OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Metcalfe, Theophilus

​METCALFE, THEOPHILUS (fl. 1649), stenographer, was a professional writer and teacher of shorthand, who in 1645 resided in St. Katherine's Court, near the Tower of London. He published a stenographic system based almost entirely on the lines of Thomas Shelton's 'Tachygraphy.' The first edition of his work was entitled 'Radio-Stenography, or Short Writing' and is supposed to have been published in 1635. A so-called sixth edition appeared at London in 1645, 12mo. It was followed in 1649 by 'A Schoolmaster to Radio-Stenography, explaining all the Rules of the said Art, by way of Dialogue betwixt Master and Scholler, fitted to the weakest capacities that are desirous to learne this Art.' Many editions of the system appeared under the title of 'Short Writing: the most easie, exact, lineall, and speedy Method that hath ever yet been obtained or taught by any in this Kingdome.' On the title-page of the nineteenth edition (1679) it is asserted that 'a young man, that lately lived at Cornhill, learned so well by this book that he wrote out all the Bible in this character.' The statement is repeated on the title-page of the fifty-fifth edition, printed for Edmund Parker at the Bible and Crown in Lombard Street about 1756. In reality these editions, as they are called, were for the most part only small numbers of copies taken from the same plates at different times, the dates being as often altered as the title. These plates were engraved by Frederick Henry Van Hove of Haarlem (Shorthand, i. 81, 82). A copy of the Bible written in Metcalfe's system by Dr. William Holder [q. v.], and completed in 1668, is preserved in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 30385). Dr. Isaac Watts was also a writer of this system.
A portrait of Metcalfe is prefixed to the so-called sixth edition of his 'Radio-Stenography,' published in 1645.
[Anderson's Hist. of Shorthand, p. 114; Gibson's Bibliography of Shorthand, pp. 12, 96, 129; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 5th edit. iii. 194; Journalist, 25 March 1887, p. 381; Levy's Hist. of Shorthand, p. 30; Lewis's Hist. of Shorthand, pp. 65–9; Rockwell's Literature of Shorthand, 2nd edit. p. 109; Shorthand, i. 50, ii. 10, 55.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Meryon, Charles Lewis

​MERYON, CHARLES LEWIS (1783–1877), physician and biographer of Lady Hester Stanhope, son of Lewis Meryon of Rye in Sussex, of an old Huguenot stock, was born on 27 June 1783. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School (1796–1802), and obtaining a Stuart's exhibition to St. John's College, Oxford, matriculated there on 29 March 1803, and graduated B.A. 1806, M.A. 1 809, M.B. and M.D. 1817. He studied medicine at St. Thomas's Hospital under Henry Cline [q. v.], by whose recommendation he was in 1810 engaged to accompany the eccentric Lady Hester Stanhope [q. v.], in the capacity of medical attendant, on a voyage to Sicily and the East. He followed her during her seven years' wanderings, saw her finally settled on Mount Lebanon, and then returned to England for the purpose of taking his medical degrees. Meryon revisited Syria at Lady Hester's request in 1819, when he found that she had completely adopted the usages of the East. A difference with one of his patroness's local medicine men caused his speedy return. He was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on 26 June 1820, and a fellow on 25 June 1821. Shortly afterwards he became domestic physician to Sir Gilbert Heathcote, but in 1827, at the earnest request of Lady Hester, he started once more for Syria, in company with his wife and family. They were attacked and plundered en route by a Levantine pirate, and returned to Leghorn, where Mrs. Meryon's fears detained the doctor until 1830. In November of that year they sailed from Marseilles, and arrived at Mount Lebanon about 15 Dec. Lady Hester was then at the zenith of her power, and Meryon subsequently described with the utmost minuteness her complicated oriental environment, her tyranny, and her interminable conversations and cross-questionings, of which he himself was often a victim. Owing to disagreements, chiefly resulting from Lady Hester's avowed intolerance of his wife, Meryon had to leave Mount Lebanon in April 1831, but he paid Lady Hester a fourth and last visit between July 1837 and August 1838. Finally settling in London, he issued there in 1845 his 'Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope, as related by herself in Conversations with her Physician,' 3 vols. 8vo. Despite their diffuseness, the memoirs are excellent reading, contain many curious particulars about persons of note, and only want an index. Though published earlier the 'Memoirs' are in reality a sequel to the scarcely less entertaining 'Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, forming the completion of her Memoirs narrated by her Physician,' 3 vols. London, 8vo, 1846. The third volume contains a portrait of Meryon in Bedouin dress. Meryon died in London on 11 Sept. 1877, aged ninety-four.
[The Memoirs and Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, as above; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715-1886; Robinson's Merchant Taylors' Reg. ii. 166; Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 234; Allibone's Dict. Engl. Lit. art. 'Stanhope.']
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Metcalfe, James

