lane; but his health proving insufficient for his pastoral duties, he resigned, and gave himself chiefly to literary work, continuing to preach occasionally. For the last 36 years of his life he resided at Theobald's, the house of his friend, Sir Thomas Abney. Among his writings were various educational treatises, including those on Logic and The Improvement of the Mind, and some works on theological subjects. But his fame rests on his sacred poems and his hymns, which number over 500, and with much that is prosaic comprised "There is a Land of Pure Delight," "O God our Help in Ages Past," and "When I survey the Wondrous Cross," which has been called "the most majestic hymn in English speech." His Horæ Lyricæ was pub. in 1706, Hymns (1707), Divine Songs (for children) (1715), Metrical Psalms (1719). Some of his poems, such as his exquisite cradle song, "Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber" have a perfect beauty and tenderness.
WAUGH, EDWIN (1817-1890). —Poet, s. of a shoemaker, was b. at Rochdale and, after a little schooling, apprenticed to a printer. He read eagerly, and became assistant sec. to the Lancashire Public School Association. He first attracted attention by his sketches of Lancashire life and character in the Manchester Examiner. He wrote also in prose Factory Folk, Besom Ben Stories, and The Chimney Corner. His best work was, perhaps, his dialect songs, coll. as Poems and Songs (1859), which brought him great local fame. He was possessed of considerable literary gift, and has been called "the Lancashire Burns."
WEBBE, WILLIAM (b. 1550). —Critic and translator. Almost nothing is known of him except that he was at Camb. and acted as tutor in certain distinguished families, and was a friend of Spenser. He wrote a Discourse of English Poetrie (1586), in which he discusses metre, rhyme (the use of which he reprehends), and reviews English poetry up to his own day. He also translated the first two of the Eclogues of Virgil in singularly unmelodious hexameters.
WEBSTER, MRS. AUGUSTA (DAVIES) (1837-1894). —Poet and translator, dau. of Admiral Davies, m. Mr. Thomas Webster, a solicitor. She wrote a novel, Lesley's Guardians, and several books of poetry of distinguished excellence, including Blanche Lisle, Dramatic Studies (1866), Portraits (1870), A Book of Rhyme (1881), and some dramas, including The Auspicious Day (1874), Disguises, and The Sentence (1887). She also made translations of Prometheus Bound and Medea.
WEBSTER, DANIEL (1782-1852). —Orator, s. of a farmer in New Hampshire, was a distinguished advocate in Boston, and afterwards a member of the United States Senate and Sec. of State 1841-43 and 1850-52. He was the greatest orator whom America has produced, and has a place in literature by virtue of his pub. speeches.
WEBSTER, JOHN (1580?-1625?). —Dramatist. Though in some respects he came nearest to Shakespeare of any of his contemporaries, almost nothing has come down to us of the life of W. Even the dates of his birth and death are uncertain. He appears to have been the s. of a London tailor, to have been a freeman of the Merchant Taylor's Company, and clerk of the parish of St. Andrews, Holborn. Four plays are known to be his, The White Devil, or the Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona (1612), Appius and Virginia (1654), The Devil's Law Case (1623), and The Duchess of Malfi (1623), and he collaborated with Drayton, Middleton, Heywood, Dekker, etc., in the production of others. He does not appear to have been much regarded in his own day, and it was only in the 19th century that his great powers began to be appreciated and expounded by such critics as Lamb and Hazlitt, and in later days Swinburne. The first says, "To move a horror skilfully, to touch a soul to the quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to wean and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit, this only a Webster can do." W. revels in the horrible, but the touch of genius saves his work from mere brutality, and evokes pity and sorrow where, without it, there would be only horror and disgust. His work is extremely unequal, and he had no power of construction, but his extraordinary insight into motives and feelings redeem all his failings and give him a place second only to Marlowe and Ben Jonson among the contemporaries of Shakespeare.
WEBSTER, NOAH (1758-1843). —Lexicographer, etc., b. at Hartford, Conn., and ed. at Yale. His long life was spent in unremitting diligence as teacher, lawyer, and man of letters. His great work is his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), for which he prepared himself by 10 years' study of philology. Many abridgments of it have appeared, and in 1866 a new and enlarged ed. was pub. His Elementary Spelling Book is believed to have attained a circulation of 70,000,000 copies. He also pub. A Philosophical and Practical Grammar of the English Language (1807), and many other works.
WELLS, CHARLES JEREMIAH (1800?-1879). —Poet, b. in London, where he practised as a solicitor, pub. in 1822 Stories after Nature, written in poetic prose, which attracted no attention, and a biblical drama, Joseph and his Brethren (1824), which had an almost similar fate until D.G. Rossetti called attention to it in 1863, giving it a high meed of praise. In 1874, stung by want of appreciation, he had burned his manuscripts of plays and poems; but on the new interest excited in his Joseph he added some new scenes. In his later years he lived in France. Joseph and his Brethren ed. in the World's Classics, 1909.
WENDOVER, ROGER DE (d. 1236). —Chronicler, a monk of St. Albans, became Prior of Belvoir, from which he was deposed for extravagance, but was recalled to St. Albans, where he d. He wrote Flores Historiarum (Flowers of History), a history of the world in 2 books, the first from the creation to the incarnation, the second to the reign of Henry III., his own time. The latter is of value as a contemporary authority, and is an impartial and manly account of his own period.
WESLEY, CHARLES (1707-1788). —Hymn-writer, younger brother of [John W.] (q.v.), was b. at Epworth, and ed. at Westminster School and Oxf. He was all his life closely associated with his elder and greater brother, one of whose most loyal helpers he was, though not agreeing with him in all points. His chief fame is founded upon his hymns, of which he is said to have written the almost incredible number of 6500, many of them among the finest in the language. They include "Jesus, Lover of my Soul," "Love Divine all Loves excelling," "Come, oh Thou Traveller Unknown," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," and "Come, let us join our Friends above."
WESLEY, JOHN (1703-1791). —Theological writer, diarist, and founder of Methodism, was the second surviving s. of the Rev. Samuel W., Rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire. The name was also written Westley and Wellesley, and the family appears to be the same as that to which the Duke of Wellington and his brother the Marquis Wellesley belonged. W. was ed. at the Charterhouse and at Oxf., and was ordained deacon in 1725, and priest in 1728. After assisting his f. for a short time as curate, he returned to Oxf., where he found that his brother [Charles], along with G. Whitefield (q.v.) and others, had begun that association for religious improvement from which sprang the great religious movement known as Methodism. About the same time the two brothers came under the influence of [William Law] (q.v.), author of the Serious Call, and in 1735 John went on a mission to Georgia to preach to the Indians and colonists, and became closely associated with the Moravian Brethren. Difficulties of a personal character, however, led to his return in 1738 to London, where he continued to associate with the Moravians. It was at this time that, hearing Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans read at a meeting, he found his religious and ecclesiastical views revolutionised. Hitherto holding strong High Church views in some directions, he now assumed a position which ultimately led to his abandoning the doctrine of Apostolical succession, and ordaining pastors and bishops, and finally creating a separate ecclesiastical organisation. Consequences soon followed; the pulpits of the Church were closed against him, and he began his marvellous career of itinerant and out-of-door preaching, which was continued to the close of his long life. He soon became a mighty power in the land; vast crowds waited on his ministrations, which were instrumental in producing a great revival of religious interest, and improved morality among the people. At the same time violent opposition was aroused, and W. was often in danger of his life from mobs. In the end, however, he lived down this state of things to a large extent, and in his old age was the object of extraordinary general veneration, while in his own communion he exercised a kind of pontifical sway. During the 50 years of his apostolic journeyings he is said to have travelled 250,000 miles in Britain, Ireland, and the Continent; but notwithstanding this phenomenal activity he was able, by extreme economy of time, to write copiously, his works including educational treatises, translations from the classics, histories of Rome and England, a history of the Church, biblical commentaries, manifold controversial treatises and ed. of religious classics. Most of them had an enormous circulation and brought him in £30,000, all of which he expended on philanthropic and religious objects. The work, however, on which his literary fame chiefly rests is his Journal, extending from 1735-90, which is one of the most graphic and interesting records of its kind in existence. He also wrote many hymns, largely translations from the German, and he had a considerable, hand in giving their final form to the almost innumerable hymns of his brother Charles. W. was a man of practical and organising ability of the first order, of intense religious earnestness and sincerity, benevolent feelings, and agreeable manners. At the same time he was of an autocratic temper, and often showed keenness and even intolerance in his controversies, which were largely against the extreme Calvinism of his old friend and fellow-labourer, Whitefield, and Toplady, the author of the hymn "Rock of Ages," himself a bitter polemic. In 1740 he had formally withdrawn from association with the Moravians. W. was m. in 1751 to a widow, Mrs. Vazeille, with whom, however, he did not live happily, and who separated from him in 1776.
