OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Butler, William (1535-1618)

​BUTLER, WILLIAM (1535–1618), physician, was born at Ipswich, and educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, of which he became fellow. He graduated M.A., and was probably incorporated in that degree at Oxford in 1563. In October 1572 the university of Cambridge granted him a license to practise physic, he having then been a regent in arts for six years. He was usually styled Doctor, though he never took the degree of M.D. He acquired the most extraordinary reputation in his profession, and it is said that ‘he was the first Englishman who quickened Galenical physic with a touch of Paracelsus, trading in chemical receipts with great success.’ In October 1612 he was summoned from Cambridge to attend Henry, prince of Wales, in his last illness. Although Sir Edward Peyton has not scrupled to cite Butler's opinion that the prince was poisoned, it appears that, in common with the other physicians, he entertained no such suspicion (Secret Hist. of the Court of James I, ii. 247, 346). In November 1614 Butler attended the king at Newmarket for an injury received in hunting; and when the king was at Cambridge in May 1615 he visited Butler and stayed with him nearly an hour. Butler lived in the house of John Crane, a celebrated apothecary of Cambridge, and many anecdotes are recorded of his eccentricities and empirical mode of practice. Aubrey relates: ‘The Dr. lyeing at the Savoy in London, next the water side where was a balcony look't into the Thames, a patient came to him that was grievously tormented with an ague. The Dr. orders a boate to be in readinesse under his windowe, and discoursed with the patient (a gent.) in the balcony, when on a signall given, 2 or 3 lusty fellowes came behind the gent. and threw him a matter of 20 feete into the Thames. This surprize absolutely cured him.’
Butler died at Cambridge on 29 Jan. 1617–18, and was buried in Great St. Mary's. On the south side of the chancel of that church there is a mural monument with his bust, in the costume of the period, and a Latin inscription in which he is termed ‘Medicorum omnium quos præsens ætas vidit facile Princeps.’
Butler left his estate to his friend John Crane, and he was a benefactor to Clare Hall, to which he bequeathed many of his books and 260l. for the purchase of a gold communion cup. Thirty-five years after his death ‘his reputation was still so great, that many empyrics got credit among the vulgar by claiming relation to him as having served him and learned much from him.’ In the reign of Charles II there was in use in London ‘a sort of ale called Dr. Butler's ale.’ His portrait has been engraved by S. Pass.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Butter, John

​BUTTER, JOHN, M.D. (1791–1877), ophthalmic surgeon, was born at Woodbury, near Exeter, on 22 Jan. 1791. He was educated at Exeter grammar school, and studied for his profession at Devon and Exeter Hospital. He obtained the M.D. degree at Edinburgh in 1820, and was chosen a member of the Royal Society in 1822. He was appointed surgeon of the South Devon Militia, and ultimately settled at Plymouth, where he specially devoted himself to diseases of the eye. Along with Dr. Edward Moore, he was the originator of the Plymouth Eye Dispensary. He was the author of ‘Ophthalmic Diseases,’ 1821, ‘Dockyard Diseases, or Irritative Fever,’ 1825, and of various medical and chirurgical memoirs. In recognition of his services to the dispensary he was, in 1854, presented with his portrait, which hangs in the board room. He lost one eye through ophthalmic rheumatism, contracted by exposure while examining recruits for the Crimea, and in 1856 became totally blind.
[Plymouth Western Daily Mercury, 15 Jan. 1877.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Butter, William

​BUTTER, WILLIAM (1726–1805), physician, was a native of the Orkneys, and studied medicine at Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. in 1761. After practising for some years at Derby, having obtained some note by his treatises ‘On the Kink-Cough’ (hooping cough), London, 1773, and ‘On Puerperal Fevers,’ London, 1775, he removed to London, where he died on 23 March 1805. He is said to have attempted to open the carotid artery of a patient at the Edinburgh Infirmary, and to have only desisted when the patient fainted after the first incision. He is described as ‘too much under the influence of very favourite hypotheses’ (Catalogue of Living English Authors, 1799, i. 401). Besides the above his writings include ‘A Method of Cure for Stone,’ Edinburgh, 1754; ‘Dissertatio de frigore quatenus morborum causa,’ Edinburgh, 1757; ‘Dissertatio de arteriotomia,’ Edinburgh, 1761; ‘A Treatise on Infantile Remittent Fever,’ London, 1782; ‘An Improved Method of Opening the Temporal Artery,’ London, 1783; ‘A Treatise on Angina Pectoris,’ London, 1791; ‘A Treatise on the Venereal Rose,’ London, 1799.
[New Catalogue of Living English Authors (1799), i. 400; Gent. Mag. lxxv. 294, 580; Munk's College of Physicians (1878), ii. 360.]
G. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Butterfield, Robert