​METCALFE, JAMES (1817–1888), lieutenant-colonel Indian army, a natural son of Lord Metcalfe [see Metcalfe, Charles Theophilus, Baron Metcalfe; cf. Gent. Mag. 1846, pt. ii. p. 536], was born in 1817, educated at Addiscombe Military Seminary, and in 1836 was appointed to the late 3rd Bengal native infantry, of which regiment he was adjutant from 1839 to 1846. On the death of his father in the latter year he inherited a fortune of 50,000l. (Gent. Mag. ut supra). He was aide-de-camp to the Marquis of Dalhousie from 1848 to 1853. On the outbreak of the mutiny he was appointed interpreter to the commander-in-chief. In that capacity, as well as in that of aide-decamp and commandant at headquarters, he went through the mutiny with Sir Colin Campbell, lord Clyde [q. v.], 'whose side he never quitted from the day he joined him in Calcutta in 1857 until Clyde left Paris for England in 1860' (Shadwell, Preface, i. p. x). Metcalfe was made C.B., with the brevet of lieutenant-colonel, and had the mutiny medal and clasps. He retired in 1861, and died at Harcourt Terrace, London, S.W., 8 March 1888. Metcalfe married in 1852 José Eliza, daughter of Evelyn Meadows Gordon, Bengal civil service.
[Gent. Mag. 1846, pt. ii. pp. 534-6; L. Shadwell's Life of Lord Clyde; Broad Arrow, 17 March 1888.]
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Metcalfe, Nicholas

​METCALFE, NICHOLAS (1475?–1539), archdeacon of Rochester, and a distinguished patron of learning, was the son of Richard Metcalfe, esq., of Beare Park, in the parish of Aysgarth, Richmondshire, and of 'an ancient and numerous family ' (Baker, Hist. of St. John's College, p. 109). He was educated at Cambridge, probably at Michael-house. He graduated B.A. in 1494, B.D. in 1504, and D.D. in 1507. He appears early to have gained the notice of Fisher, bishop of Rochester, to whom he was chaplain, and through whose influence he was constituted archdeacon of Rochester in 1515. On 30 July 1517 he was presented to the living of Woodham Ferris in Essex, and in the following year was elected master of St. John's College, Cambridge. In this capacity he greatly contributed to the advancement of that society as a home of scholarship and learning, and attracted to it numerous benefactions. Roger Ascham, who was especially indebted to his discerning patronage, describes him as one who 'was parciall to none, but indifferent to all; a master for the whole, a father to every one in that college' (Scholemaster, ed. Mayor, p. 160). Baker characterises him as 'a man of equal industry and conduct, skilful in business, and fitted for government ' (Hist. of St. John's College, p. 85). In common, however, with his patron, Fisher, and other eminent promoters of university reform, Metcalfe could not bring himself to recognise the royal supremacy in matters of doctrine, while he openly opposed Henry's divorce from Catherine. He was accordingly ​constrained to resign his mastership in 1537, and retired to his living of Woodham Ferris, where he died in 1539. His will, which was proved 16 Oct. 1539, contains bequests of forty shillings to St. John's College for a 'Dirige' and a mass; legacies to his sisters, Elizabeth, Alice, Jane, &c.; the residue being left for the maintenance of poor scholars in Cambridge.
[Baker's Hist. of St. John's College, ed. Mayor; Aschami Epistolæ; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 62.]
J. B. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Metcalfe, Robert