WESTALL, WILLIAM (1834-1903). —Novelist, was originally in business, but later betook himself to journalism, and also wrote a large number of novels, including The Old Factory, Strange Crimes, Her Ladyship's Secret, etc., which, while healthy in tone and interesting, have no literary distinction.
WHARTON, THOMAS WHARTON, 1ST MARQUIS of (1648-1715). —Statesman and writer of "Lillibullero," s. of the 4th Baron W., was one of the most profligate men of his age. He was a supporter of the Exclusion Bill, and consequently obnoxious to James II. His only contribution to literature was the doggerel ballad, "Lillibullero" (1688), which had so powerful a political effect that its author claimed to have sung a King out of three kingdoms. He was generally disliked and distrusted, but held for a short time, from 1708, the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, when he had Addison as his chief sec.
WHATELEY, RICHARD (1787-1863). —Theologian and economist, s. of the Rev. Dr. Joseph W., b. in London, and ed. at a school in Bristol, and at Oxf., where he became a coll. tutor. Taking orders he became Rector of Halesworth, Suffolk. In 1822 he delivered his Bampton lectures on The Use and Abuse of Party Feeling in Religion. Three years later he was made Principal of St. Alban's Hall, in 1829 Prof. of Political Economy, and in 1831 Archbishop of Dublin. As head of a coll. and as a prelate W. showed great energy and administrative ability. He was a vigorous, clear-headed personality, somewhat largely endowed with contempt for views with which he was not in sympathy, and with a vein of caustic humour, in the use of which he was not sparing. These qualities made him far from universally popular; but his honesty, fairness, and devotion to duty gained for him general respect. He had no sympathy with the Oxf. movement, was strongly anti-Calvinistic, and somewhat Latitudinarian, so that he was exposed to a good deal of theological odium from opposite quarters. He was a voluminous writer, and among his best known works are his treatises on Logic (1826) and Rhetoric (1828), his Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte (1819), intended as a reductio ad absurdum of Hume's contention that no evidence is sufficient to prove a miracle, Essays on some Peculiarities of the Christian Religion (1825), Christian Evidences (1837), and ed. of Bacon's Essays with valuable notes, and of Paley's Evidences.
WHETSTONE, GEORGE (1544?-1587?). —Dramatist, one of the early, roistering playwrights who frequented the Court of Elizabeth, later served as a soldier in the Low Countries, accompanied Sir Humphrey Gilbert's expedition to Newfoundland in 1578, and was at the Battle of Zutphen in 1586. He was a trenchant critic of the contemporary drama, contending for greater reality and rationality. His play, Promos and Cassandra, translated from Cinthio's Hecatomithi, was used by Shakespeare in Measure for Measure.
WHEWELL, WILLIAM (1794-1866). —Philosopher, theologian and mathematician, s. of a joiner at Lancaster, where he was b., ed. at Camb., where he had a brilliant career. He became Prof. of Mineralogy at Camb. 1828, of Moral Theology 1838, was Master of Trinity from 1841 until his death, and he held the office of Vice-Chancellor of the Univ. in 1843 and 1856. W. was remarkable as the possessor of an encyclopædic fund of knowledge, perhaps unprecedented, and he was the author of a number of works of great importance on a variety of subjects. Among the chief of these may be mentioned his Bridgewater Treatise on Astronomy and General Physics considered with Reference to Natural Theology (1833), History of the Inductive Sciences (1837), The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840), Essay on Plurality of Worlds (anonymously), Elements of Morality (1845), History of Moral Philosophy in England (1852), and Platonic Dialogues. In addition to these he wrote innumerable articles, reviews, and scientific papers. It was as a co-ordinator of knowledge and the researches of others that W. excelled; he was little of an original observer or discoverer. He is described as a large, strong, erect man with a red face and a loud voice, and he was an overwhelming and somewhat arrogant talker.
WHICHCOTE, BENJAMIN (1609-1683). —Divine, belonged to a good Shropshire family, and was at Camb., where he became Provost of King's Coll., of which office he was deprived at the Restoration. He was of liberal views, and is reckoned among the Camb. Platonists, over whom he exercised great influence. His works consist of Discourses and Moral and Religious Aphorisms. In 1668 he was presented to the living of St. Lawrence, Jewry, London, which he held until his death.
WHIPPLE, EDWIN PERCY (1819-1886). —Essayist and critic, b. in Massachusetts, was a brilliant and discriminating critic. His works include Character and Characteristic Men, Literature and Life, Success and its Conditions, Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, Literature and Politics, etc.
WHISTON, WILLIAM (1667-1752). —Theologian, and man of science, b. at Norton, Leicestershire, and ed. at Camb., where he succeeded Newton as Lucasian Prof. of Mathematics, was a prominent advocate of the Newtonian system, and wrote a Theory of the Earth against the views of [Thomas Burnet] (q.v.). He also wrote several theological works, Primitive Christianity Revived and the Primitive New Testament. The Arian views promulgated in the former led to his expulsion from the Univ. His best known work was his translation of Josephus. He was a kindly and honest, but eccentric and impracticable man, and an insatiable controversialist.
WHITE, GILBERT (1720-1793). —Naturalist, b. at Selborne, Hants, and ed. along with the [Wartons] (q.v.) at their father's school at Basingstoke, and thereafter at Oxf., entered the Church, and after holding various curacies settled, in 1755, at Selborne. He became the friend and correspondent of [Pennant] the naturalist (q.v.), and other men of science, and pub. in the form of letters the work which has made him immortal, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789). He was never m., but was in love with the well-known bluestocking Hester Mulso, afterwards Mrs. Chapone, who rejected him. He had four brothers, all more or less addicted to the study of natural history.