​BUTTERFIELD, ROBERT (fl. 1629), controversialist, received his academical education at St. John's College, Cambridge, as a member of which house he proceeded B.A. ​ in 1622-3, M.A. in 1626, and took orders. When the puritan divine, Henry Burton [q. v.], attacked Bishop Hall, Butterfield, with youthful zeal, hastened to champion the bishop's cause in a pamphlet entitled 'Maschil; or, a Treatise to give instruction touching the State of the Church of Rome . . . for the Vindication of ... the Bishop of Exeter from the cavills of H. B., in his Book intituled "The Seven Vialls,"' 12mo, 1629. Burton was not slow to reply; for the same year he published his 'Babel no Bethel. . . . In answer to Hugh Cholmley's Challenge and Rob. Butterfield's "Maschil," two masculine Champions for the Synagogue of Rome,' wherein he retorts, not without point, on Butterfield's boyish presumption and too evident desire to parade his classical and patristic learning, wishing him 'more ripenesse of yeares, and more soundnesse of judgement, before he doe any more handle such deepe controuersies.' Burton was sent to the Fleet prison for his pamphlet. Another reply was published about the same time, under the title of 'Maschil Unmasked,' in which the writer, Thomas Spencer, gent., author of 'The Art of Logick,' seeks to supply the defects of his learning and also logic by versatility of abuse.
[Cooper's New Biographical Dictionary, 334; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Butterfield, Swithun

​BUTTERFIELD, SWITHUN (d. 1611), miscellaneous writer, is supposed to have been a member of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, as by his will, wherein he is described as of Cambridge, gentleman, dated 1608, and proved in the university court on 21 Dec. 1611, he gave to that college 10l. to buy books, also his manuscripts which are enumerated below, and his geometrical instruments and other curiosities.
He was author of: 1. ‘A Summarie of the Principles of Christian Religion, selected in manner of Common-Places out of the Writings of the best Diuines of our Age,’ London, 1582, 8vo. 2. ‘A Catechism, or the Principles of the true Christian Religion: breifelie selected out of manie good books,’ London, 1590, 8vo. Licensed also to John Flasket, 26 June 1600. 3. ‘A great Abridgement of the Common Lawes,’ MS. 4. ‘An Abridgement of the Civil Lawes,’ MS. 5. ‘Collection of Policies in Peace and War,’ MS., written in 1604. 6. ‘A Book of Physic and Surgery,’ MS. 7. ‘A Book of Controversie out of Bellarmine, &c.,’ MS., written in 1606. 8. ‘A Book of Common-Place in Religion,’ MS., written in 1606.
[MS. Baker, xxvi. 118; Ames's Typogr. Antiquities, ed. Herbert, 1108, 1344, 1378; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. iii. 53.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gwynne, John

​GWYNNE, JOHN (fl. 1660), captain, a Welshman, was the grandson of Edward Gwynne, barrister-at-law. He was a retainer in the household of Charles I, and was employed in training the royal family in military exercises. He rose to be a captain in the king's regiment of guards. During the civil war he seems to have distinguished himself by his personal courage and activity. After the king's execution he followed the fortunes of Charles II. Gwynne was with Montrose in his last unhappy attempt in 1650, and joined the forces of General John Middleton in 1654. When that enterprise also failed he served James, duke of York, and was with him at the fight before Dunkirk in 1658, and in Flanders. Upon the Restoration Gwynne seems to have been passed over and left to embarrassment, if not to want. He accordingly drew up a statement of the battles, skirmishes, and adventures in which he had exhibited his loyalty. The manuscript is a very neat one, and is preceded by several letters to persons of consequence whose interest the author was desirous of securing. Whether he proved successful or otherwise in his application is unknown. The manuscript was presented to Sir Walter Scott by the Rev. John Grahame of Lifford, near Strabane, Ireland, into whose hands it fell by accident. Scott published it as 'Military Memoirs of the Great Civil War. Being the Military Memoirs of John Gwynne,' &c., 4to, Edinburgh, 1822.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gwyn, David

​GWYN, DAVID (fl. 1588), poet, suffered a long and cruel imprisonment in Spain (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1581-90, p. 220). Upon regaining his liberty, he published a poetical narrative of his sufferings, entitled 'Certaine English Verses penned by David Gwyn, who for the space of elueven Yeares and ten Moneths was in most grieuous Servitude in the Gallies, vnder the King of Spaine,' 16mo, London, 1588. In this tract, consisting of eleven pages, are three poems presented by the author to Queen Elizabeth in St. James's Park on Sunday, 18 Aug. 1588 (Arber, Stationers' Registers, ii. 232). Only one copy is at present known; it fetched 20l. 15s. at the sale of Thomas Jolley's library in 1843-4.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gwynllyw