​METCALFE, ROBERT (1590?–1652), fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, son of Alexander Metcalfe of Beverley, Yorkshire, was educated at the grammar school in that town, and at Michaelmas 1605 his father appears to have received from the corporation the sum of ten shillings 'to the use of his son at Cambridge' (Poulson, Beverley, p. 453). On 10 April 1606 Robert was admitted a fellow of St. John's College, and on the festival of St. Mark 1616 he was elected a preacher of the same society. Some time prior to 1645 he succeeded Andrew Byng of St. John's College as regius professor of Hebrew, but at what date is not known. In 1648 he vacated the chair, and was succeeded by Ralph Cudworth [q. v.] His retirement stands apparently in some connection with his election to a fellowship at Trinity in the same year; he was also appointed catechiser and vice-master of the society in October. On 14 Aug. 1646 he was appointed lecturer in Hebrew. Duport, in his 'Epicedia,' speaks of him as a man of singularly retired habits, leading a solitary life among his books in his college chamber (Musæ Subsecivae, p. 492). Nicholas Hookes [q. v.] of Trinity College, who composed two elegies, one Latin and one English, to his memory, and who styles him 'sagax vice-praesul' and 'cardinalis presbyter' (i.e. head of the clerical members of the foundation), says that he was distinguished by his numerous charities, and especially by his liberality to poor deserving students (Amanda, pp. 121-3). Metcalfe, however, is chiefly remembered by his benefactions to the grammar school where he received his education. By his will (9 Oct. 1652) he bequeathed to 'three poor scholars of the school of Beverley, for their better maintenance at the university, to every one of them 6l. 13s. 4d.,' with the proviso that 'no son of any of the aldermen, or of any of sufficient ability to maintain their children at the university, should be capable of that maintenance.' To his sister, Prudence Metcalfe, he also bequeathed 20l. yearly; to the schoolmaster 10l., and to the 'preacher or lecturer' of Beverley 10l.; to St. John's College, 'gratitudinis ergo,' 100l.; to the university library 20l. His arms, with a few lines respecting him, are in the 'Liber Memorialis' of Trinity College.
[Registers of Trinity College and St. John's College, Cambridge; Baker's Hist, of St. John's College; J. Duport's Musae Subsecivæ.]
J. B. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Metcalfe, Frederick

​METCALFE, FREDERICK (1815–1885), Scandinavian scholar, fifth son of Morehouse Metcalfe of Gainsborough, was born in 1815, and elected scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1834, whence he graduated B.A. in 1838 as junior optime, with a second class in classics. On 28 Nov. 1844 he was incorporated at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he held a fellowship from 1844 to 1885. In 1845 he graduated M.A. and was ordained deacon, receiving priest's orders in the following year. For a short time he was head-master of Brighton College, and on his return to Oxford in 1849 became bursar of Lincoln College and incumbent of St. Michael's, Oxford, a living in the gift of his college. In 1851 he became sub-rector, and in 1853 Greek lecturer at Lincoln, and in 1855 he graduated B.D. He died on 24 Aug. 1885.
Metcalfe, who was an accomplished Scandinavian scholar, was twice an unsuccessful candidate for the professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. He frequently spent his summer holidays in Norway, Sweden, or Iceland, and his books had considerable influence in bringing these countries to the notice of the student, the sportsman, and the tourist. His principal works are:
* 'The Oxonian in Norway,' 1856; 2nd ed. 1857.
* 'The Oxonian in Thelemarken,' 2 vols. 1858.
* 'A History of German Literature,' 1858.
* 'The Oxonian in Iceland,' 1861.
* ' The Englishman and the Scandinavian,' 1880.
He also translated Bekker's 'Charicles' and 'Gallus,' and edited some classical school books.
[Works in Brit. Mus. Libr.; Cat. Cambridge Graduates, 1800-84; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Oxford Mag. 21 Oct. 1885; Times, 29 Aug. 1885.]
A. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bold, John

​BOLD, JOHN (1679–1751), divine, born at Leicester in 1679, entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1694, and proceeded B.A. in 1698. He was master of a small school at Hinckley, Leicestershire, from 1698 to 1732 (which brought him in 10l. a year), and was curate of Stoney Stanton near Hinckley (at a salary of 30l.) from May 1702 until his death on 29 Oct. 1751. Bold wholly devoted himself to the religious welfare of his parishioners, and, although without private means, lived so frugally that he was able out of his small income to relieve his necessitous neighbours, and to make several charitable bequests at his death. He was the author of: 1. ‘The Sin and Danger of neglecting the public service of the Church,’ 1745, which was frequently reissued by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 2. ‘Religion the most delightful Employment.’ 3. ‘The Duty of worthy Communicating recommended and explained.
[A very eulogistic memoir by the Rev. R. B. Nickolls is printed in Nicholls’s Illustrations, v. 130-42.]
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boit, Charles