WHITE, HENRY KIRKE (1785-1806). —Poet, s. of a butcher at Nottingham. At first assisting his f., next a stocking weaver, he was afterwards placed in the office of an attorney. Some contributions to a newspaper introduced him to the notice of Capel Lofft, a patron of promising youths, by whose help he brought out a vol. of poems, which fell into the hands of Southey, who wrote to him. Thereafter friends raised a fund to send him to Camb., where he gave brilliant promise. Overwork, however, undermined a constitution originally delicate, and he d. at 21. Southey wrote a short memoir of him with some additional poems. His chief poem was the Christiad, a fragment. His best known production is the hymn, "Much in sorrow, oft in Woe."
WHITE, JOSEPH BLANCO (1775-1841). —Poet, s. of a merchant, an Irish Roman Catholic resident at Seville, where he was b., became a priest, but lost his religious faith and came to England, where he conducted a Spanish newspaper having for its main object the fanning of the flame of Spanish patriotism against the French invasion, which was subsidised by the English Government. He again embraced Christianity, and entered the Church of England, but latterly became a Unitarian. He wrote, among other works, Internal Evidences against Catholicism (1825), and Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion, in answer to T. Moore's work, Travels, etc. His most permanent contribution to literature, however, is his single sonnet on "Night", which Coleridge considered "the finest and most grandly conceived" in our language.
WHITE, RICHARD GRANT (1822-1885). —Shakespearian scholar, b. in New York State, was long Chief of the Revenue Marine Bureau, and was one of the most acute students and critics of Shakespeare, of whose works he pub. two ed., the first in 1865, and the second (the Riverside) in 1883. He also wrote Words and their Uses, Memoirs of Shakespeare, Studies in Shakespeare, The New Gospel of Peace (a satire), The Fate of Mansfield Humphreys (novel), etc.
WHITEHEAD, CHARLES (1804-1862). —Poet, novelist, and dramatist; is specially remembered for three works, all of which met with popular favour: The Solitary (1831), a poem, The Autobiography of Jack Ketch (1834), a novel, and The Cavalier (1836), a play in blank verse. He recommended Dickens for the writing of the letterpress for R. Seymour's drawings, which ultimately developed into The Pickwick Papers.
WHITEHEAD, WILLIAM (1715-1785). —Poet, s. of a baker at Camb., and ed. at Winchester School and Camb., became tutor in the family of the Earl of Jersey, and retained the favour of the family through life. In 1757 he succeeded Colley Cibber as Poet Laureate. He wrote plays of only moderate quality, including The Roman Father and Creusa, tragedies, and The School for Lovers, a comedy; also poems, The Enthusiast and Variety. His official productions as Laureate were severely attacked, which drew from him in reply A Charge to the Poets.
WHITMAN, WALTER or WALT (1819-1892). —Poet, was b. at Huntingdon, Long Island, New York. His mother was of Dutch descent, and the farm on which he was b. had been in the possession of his father's family since the early settlement. His first education was received at Brooklyn, to which his f. had removed while W. was a young child. At 13 he was in a printing office, at 17 he was teaching and writing for the newspapers, and at 21 was editing one. The next dozen years were passed in desultory work as a printer with occasional literary excursions, but apparently mainly in "loafing" and observing his fellow-creatures. It was not till 1855 that his first really characteristic work, Leaves of Grass, appeared. This first ed. contained only 12 poems. Notwithstanding its startling departures from conventionality both in form and substance it was well received by the leading literary reviews and, with certain reserves to be expected, it was welcomed by Emerson. It did not, however, achieve general acceptance, and was received with strong and not unnatural protest in many quarters. When a later ed. was called for Emerson unsuccessfully endeavoured to persuade the author to suppress the more objectionable parts. On the outbreak of the Civil War W. volunteered as a nurse for the wounded, and rendered much useful service. The results of his experiences and observations were given in verse in Drum Taps and The Wound Dresser, and in prose in Specimen Days. From these scenes he was removed by his appointment to a Government clerkship, from which, however, he was soon dismissed on the ground of having written books of an immoral tendency. This action of the authorities led to a somewhat warm controversy, and after a short interval W. received another Government appointment, which he held until 1873, when he had a paralytic seizure, which rendered his retirement necessary. Other works besides those mentioned are Two Rivulets and Democratic Vistas. In his later years he retired to Camden, New Jersey, where he d. W. is the most unconventional of writers. Revolt against all convention was in fact his self-proclaimed mission. In his versification he discards rhyme almost entirely, and metre as generally understood. And in his treatment of certain passions and appetites, and of unadulterated human nature, he is at war with what he considered the conventions of an effeminate society, in which, however, he adopts a mode of utterance which many people consider equally objectionable, overlooking, as he does, the existence through all the processes of nature of a principle of reserve and concealment. Amid much that is prosaic and rhetorical, however, it remains true that there is real poetic insight and an intense and singularly fresh sense of nature in the best of his writings.
Works, 12 vols., with Life. See Stedman's Poets of America. Monographs by Symonds, Clarke, and Salter.
WHITNEY, WILLIAM DWIGHT (1827-1894). —Philologist, b. at Northampton, Mass., was Prof. of Sanskrit, etc., at Yale, and chief ed. of the Century Dictionary. Among his books are Darwinism and Language and The Life and Growth of Language.
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF (1807-1892). —Poet, was b. at Haverhill, Massachusetts, of a Quaker family. In early life he worked on a farm. His later years were occupied partly in journalism, partly in farming, and he seems also to have done a good deal of local political work. He began to write verse at a very early age, and continued to do so until almost his latest days. He was always a champion of the anti-slavery cause, and by his writings both as journalist and poet, did much to stimulate national feeling in the direction of freedom. Among his poetical works are Voices of Freedom (1836), Songs of Labour (1851), Home Ballads (1859), In War Time (1863), Snow Bound (1866), The Tent on the Beach (1867), Ballads of New England (1870), The Pennsylvania Pilgrim (1874). W. had true feeling and was animated by high ideals. Influenced in early life by the poems of Burns, he became a poet of nature, with which his early upbringing brought him into close and sympathetic contact; he was also a poet of faith and the ideal life and of liberty. He, however, lacked concentration and intensity, and his want of early education made him often loose in expression and faulty in form; and probably a comparatively small portion of what he wrote will live.
WHYTE-MELVILLE, GEORGE JOHN (1821-1878). —Novelist, s. of a country gentleman of Fife, ed. at Eton, entered the army, and saw service in the Crimea, retiring in 1859 as Major. Thereafter he devoted himself to field sports, in which he was an acknowledged authority, and to literature. He wrote a number of novels, mainly founded on sporting subjects, though a few were historical. They include Kate Coventry, The Queen's Maries, The Gladiators, and Satanella. He also wrote Songs and Verses and The True Cross, a religious poem. He d. from an accident in the hunting-field.