​GWYNLLYW or GUNLYU, latinised into Gundleus, and sometimes called Gwynllyw Filwr or The Warrior (6th cent.), Welsh saint, whose history, like that of all his class, is of more than doubtful authenticity, is said to have been the son of Glywys (Lat. Gliuusus), a South-Welsh king, whose genealogy up to Augustus Cæsar is given by the biographer of St. Cadoc (Rees, Cambro-British Saints, pp. 80-1). The same authority makes Gwynllyw's mother Guaul, a daughter of Ceredig, the son of Cunedda and the eponymous founder of Ceredigion. Gwynllyw had six brothers, and on his father's death the territory which he had ruled was divided among them all; but the younger recognised the overlordship of Gwynllyw, both as the oldest and worthiest of the sons of Glywys. ​They ruled among themselves over seven 'pagi' of the land of Morgan, part of which got to be called Gwenllwg, from Gwynllyw. The biographer of Gwynllyw dwells with rapture on the virtuous, prosperous, and peaceful rule of his hero, but the life of St. Cadoc represents him as violent and wicked, and the maintainer of robbers.
Gwynllyw is said to have married Gwladys, a daughter of the saintly Brychan of Brecheiniog. The would-be rationalisers of the lives of the Welsh saints profess that she must have been Brychan's granddaughter, to make the story fit in with their somewhat arbitrary and fanciful chronology. The 'Life of St. Cadoc' tells a picturesque story how Gwynllyw stole his wife from her father's court, but the wedding is a much more commonplace affair in the 'Life of Gwynllyw.' Their eldest son was Cadoc the Wise [q. v.], who became a famous saint. At last Cadoc's exhortations led Gwynllyw and Gwladys to give up their royal state and dwell in separate cells as hermits, performing the severest penances, and supporting themselves entirely by their own labour. They were frequently visited by St. Cadoc. The place of Gwynllyw's retirement was a certain hill above a river, a fruitful place, with a fair prospect of sea-coast, woods, and fields. There he built a church with boards and rods, and there he was buried. His last sickness was cheered by a visit from his son Cadoc and from Dubricius [q. v.], the bishop of Llandaff. The miracles worked at his tomb made it a famous place of pilgrimage. It is generally supposed to be the site of St. Woolos Church, the mother church of Newport-on-Usk. The feast day of St. Gwynllyw is 29 March, the reputed day of his death.
A less famous Gwynllyw or Gwynlleu was the descendant of Cunedda and the reputed founder of Nantcwnlle Church in Cardiganshire (Rees, Welsh Saints, p. 261). He is also to be distinguished from the female St. Gwenlliw, the daughter of Brynach or Brychan (ib. p. 142).
T. F. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gwynne, Nell

​GWYNNE, NELL. [See Gwyn, Eleanor.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gwinnet, Richard

​GWINNET, RICHARD (d. 1717), dramatist, son of George Gwinnet of Shurdington, Gloucestershire, was a pupil of Francis Gastrell [q. v.] at Christ Church, Oxford. He remained there some seven years, when he proceeded to London, and took rooms in the Temple, although he was in no way connected with the legal profession. While in London he became engaged to Elizabeth Thomas [q. v.], well known as Dryden's 'Corinna,' but owing to his consumptive tendencies the marriage was postponed, and he withdrew to his father's residence in Gloucestershire. During the next sixteen years (1700-16) much correspondence passed between the lovers, Mrs. Thomas writing as 'Corinna,' Gwinnet as 'Pylades.' Their letters were subsequently published in two volumes entitled 'Pylades and Corinna; or memoirs of the lives, amours, and writings of R. G. and Mrs. E. Thomas, jun.… containing the letters and other miscellaneous pieces in prose and verse, which passed between them during a Courtship of above sixteen years … Published from their original manuscripts (by Philalethes) … To which is prefixed the life of Corinna, written by herself.' In 1716, on the death of his father, ​Gwinnet returned to London to press his suit, but the wedding was again deferred owing to the illness of the lady's mother. Early in the following spring Gwinnet suffered a relapse, and died on 16 April 1717.
He was the author of a play entitled 'The Country Squire, or a Christmas Gambol,' first published in the second volume of 'Pylades and Corinna,' the collected correspondence of Gwinnet and Elizabeth Thomas, London, 1732. Another edition of the play appeared in 1734. Portraits of Gwinnet were engraved by Van der Gucht and G. King for the 'Pylades and Corinna' volumes.
W. F. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gwynne, Robert