​BOIT, CHARLES (d. 1726?), enamel painter, was born at Stockholm. His father was a Frenchman. He learned the business of a jeweller, and proposed, upon coming to England, to follow that avocation, but was 'upon so low a foot' that he seems to have lacked the wherewithal to establish a business, and was forced to travel about the country teaching drawing. He engaged the affections of one of his pupils, but, the affair being unhappily discovered before the marriage had been solemnised, Boit, by some high-handed perversion of justice, was thrown into prison.
He spent the two years of his confinement in learning the art of enamelling. Leaving prison, he established himself in London, and in the practice of his new art soon grew to celebrity. 'His prices,' says ​ Walpole, 'are not to be believed,' He received a commission to paint 'a large plate of the Queen, Prince George, the principal officers and ladies of the court, and Victory, introducing the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene; France and Bavaria prostrate upon the ground, &c., &c.' The size of the plate was to be from 22 to 24 inches high by 10 to 18 inches wide. For this modest fancy Boit obtained an advance of 1,000l. and made extensive preparations for the work. In these, it is said, he wasted between seven and eight hundred pounds. Meanwhile the prince died, and the work was stopped for some time. Boit, however, secured a further advance of 700l. and proceeded. In consequence of the revolution at court he was ordered to displace the Marlboroughs, and to introduce figures of 'Peace and Ormond, instead of Victory and Churchill.' After this nothing prospered with him. Prince Eugene refused to sit, the queen died, Boit incontinently ran into debt. He fled to France, changed his religion, got a pension of 250l. per annum, and was greatly admired. He died suddenly at Paris about Christmas 1726. His principal enamel is one of the imperial family of Austria, preserved at Vienna; it is on gold, and is 18 inches high by 12 inches wide. Another of considerable size represented Queen Anne sitting with Prince George standing by her. Horace Walpole possessed a copy by him of Luca Giordano's 'Venus, Cupid, Satyr, and Nymphs,' and also 'a fine head' of Admiral Churchill. He mentions that Miss Reade, the artist, had a 'very fine head' of Boit's own daughter, enamelled by him from a picture of Dahl.
[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painters, ii. 633-5; Fiorillo's Geschichte der zeichenden Künste, v. 622.]
E. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boitard, Louis Peter

​BOITARD, LOUIS PETER (fl. 1760), engraver and designer, was born in France, and was a pupil of La Farge. His father brought him to England. He made many engravings after Canaletto, Huet, Pannini, and others. One of his best known plates represents the Rotunda at Ranelagh, after Pannini. In 1747 he supplied forty-one large plates for Spence's 'Polymetis,' and he engraved the illustrations to Paltock's 'Peter Wilkins,' 1760, and the 'Scribleraid' of Richard Owen Cambridge, 1751. Besides these he executed many vignettes, minor designs, and portraits, among the last one of 'Elizabeth Canning;' and he is said to have been a humourist and a member of the Artists' Club. His wife was English; and he had a son of the same name and profession, who was perhaps the designer of the large satirical plate entitled 'The Present Age,' 1767, which is to be found in the British Museum print room. The date of his death is unknown, being stated by some authorities as 1758, by others as after 1700.
[Bryant's and Redgrave's Dicts.; Nagler; Stephens's Catalogue of Satirical Prints in the British Museum, iv. 412.]
A. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boissier, George Richard

​BOISSIER, GEORGE RICHARD (1791–1858), ecclesiologist, was educated at Magdalen College, Cambridge (B.A. 1828), became incumbent of Oakfield, Penshurst, Kent, and died 23 June 1858. While an undergraduate he published anonymously a very interesting architectural work, entitled 'Notes on the Cambridgeshire Churches,' Cambridge and London, 1827, 8vo.
[Graduati Cantab.; Gent. Mag., Aug. 1858, p. 199; Anderson's Book of British Topography, 58.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Boldero, Edmund