WICLIF, or WYCLIF, JOHN (1320?-1384). —Theologian and translator of the Bible, b. near Richmond, Yorkshire, studied at Balliol Coll., Oxf., of which he became in 1361 master, and taking orders, became Vicar of Fillingham, Lincolnshire, when he resigned his mastership, and in 1361 Prebendary of Westbury. By this time he had written a treatise on logic, and had won some position as a man of learning. In 1372 he took the degree of Doctor of Theology, and became Canon of Lincoln, and in 1374 was sent to Bruges as one of a commission to treat with Papal delegates as to certain ecclesiastical matters in dispute, and in the same year he became Rector of Lutterworth, where he remained until his death. His liberal and patriotic views on the questions in dispute between England and the Pope gained for him the favour of John of Gaunt and Lord Percy, who accompanied him when, in 1377, he was summoned before the ecclesiastical authorities at St. Paul's. The Court was broken up by an inroad of the London mob, and no sentence was passed upon him. Another trial at Lambeth in the next year was equally inconclusive. By this time W. had taken up a position definitely antagonistic to the Papal system. He organised his institution of poor preachers, and initiated his great enterprise of translating the Scriptures into English. His own share of the work was the Gospels, probably the whole of the New Testament and possibly part of the Old. The whole work was ed. by John Purvey, an Oxf. friend, who had joined him at Lutterworth, the work being completed by 1400. In 1380 W. openly rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation, and was forbidden to teach at Oxf., where he had obtained great influence. In 1382 a Court was convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which passed sentence of condemnation upon his views. It says much for the position which he had attained, and for the power of his supporters, that he was permitted to depart from Oxf. and retire to Lutterworth, where, worn out by his labours and anxieties, he d. of a paralytic seizure on the last day of 1384. His enemies, baffled in their designs against him while living, consoled themselves by disinterring his bones in 1428 and throwing them into the river Swift, of which [Thomas Fuller] (q.v.) has said, "Thus this brook has conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the Narrow Seas, they into the main ocean, and thus the ashes of Wicliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over." The works of W. were chiefly controversial or theological and, as literature, have no great importance, but his translation of the Bible had indirectly a great influence not only by tending to fix the language, but in a far greater degree by furthering the moral and intellectual emancipation on which true literature is essentially founded.
WILBERFORCE, WILLIAM (1759-1833). —Philanthropist and religious writer, s. of a merchant, was b. at Hull, ed. at Camb., entered Parliament as member for his native town, became the intimate friend of Pitt, and was the leader of the crusade against the slave-trade and slavery. His chief literary work was his Practical View of Christianity, which had remarkable popularity and influence, but he wrote continually and with effect on the religious and philanthropic objects to which he had devoted his life.
WILCOX, CARLES (1794-1827). —Poet, b. at Newport, N.H., was a Congregationalist minister. He wrote a poem, The Age of Benevolence, which was left unfinished, and which bears manifest traces of the influence of Cowper.
WILDE, OSCAR O'FLAHERTY (1856-1900). —Poet and dramatist, s. of Sir William W., the eminent surgeon, was b. at Dublin, and ed. there at Trinity Coll. and at Oxf. He was one of the founders of the modern cult of the æsthetic. Among his writings are Poems (1881), The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel, and several plays, including Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of no Importance, and The Importance of being Earnest. He was convicted of a serious offence, and after his release from prison went abroad and d. at Paris. Coll. ed. of his works, 12 vols., 1909.
WILKES, JOHN (1727-1797). —Politician, s. of a distiller in London, was ed. at Leyden. Witty, resourceful, but unprincipled and profligate, he became from circumstances the representative and champion of important political principles, including that of free representation in Parliament. His writings have nothing of the brilliance and point of his social exhibitions, but his paper, The North Briton, and especially the famous "No. 45," in which he charged George III. with uttering a falsehood in his speech from the throne, caused so much excitement, and led to such important results that they give him a place in literature. He also wrote a highly offensive Essay on Woman. W. was expelled from the House of Commons and outlawed, but such was the strength of the cause which he championed that, notwithstanding the worthlessness of his character, his right to sit in the House was ultimately admitted in 1774, and he continued to sit until 1790. He was also Lord Mayor of London.
WILKIE, WILLIAM (1721-1772). —Poet, b.. in Linlithgowshire, s. of a farmer, and ed. at Edin., he entered the Church, and became minister of Ratho, Midlothian, in 1756, and Prof. of Natural Philosophy at St. Andrews in 1759. In 1757 he pub. the Epigoniad, dealing with the Epigoni, sons of the seven heroes who fought against Thebes. He also wrote Moral Fables in Verse.
WILKINS, JOHN (1614-1672). —Mathematician and divine, s. of a goldsmith in Oxf., but b. at Daventry and ed. at Oxf., entered the Church, held many preferments, and became Bishop of Chester. He m. a sister of Oliver Cromwell, and being of an easy temper and somewhat accommodating principles, he passed through troublous times and many changes with a minimum of hardship. He was one of the band of learned men whom Charles II. incorporated as the Royal Society. Among his writings are The Discovery of a World in the Moon, Mathematical Magic, and An Essay towards ... a Philosophical Language.
WILKINSON, SIR JOHN GARDNER (1797-1875). —Egyptologist, s. of a Westmoreland clergyman, studied at Oxf. In 1821 he went to Egypt, and remained there and in Nubia exploring, surveying, and studying the hieroglyphical inscriptions, on which he made himself one of the great authorities. He pub. two important works, of great literary as well as scholarly merit, Materia Hieroglyphica (1828) and Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (6 vols., 1837-41). He wrote various books of travel, and was knighted in 1839.
WILLIAM of MALMESBURY (fl. 12th cent.). —Historian, was an inmate of the great monastery at Malmesbury. His name is said to have been Somerset, and he was Norman by one parent and English by the other. The date of his birth is unknown, that of his death has sometimes been fixed as 1142 on the ground that his latest work stops abruptly in that year. His history, written in Latin, falls into two parts, Gesta Regum Anglorum (Acts of the Kings of the English), in five books, bringing the narrative down from the arrival of the Saxons to 1120, and Historia Novella (Modern History), carrying it on to 1142. The work is characterised by a love of truth, much more critical faculty in sifting evidence than was then common, and considerable attention to literary form. It is dedicated to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the champion of Queen Matilda. Other works by W. are De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum, Lives of the English Bishops, and a history of the Monastery of Glastonbury.
WILLIAM of NEWBURGH, or NEWBURY (1136-1198?). —Historian, belonged to the monastery of Newburgh in Yorkshire. His own name is said to have been Little. His work, Historia Rerum Anglicarum (History of English affairs), is written in good Latin, and has some of the same qualities as that of [William of Malmesbury] (q.v.). He rejects the legend of the Trojan descent of the early Britons, and animadverts severely on what he calls "the impudent and impertinent lies" of [Geoffrey of Monmouth] (q.v.). His record of contemporary events is careful.
WILLIAMS, SIR CHARLES HANBURY (1708-1759). —Diplomatist and satirist, s. of John Hanbury, a Welsh ironmaster, assumed the name of Williams on succeeding to an estate, entered Parliament as a supporter of Walpole, held many diplomatic posts, and was a brilliant wit with a great contemporary reputation for lively and biting satires and lampoons.
WILLIS, BROWNE (1682-1760). —Antiquary, ed. at Westminster and Oxf., entered the Inner Temple 1700, sat in the House of Commons 1705-8. He wrote History of the Counties, Cities, and Boroughs of England and Wales (1715), Notitia Parliamentaria, etc.
WILLIS, NATHANIEL PARKER (1806-1867). —Poet, b. at Portland, and ed. at Yale, was mainly a journalist, and conducted various magazines, including the American Monthly; but he also wrote short poems, many of which were popular, of which perhaps the best is "Unseen Spirits," stories, and works of a more or less fugitive character, with such titles as Pencillings by the Way (1835), Inklings of Adventure, Letters from under a Bridge (1839), People I have Met, The Rag-Tag, The Slingsby Papers, etc., some of which were originally contributed to his magazines. He travelled a good deal in Europe, and was attached for a time to the American Embassy in Paris. He was a favourite in society, and enjoyed a wide popularity in uncritical circles, but is now distinctly a spent force.