​BOLDERO, EDMUND, D.D. (1608–1679), master of Jesus College, Cambridge was a native of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, and received his education in Ipswich School, whence he proceeded to the ​university of Cambridge, where he was admitted to a fellowship of Pembroke Hall on 4 Feb. 1631, and took the degree of M.A. He became curate of St. Lawrence, Ipswich, in 1643. Soon after the establishment of the Commonwealth he was ejected from his fellowship and sent in captivity to London, where he was 'detained under a long and chargeable confinement.' He suffered much in the royalist cause in England, and in Scotland under the Marquis of Montrose, and it is said that he narrowly escaped hanging. On the Restoration he was created D.D. at Cambridge by royal mandate. Bishop Wren of Ely, to whom he was chaplain, presented him to the rectory of Glemsford, Suffolk, on 15 Feb. 1661–2, and also to the rectories of Westerfield and Harkstead in the same county. The same prelate nominated him master of Jesus College, Cambridge, to which office he was admitted on 26 April 1663, and presented him to the rectory of Snailwell, Cambridgeshire, on 13 July in the same year. Boldero was vice-chancellor of the university in 1668 and 1674. He died at Cambridge on 5 July 1679, and was buried in Jesus College chapel.
[Addit. MSS. 5853. f. 61b, 5864, f. 24, 19077, f. 307b, 308, 322, 322a, 323b; Peter Barwick's Life of Dr. John Barwick, 38, 39; Carter's Hist. of Cambridge, 82; Gent. Mag. new ser. xxxiii. 2; Kennett's Register and Chronicle, 881, 882, 884; Roger North's Lives of the Norths (1826), iii. 276, 277; Pope's Life of Seth [Ward], bishop of Salisbury, 47; Querela Cantabrigiensis, 25, 26; Shermannus, Hist. Coll. Jesu, Cantab. 42, 43; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy (1714), ii. 162; Le Neve's Monumenta Anglicana (1660-79), 195.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Mary

​HARRISON, MARY (1788–1875), flower-painter, born in Liverpool in 1788, was the daughter of William Rossiter, a prosperous hat manufacturer of Stockport and Liverpool. In 1814 she married William Harrison and visited France after Napoleon's abdication. Her eldest son was born at Amiens, and she had to return home in haste in 1815. Settling again in Liverpool her husband joined partnership in a brewery, in which he lost all his capital. Mrs. Harrison then turned as a means of support for her family to the art she had loved for its own sake. She became a favourite teacher in Liverpool, Chester, and the country round. In 1829 she came to London, and on the foundation in 1831 of the New Society (now the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colours) she became one of the original members. her art, though of limited scope, was of a very delicate and refined nature. Her fruit and flower pieces, unfailingly exhibited year after year at the gallery in Pall Mall, bore unmistakable marks of taste, feeling, and close observation of nature. Her first works, executed in the second decade of the century, followed the prim fashion of the time in representing detached specimens of fruit or cut sprigs of garden flowers, or a branch of blackberry blossom lying near a bird's nest. As she progressed, the beauty of growing plants, especially of wild flowers, engaged her attention. Delightful groups of viollets, cowslips, wood anemones, and primroses would vie with snowdrops, crocuses and the most beautiful roses, in her annual supply to the society's exhibitions. She painted primroses in three panels, 'Infancy, maturity, Decay'. Specimens of her work are to be seen in the gallery of the South Kensington Museum. Graves gives the number of the pictures she exhibited as over fifty. After a life of unending, but not unpleasant, labour she died at Hampstead on 25 Nov. 1875 in the eighty-eighth year of her age, having previously ascertained that the pictures she had just been preparing for the winter exhibition of her society had been despatched to their destination. Her two sons, George Henry and William Frederick, are separately noticed.
[Athenæum, No. 2510, 4 Dec. 1875, p. 758; Bryan's Dict. 1886; Grave's Dict. of Artists who have exhibited.]
R. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrison, Robert (1715-1802)

​HARRISON, ROBERT (1715–1802), mathematician, was appointed master of the Trinity House School in Newcastle on 14 Jan. 1757. For several years previously he had become well known from the part he took in the courses of lectures established in the town in 1739 by Isaac Thomson, printer. Harrison lectured on elementary physics, mechanics, and dynamics, and in conjunction with Thomson published ‘A Short Account of a Course of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, comprehending Mechanics, Hydrostatics, and Pneumatics, with the Elements of Optics and Astronomy’ (Newcastle, 1757). Among the private pupils of Harrison were John Scott and his brother (afterwards Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell). Besides his mathematical acquirements Harrison attained a great reputation as a linguist, and according to Richardson (Local Historian, iii. 21) was ‘acquainted with almost every known language.’ After resigning his mastership in the Trinity House School, he retired to Durham, and lived there during the rest of his life. In both towns he was generally known as Philosopher Harrison. In November 1802 he died at Durham, in the eighty-eighth year of his age.
[Richardson's Local Historian's Table Book, ii. 242, iii. 21.]
R. E. A.