WILLS, JAMES (1790-1868). —Poet and miscellaneous writer, younger s. of a Roscommon squire, was ed. at Trinity Coll., Dublin, and studied law in the Middle Temple. Deprived, however, of the fortune destined for him and the means of pursuing a legal career by the extravagance of his elder brother, he entered the Church, and also wrote largely in Blackwood's Magazine and other periodicals. In 1831 he pub. The Disembodied and other Poems; The Philosophy of Unbelief (1835) attracted much attention. His largest work was Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen, and his latest publication The Idolatress (1868). In all his writings W. gave evidence of a powerful personality. His poems are spirited, and in some cases show considerable dramatic qualities.
WILLS, WILLIAM GORMAN (1828-1891). —Dramatist, s. of above, b. in Dublin. After writing a novel, Old Times, in an Irish magazine, he went to London, and for some time wrote for periodicals without any very marked success. He found his true vein in the drama, and produced over 30 plays, many of which, including Medea in Corinth, Eugene Aram, Jane Shore, Buckingham, and Olivia, had great success. Besides these he wrote a poem, Melchior, in blank verse, and many songs. He was also an accomplished artist.
WILSON, ALEXANDER (1766-1813). —Poet and ornithologist, b. at Paisley, where he worked as a weaver, afterwards becoming a pedlar. He pub. some poems, of which the best is Watty and Maggie, and in 1794 went to America, where he worked as a pedlar and teacher. His skill in depicting birds led to his becoming an enthusiastic ornithologist, and he induced the publisher of Rees's Cyclopædia, on which he had been employed, to undertake an American ornithology to be written and illustrated by him. Some vols. of the work were completed when, worn out by the labour and exposure entailed by his journeys in search of specimens, he succumbed to a fever. Two additional vols. appeared posthumously. The work, both from a literary and artistic point of view, is of high merit. He also pub. in America another poem, The Foresters.
WILSON, SIR DANIEL (1816-1892). —Archæologist and miscellaneous writer, b. and ed. in Edin., and after acting as sec. of the Society of Antiquaries there, went to Toronto as Prof. of History and English Literature. He was the author of Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time, The Archeology and Pre-historic Annals of Scotland (1851), Civilisation in the Old and the New World, a study on "Chatterton," and Caliban, the Missing Link, etc.
WILSON, JOHN ("CHRISTOPHER NORTH") (1785-1854). —Poet, essayist, and miscellaneous writer, s. of a wealthy manufacturer in Paisley, where he was b., was ed. at Glas. and Oxf. At the latter he not only displayed great intellectual endowments, but distinguished himself as an athlete. Having succeeded to a fortune of £50,000 he purchased the small estate of Elleray in the Lake District, where he enjoyed the friendship of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and De Quincey. In 1812 he pub. The Isle of Palms, followed four years later by The City of the Plague, which gained for him a recognised place in literature, though they did not show his most characteristic gifts, and are now almost unread. About this time he lost a large portion of his fortune, had to give up continuous residence at Elleray, came to Edinburgh, and was called to the Scottish Bar, but never practised. The starting of Blackwood's Magazine brought him his opportunity, and to the end of his life his connection with it gave him his main employment and chief fame. In 1820 he became Prof. of Moral Philosophy in the Univ. of Edin. where, though not much of a philosopher in the technical sense, he exercised a highly stimulating influence upon his students by his eloquence and the general vigour of his intellect. The peculiar powers of W., his wealth of ideas, felicity of expression, humour, and animal spirits, found their full development in the famous Noctes Ambrosianæ, a medley of criticism on literature, politics, philosophy, topics of the day and what not. Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life and The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay are contributions to fiction in which there is an occasional tendency to run pathos into rather mawkish sentimentality. In 1851 W. received a Government pension of £300. The following year a paralytic seizure led to his resignation of his professorial chair, and he d. in 1854. He was a man of magnificent physique, of shining rather than profound intellectual powers, and of generous character, though as a critic his strong feelings and prejudices occasionally made him unfair and even savage.
WILSON, JOHN (1804-1875). —Missionary and orientalist, b. at Lauder, Berwickshire, and ed. at Edin. for the ministry of the Church of Scotland, went in 1828 to India as a missionary, where, besides his immediate duties, he became a leader in all social reform, such as the abolition of the slave-trade and suttee, and also one of the greatest authorities on the subject of caste, and a trusted adviser of successive Governors-General in regard to all questions affecting the natives. He was in addition a profound Oriental scholar as to languages, history, and religion. He was D.D., F.R.S., and Vice-Chancellor of Bombay Univ. Among his works are The Parsi Religion (1812), The Lands of the Bible (1847), India Three Thousand Years Ago, and Memoirs of the Cave Temples of India.
WILSON, THOMAS (1525?-1581). —Scholar and statesman, b. in Lincolnshire, was at Camb., and held various high positions under Queen Elizabeth. He was the author of The Rule of Reason containing the Arte of Logique (1551), and The Arte of Rhetorique (1553), and made translations from Demosthenes. He endeavoured to maintain the purity of the language against the importation of foreign words.
WINGATE, DAVID, (1828-1892). —Poet, was employed in the coal-pits near Hamilton from the time he was 9. He pub. Poems and Songs (1862), which was favourably received, and followed by Annie Weir (1866). After this he studied at the Glasgow School of Mines, became a colliery manager, and devoted his increased leisure to study and further literary work. Lily Neil appeared in 1879, followed by Poems and Songs (1883), and Selected Poems (1890). W. was a man of independent character. He was twice m., his second wife being a descendant of Burns.
WINTHROP, THEODORE (1828-1861). —Novelist, b. at New Haven, Conn., descended through his f. from Governor W., and through his mother from Jonathan Edwards, ed. at Yale, travelled in Great Britain and on the Continent, and far and wide in his own country. After contributing to periodicals short sketches and stories, which attracted little attention, he enlisted in the Federal Army, in 1861, and was killed in the Battle of Great Bethel. His novels, for which he had failed to find a publisher, appeared posthumously—John Brent, founded on his experiences in the far West, Edwin Brothertoft, a story of the Revolution War, and Cecil Dreeme. Other works were The Canoe and Saddle, and Life in the Open Air. Though somewhat spasmodic and crude, his novels had freshness, originality, and power, and with longer life and greater concentration he might have risen high.
WITHER, GEORGE (1588-1667). —Poet, b. near Alton, Hampshire, was at Oxf. for a short time, and then studied law at Lincoln's Inn. In 1613 he pub. a bold and pungent satire, Abuses Stript and Whipt, with the result that he was imprisoned for some months in the Marshalsea. While there he wrote The Shepheard's Hunting, a pastoral. Wither's Motto, Nec Habeo, nec Careo, nec Curo (I have not, want not, care not) was written in 1618, and in 1622 he coll. his poems as Juvenilia. The same year he pub. a long poem, Faire Virtue, the Mistress of Philarete, in which appears the famous lyric, "Shall I wasting in despair." Though generally acting with the Puritans he took arms with Charles I. against the Scotch in 1639; but on the outbreak of the Civil War he was on the popular side, and raised a troop of horse. He was taken prisoner by the Royalists, and is said to have owed his life to the intercession of a fellow-poet, Sir John Denham. After the establishment of the Commonwealth he was considerably enriched out of sequestrated estates and other spoils of the defeated party; but on the Restoration was obliged to surrender his gains, was impeached, and committed to the Tower. In his later years he wrote many religious poems and hymns, coll. as Hallelujah. Before his death his poems were already forgotten, and he was referred to by Pope in The Dunciad as "the wretched Withers". He was, however, disinterred by Southey, Lamb, and others, who drew attention to his poetical merits, and he has now an established place among English poets, to which his freshness, fancy, and delicacy of taste well entitle him.
WODROW, ROBERT (1679-1734). —Church historian, s. of James W., Prof. of Divinity in Glasgow. Having completed his literary and theological education there, he entered the ministry of the Church of Scotland, and was ordained to the parish of Eastwood, Renfrewshire. Here he carried on the great work of his life, his History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland 1660 to 1688. W. wrote when the memory of the persecutions was still fresh, and his work is naturally not free from partisan feeling and credulity. It is, however, thoroughly honest in intention, and is a work of genuine research, and of high value for the period with which it deals. It was pub. in two folio vols. in 1721 and 1722. W. made large collections for other works which, however, were not pub. in his lifetime. The Lives of the Scottish Reformers and Most Eminent Ministers and Analecta, or a History of Remarkable Providences, were printed for the Maitland Club, and 3 vols. of his correspondence in 1841 for the Wodrow Society. The Analecta is a most curious miscellany showing a strong appetite for the marvellous combined with a hesitating doubt in regard to some of the more exacting narratives.
WOLCOT, JOHN (1738-1819). —Satirist, b. near Kingsbridge, Devonshire, was ed. by an uncle, and studied medicine. In 1767 he went as physician to Sir William Trelawny, Governor of Jamaica, and whom he induced to present him to a Church in the island then vacant, and was ordained in 1769. Sir William dying in 1772, W. came home and, abandoning the Church, resumed his medical character, and settled in practice at Truro, where he discovered the talents of Opie the painter, and assisted him. In 1780 he went to London, and commenced writing satires. The first objects of his attentions were the members of the Royal Academy, and these attempts being well received, he soon began to fly at higher game, the King and Queen being the most frequent marks for his satirical shafts. In 1786 appeared The Lousiad, a Heroi-Comic Poem, taking its name from a legend that on the King's dinner plate there had appeared a certain insect not usually found in such exalted quarters. Other objects of his attack were Boswell, the biographer of Johnson, and Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller. W., who wrote under the nom-de-guerre of "Peter Pindar," had a remarkable vein of humour and wit, which, while intensely comic to persons not involved, stung its subjects to the quick. He had likewise strong intelligence, and a power of coining effective phrases. In other kinds of composition, as in some ballads which he wrote, an unexpected touch of gentleness and even tenderness appears. Among these are The Beggar Man and Lord Gregory. Much that he wrote has now lost all interest owing to the circumstances referred to being forgotten, but enough still retains its peculiar relish to account for his contemporary reputation.
WOLFE, CHARLES (1791-1823). —Poet, s. of a landed gentleman in Kildare, was b. in Dublin, where he completed his ed. at Trinity Coll., having previously been at Winchester. He took orders, and was Rector of Donoughmere, but his health failed, and he d. of consumption at 32. He is remembered for one short, but universally known and admired poem, The Burial of Sir John Moore, which first appeared anonymously in the Newry Telegraph in 1817.
WOOD, or À WOOD, ANTHONY (1632-1695). —Antiquary, was b. at Oxf., where he was ed. and spent most of his life. His antiquarian enthusiasm was awakened by the collections of Leland, and he early began to visit and study the antiquities of his native county. This with history, heraldry, genealogies, and music occupied his whole time. By 1669 he had written his History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, which was translated into Latin not to his satisfaction by the Univ. authorities, and he wrote a fresh English copy which was printed in 1786. His great work was Athenæ Oxonienses; an exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford, to which are added the Fasti or Annals of the said University (1691-92). For an alleged libel on the Earl of Clarendon in that work the author was expelled in 1694. He also wrote The Ancient and Present State of the City of Oxford, and Modius Salium, a Collection of Pieces of Humour, generally of an ill-natured cast.
WOOD, MRS. ELLEN (PRICE) (1814-1887). —Novelist, writing as "Mrs. Henry Wood," was b. at Worcester. She wrote over 30 novels, many of which, especially East Lynne, had remarkable popularity. Though the stories are generally interesting, they have no distinction of style. Among the best known are Danesbury House, Oswald Cray, Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles, The Channings, Lord Oakburn's Daughters, and The Shadow of Ashlydyat. Mrs. W. was for some years proprietor and ed. of the Argosy.
WOOD, JOHN GEORGE (1827-1889). —Writer on natural history, s. of a surgeon, b. in London, and ed. at home and at Oxf., where he worked for some time in the anatomical museum. He took orders, and among other benefices which he held was for a time chaplain to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He was a very prolific writer on natural history, though rather as a populariser than as a scientific investigator, and was in this way very successful. Among his numerous works may be mentioned Illustrated Natural History (1853), Animal Traits and Characteristics (1860), Common Objects of the Sea Shore (1857), Out of Doors (1874), Field Naturalist's Handbook (with T. Wood) (1879-80), books on gymnastics, sport, etc., and an ed. of White's Selborne.
WOOLMAN, JOHN (1720-1772). —Quaker diarist, b. at Burlington, New Jersey, began life as a farm labourer, and then became a clerk in a store. He underwent deep religious impressions, and the latter part of his life was devoted to itinerant preaching and doing whatever good came to his hand. To support himself he worked as a tailor. He was one of the first to witness against the evils of slavery, on which he wrote a tract, Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes (1753). His Journal "reveals his life and character with rare fidelity" and, though little known compared with some similar works, gained the admiration of, among other writers, Charles Lamb, who says, "Get the writings of John Woolman by heart." In 1772 he went to England, where he d. of smallpox in the same year.
WOOLNER, THOMAS (1826-1892). —Sculptor and poet, b. at Hadleigh, attained a high reputation as a sculptor. He belonged to the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and contributed poems to their magazine, the Germ. He wrote several vols. of poetry, including My Beautiful Lady (1863), Pygmalion, Silenus, Tiresias, and Nelly Dale. He had a true poetic gift, though better known by his portrait busts.
WORDSWORTH, CHRISTOPHER (1774-1846). —Biographer, etc., was a younger brother of the poet, ed. at Camb., took orders, and became Chaplain to the House of Commons, and Master of Trinity Coll., Camb. 1820-41. He was also Vice-Chancellor of the Univ. 1820-21 and 1826-27. He pub. Ecclesiastical Biography (1810), and Who wrote Eikon Basiliké? in which he argued for the authorship of Charles I.
WORDSWORTH, CHRISTOPHER (1807-1885). —S. of above, ed. at Camb., took orders and became a Canon of Westminster 1844, and Bishop of Lincoln 1868. He travelled in Greece, and discovered the site of Dodona. His writings include in theology a commentary on the Bible (1856-70), Church History to A.D. 451 (1881-83), and in other fields, Athens and Attica (1836), and Theocritus (1844).
WORDSWORTH, DOROTHY (1771-1855). —Diarist, etc., was the only sister of the poet, and his lifelong and sympathetic companion, and endowed in no small degree with the same love of and insight into nature as is evidenced by her Journals. Many of her brother's poems were suggested by scenes and incidents recorded by her, of which that on Daffodils beginning "I wandered lonely as a cloud" is a notable example.
WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM (1770-1850). —Poet, s. of John W., attorney and agent to the 1st Lord Lonsdale, was b. at Cockermouth. His boyhood was full of adventure among the hills, and he says of himself that he showed "a stiff, moody, and violent temper." He lost his mother when he was 8, and his f. in 1783 when he was 13. The latter, prematurely cut off, left little for the support of his family of four sons and a dau., Dorothy (afterwards the worthy companion of her illustrious brother), except a claim for £5000 against Lord Lonsdale, which his lordship contested, and which was not settled until his death. With the help, however, of uncles, the family were well ed. and started in life. William received his earlier education at Penrith and Hawkshead in Lancashire; and in 1787 went to St. John's Coll., Camb., where he graduated B.A. in 1791. In the preceding year, 1790, he had taken a walking tour on the Continent, visiting France in the first flush of the Revolution with which, at that stage, he was, like many of the best younger minds of the time, in enthusiastic sympathy. So much was this the case that he nearly involved himself with the Girondists to an extent which might have cost him his life. His funds, however, gave out, and he returned to England shortly before his friends fell under the guillotine. His uncles were desirous that he should enter the Church, but to this he was unconquerably averse; and indeed his marked indisposition to adopt any regular employment led to their taking not unnatural offence. In 1793 his first publication—Descriptive Sketches of a Pedestrian Tour in the Alps, and The Evening Walk—appeared, but attracted little attention. The beginning of his friendship with Coleridge in 1795 tended to confirm him in his resolution to devote himself to poetry; and a legacy of £900 from a friend put it in his power to do so by making him for a time independent of other employment. He settled with his sister at Racedown, Dorsetshire, and shortly afterwards removed to Alfoxden, in the Quantock Hills, to be near Coleridge, who was then living at Nether Stowey in the same neighbourhood. One result of the intimacy thus established was the planning of a joint work, Lyrical Ballads, to which Coleridge contributed The Ancient Mariner, and W., among other pieces, Tintern Abbey. The first ed. of the work appeared in 1798. With the profits of this he went, accompanied by his sister and Coleridge, to Germany, where he lived chiefly at Goslar, and where he began the Prelude, a poem descriptive of the development of his own mind. After over a year's absence W. returned and settled with Dorothy at Grasmere. In 1800 the second ed. of Lyrical Ballads, containing W.'s contributions alone, with several additions, appeared. In the same year Lord Lonsdale d., and his successor settled the claims already referred to with interest, and the share of the brother and sister enabled them to live in the frugal and simple manner which suited them. Two years later W.'s circumstances enabled him to marry his cousin, Mary Hutchinson, to whom he had been long attached. In 1804 he made a tour in Scotland, and began his friendship with Scott. The year 1807 saw the publication of Poems in Two Volumes, which contains much of his best work, including the "Ode to Duty," "Intimations of Immortality," "Yarrow Unvisited," and the "Solitary Reaper." In 1813 he migrated to Rydal Mount, his home for the rest of his life; and in the same year he received, through the influence of Lord Lonsdale, the appointment of Distributor of Stamps for Westmoreland, with a salary of £400. The next year he made another Scottish tour, when he wrote Yarrow Visited, and he also pub. The Excursion, "being a portion of The Recluse, a Poem." W. had now come to his own, and was regarded by the great majority of the lovers of poetry as, notwithstanding certain limitations and flaws, a truly great and original poet. The rest of his life has few events beyond the publication of his remaining works (which, however, did not materially advance his fame), and tokens of the growing honour in which he was held. The White Doe of Rylstone appeared in 1815, in which year also he made a collection of his poems; Peter Bell and The Waggoner in 1819; The River Duddon and Memorials of a Tour on the Continent in 1820; Ecclesiastical Sonnets 1822; and Yarrow Revisited in 1835. In 1831 he paid his last visit to Scott; in 1838 he received the degree of D.C.L. from Durham, and in 1839 the same from Oxf. Three years later he resigned his office of Distributor of Stamps in favour of his s., and received a civil list pension of £300. The following year, 1843, he succeeded Southey as Poet Laureate. His long, tranquil, and fruitful life ended in 1850. He lies buried in the churchyard of Grasmere. After his death the Prelude, finished in 1805, was pub. It had been kept back because the great projected poem of which it was to have been the preface, and of which The Excursion is a part, was never completed.
The work of W. is singularly unequal. When at his best, as in the "Intimations of Immortality," "Laodamia," some passages in The Excursion, and some of his short pieces, and especially his sonnets, he rises to heights of noble inspiration and splendour of language rarely equalled by any of our poets. But it required his poetic fire to be at fusing point to enable him to burst through his natural tendency to prolixity and even dulness. His extraordinary lack of humour and the, perhaps consequent, imperfect power of self-criticism by which it was accompanied, together with the theory of poetic theme and diction with which he hampered himself, led him into a frequent choice of trivial subjects and childish language which excited not unjust ridicule, and long delayed the general recognition of his genius. He has a marvellous felicity of phrase, an unrivalled power of describing natural appearances and effects, and the most ennobling views of life and duty. But his great distinguishing characteristic is his sense of the mystic relations between man and nature. His influence on contemporary and succeeding thought and literature has been profound and lasting. It should be added that W., like Milton, with whom he had many points in common, was the master of a noble and expressive prose style.
SUMMARY.—B. 1770, ed. at Camb., sympathiser with French Revolution in earlier stages, first publication Tour in the Alps and Evening Walk 1793, became acquainted with Coleridge 1795, pub. with him Lyrical Ballads 1798, visits Germany and begins Prelude, returns to England and settles at Grasmere, pub. second ed. of Lyrical Ballads, entirely his own, 1800, m. Mary Hutchinson 1802, visits Scotland 1804 and becomes acquainted with Scott, pub. Poems in Two Volumes 1807, goes to Rydal Mount 1813, appointed Distributor of Stamps, revisits Scotland, writes Yarrow Visited and pub. The Excursion 1814, White Doe and coll. works 1815, Waggoner, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, etc., 1819-35, pensioned 1842, Poet Laureate 1843, d. 1850.
There are numerous good ed. of the poems, including his own by Moxon (1836, 1845, and 1850), and those by Knight (1882-86), Morley (1888), Dowden (1893), Smith (1908). Another by Knight in 16 vols. includes the prose writings and the Journal by Dorothy (1896-97). Lives by Christopher Wordsworth (1857), Myers (1880), and others. See also criticism by W. Raleign (1903).
WOTTON, SIR HENRY (1568-1639). —Diplomatist and poet, s. of a Kentish gentleman, was b. at Boughton Park, near Maidstone, and ed. at Winchester and Oxf. After spending 7 years on the Continent, he entered the Middle Temple. In 1595 he became sec. to the Earl of Essex, who employed him abroad, and while at Venice he wrote The State of Christendom or a Most Exact and Curious Discovery of many Secret Passages and Hidden Mysteries of the Times, which was not, however, printed until 1657. Afterwards he held various diplomatic appointments, but Court favour latterly failed him and he was recalled from Venice and made Provost of Eton in 1624, to qualify himself for which he took deacon's orders. Among his other works were Elements of Architecture (1624) and A Survey of Education. His writings in prose and verse were pub. in 1651 as Reliquiæ Wottonianæ. His poems include two which are familiar to all readers of Elizabethan verse, The Character of a Happy Life, "How happy is he born and taught," and On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia, beginning "Ye meaner Beauties of the Night." He was the originator of many witty sayings, which have come down.
WRAXALL, SIR NATHANIEL WILLIAM (1751-1831). —Historical writer, b. at Bristol, was for a few years in the service of the East India Company, and thereafter employed on diplomatic missions, and sat for some years in the House of Commons. In addition to a book of travels and some historical works relating to the French and other foreign Courts, he wrote Historical Memories of my own Time 1772-84, pub. in 1815. The work was severely criticised by both political parties, and in particular by Macaulay; but W. made a reply which was considered to be on the whole successful. A continuation bringing the narrative down to 1790 was pub. in 1836. The Memoirs are valuable for the light they throw on the period, and especially for the portraits of public men which they give.
WRIGHT, THOMAS (1810-1877). —Antiquary, b. near Ludlow, of Quaker parentage, was ed. at Camb. His first work was a History of Essex (1831-36). In 1836 he went to London, and adopted literature as a profession, devoting himself specially to archæology, history, and biography. He held office in various societies such as the "Camden," "Percy," and "Shakespeare," and ed. many works for them. In all he was the author of over 80 publications, of which some of the chief are The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, Biographia Britannica Literaria, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, and History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages. He was superintendent of the excavation of the Roman city at Wroxeter in 1859.
WYATT, SIR THOMAS (1503-1542). —Poet, s. of Sir Henry W., a servant of Henry VII., and ed. at St. John's Coll., Camb., came to Court and was frequently employed by Henry VIII. on diplomatic missions. He is said to have been an admirer of Anne Boleyn before her marriage, and on her disgrace was thrown into the Tower for a short time. In 1537 he was knighted, and two years later was against his will sent on a mission to the Emperor Charles V. On the death in 1540 of Thomas Cromwell, to whose party he belonged, W. was accused of misdemeanours during his embassy and again imprisoned in the Tower, where he wrote a defence which resulted in his release. In 1542 he was sent to meet the Spanish Ambassador at Falmouth, and conduct him to London, but on the way caught a chill, of which he d. W. shares with the [Earl of Surrey] (q.v.) the honour of being the first real successor of Chaucer, and also of introducing the sonnet into England. In addition to his sonnets, which are in a more correct form than those of Surrey, W. wrote many beautiful lyrics; in fact he may be regarded as the reviver of the lyrical spirit in English poetry which, making its appearance in the 13th century, had fallen into abeyance. In the anthology known as Tottel's Miscellany, first pub. in 1557, 96 pieces by W. appear along with 40 by Surrey, and others by different hands. W. has less smoothness and sweetness than Surrey, but his form of the sonnet was much more difficult as well as more correct than that invented by the latter, and afterwards adopted by Shakespeare, and his lyrical gift is more marked.
WYCHERLEY, WILLIAM (1640?-1716). —Dramatist, was b. at Clive, near Shrewsbury, where his f. had an estate. He was at the Inner Temple in 1659, and at Oxf. in 1660. Part of his youth had been spent in France, where he became a Roman Catholic, but at the Restoration he returned to Protestantism. He wrote four comedies, Love in a Wood, The Gentleman Dancing Master, The Country Wife, and The Plain Dealer, all produced in the reign of Charles II., and nothing of consequence afterwards, a vol. of poems doing little to add to his reputation. About 1679 he m. the widowed Countess of Drogheda, who d. in 1681, and he entered into a second marriage eleven days before his death. In his later years he formed a friendship with Pope, then a boy of 16. W. was one of the founders of the Comedy of Manners. The merit of his plays lies in smart and witty dialogue rather than in construction. The Plain Dealer, his best, is founded upon Molière's Misanthrope. His plays are notoriously coarse.
WYNTOUN, ANDREW of (1350?-1420?). —Chronicler, was a canon of St. Andrews, who became Prior of St. Serf's island in Loch Leven. His work, entitled The Orygynale Cronykil, begins with the creation of angels and men and comes down to 1406. It is poetic in form though rarely so in substance, and is of considerable historical value in its later parts and as regards the see of St. Andrews.
YALDEN, THOMAS (1670-1736). —Poet, s. of an exciseman at Oxf., and ed. at Magdalen Coll., entered the Church, in which he obtained various preferments. He was the author of a considerable number of poems, including a Hymn to Darkness, Pindaric Odes, and translations from the classics.
YATES, EDMUND (1831-1894). —Novelist and dramatist, b. at Edin., held for some years an appointment in the General Post Office. He did much journalistic work, mainly as a dramatic writer, and wrote many dramatic pieces and some novels, including Running the Gauntlet and The Black Sheep. He was perhaps best known as ed. of The World society journal.
YONGE, CHARLOTTE MARY (1823-1901). —Novelist, only dau. of a landed gentleman of Hampshire, was b. near Winchester, and in her girlhood came under the influence of Keble, who was a near neighbour. She began writing in 1848, and pub. during her long life about 100 works, chiefly novels, interesting and well-written, with a High Church tendency. Among the best known are The Heir of Redclyffe, Heartsease, and The Daisy Chain. She also wrote Cameos from English History, and Lives of Bishop Patteson and Hannah More. The profits of her works were devoted to religious objects.
YOUNG, ARTHUR (1741-1820). —Writer on agriculture, was b. in London, the s. of a Suffolk clergyman. In his early years he farmed, making many experiments, which though they did not bring him financial success, gave him knowledge and experience, afterwards turned to useful account. Various publications had made his name known, and in 1777 he became agent to Lord Kingsborough on his Irish estates. In 1780 he pub. his Tour in Ireland, and four years later started the Annals of Agriculture, 47 vols. of which appeared. His famous tours in France were made 1787-90, the results of his observations being pub. in Travels in France (1792). He was in 1793 appointed sec. to the newly founded Board of Agriculture, and pub. many additional works on the subject. He is justly regarded as the father of modern agriculture, in which, as in all subjects affecting the public welfare, he maintained an active interest until his death. In his later years he was blind.
YOUNG, EDWARD (1683-1765). —Poet, s. of the Rector of Upham, Hampshire, where he was b. After being at Winchester School and Oxf. he accompanied the Duke of Wharton to Ireland. Y., who had always a keen eye towards preferment, and the cult of those who had the dispensing of it, began his poetical career in 1713 with An Epistle to Lord Lansdowne. Equally characteristic was the publication in the same year of two poems, The Last Day and The Force of Religion. The following year he produced an elegy On the Death of Queen Anne, which brought him into notice. Turning next to the drama he produced Busiris in 1719, and The Revenge in 1721. His next work was a collection of 7 satires, The Love of Fame, the Universal Passion. In 1727 he entered the Church, and was appointed one of the Royal Chaplains, and Rector of Welwyn, Herts, in 1730. Next year he m. Lady Elizabeth Lee, the widowed dau. of the Earl of Lichfield, to whom, as well as to her dau. by her former marriage, he was warmly attached. Both d., and sad and lonely the poet began his masterpiece, The Complaint, or Night Thoughts (1742-44), which had immediate and great popularity, and which still maintains its place as a classic. In 1753 he brought out his last drama, The Brothers, and in 1761 he received his last piece of preferment, that of Clerk to the Closet to the Princess Dowager of Wales. Four years later, in 1765, he d. The poems of Y., though in style artificial and sometimes forced, abound in passages of passion and power which sometimes reach the sublime. But the feelings and sentiments which he expresses with so much force as a poet form an unpleasantly harsh contrast with the worldliness and tuft-hunting of his life.