​GWYNNE, ROBERT (fl. 1591). [See Gwin.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fortrey, Samuel

1904 Errata appended.
​FORTREY, SAMUEL (1622–1681), author of ‘England's Interest and Improvement, consisting in the increase of the Store and Trade of this Kingdom,’ Cambridge, 1663, is described on the title-page as ‘one of the gentlemen of his majesties most honourable privy chamber.’ He may be identified with Samuel Fortrey of Richmond and Byall Fen, Isle of Ely, clerk of the deliveries of the ordnance in the Tower of London, and a bailiff in the corporation of the Great Level. This Samuel Fortrey, born 11 June 1622, was eldest son of Samuel Forterie, a merchant of Walbrooke Ward, London, who was grandson of John de la Forterye, a refugee from Lille, and owned a house at Kew, eventually bought by Queen Charlotte. Fortrey married, 23 Feb. 1647, Theodora Josceline, the child for whom Elizabeth Josceline [q. v.] wrote ‘The Mother's Legacie to her Unborn Childe.’ He died in Feb. 1681. His third son, James, groom of the bedchamber to James II, married Lady Bellasyse. ‘England's Interest and Improvement’ was reprinted in 1673, 1713, and 1744; in Sir Charles Whitworth's ‘Scarce Tracts on Trade and Commerce, serving as a supplement to Davenant's Works,’ 1778, and in the Political Economy Club's ‘Select Collection of Early English Tracts on Commerce’ (ed. McCulloch), 1856. It is a weak and rambling tract, without definite aim. Its most specific advice is that immigration and enclosure should be encouraged, and that the king should set a good example by preferring fabrics of home manufacture. It was for many years frequently referred to by financial writers in consequence of a very circumstantial statement contained in it to the effect that the value of the English imports from France was 2,600,000l., and the value of the exports to France 1,000,000l., ‘by which it appears that our trade with France is at least sixteen hundred thousand pounds a year clear lost to this kingdom.’
[Extracts from Sir Henry St. George's Visitation of Cambridgeshire in the Genealogist, iii. 298; extracts from the same visitation in Nichols's Leicestershire, ii. *446; Visitation of London by Sir Henry St. George in 1634 (Harleian Soc. xv. 284); genealogical table in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 5520, f. 125; Manning and Bray's Surrey, i. 447; Brit. Mus. and Bodleian Library Catalogues of Printed Books.]
E. C-n.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.129 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fortescue, Nicholas (1605?-1644)

​FORTESCUE, Sir NICHOLAS, the younger (1605?–1644), knight of St. John, was the fourth son of Sir Nicholas Fortescue, chamberlain of the exchequer [q. v.] His father was throughout his life a member of the Roman catholic church, and his sons were brought up in that religion. It is probable that the memory of Sir Adrian Fortescue [q. v.], who had late in his life become a member of the order of St. John, was cherished among his kinsmen, who adhered to the faith for the sake of which they believed him to have died a martyr, and it may be assumed that this feeling inspired Nicholas with the ambition to resuscitate the order, which had completely died out in England. In 1637 he went to Malta, furnished, if we are to believe Pozzo, the historian of the order, with a direct commission from Queen Henrietta Maria, who, ‘in her zeal for the restoration of the true religion’ in her adopted country, desired to revive the English langue of the order. Fortescue was received as a knight of Malta in 1638, and his project was favourably reported upon to the grand master, the pope, and Cardinal Barbarino, protector of the order, by a commission appointed to investigate the matter. The chief difficulty, which proved insuperable, was to procure the sum of twelve thousand scudi, to be expended in buildings, fees, and other expenses necessary to the refoundation of the order in England. The negotiations extended over some years, during which time Fortescue travelled to and from England several times. During one of his journeys he was a guest at the English College at Rome, where, as the strangers' book of the college shows, he dined with John Milton, like himself travelling abroad. In 1642 the scheme was finally abandoned, owing, says Pozzo, to the ‘impious turbulence of the English people, which overthrew alike the cause of holy religion and of its royal patroness.’ Sir Nicholas, with his brothers William and Edmund, joined the royal army. According to the ‘Loyal Martyrology’ (sect. 38, p. 68) he was slain in a skirmish in Lancashire while advancing with Prince Rupert's army to the relief of York; but it is more probable that he was killed at the battle of Marston Moor, since he was buried at Skipton on 5 July 1644.
The following character of Sir Nicholas is given in Lloyd's ‘Memoirs:’ ‘Sir Nicholas Fortescue, a knight of Malta, slain in Lancashire, whose worth is the more to be regarded by others, the less he took notice of himself; a person of so dextrous an address that when he came into notice he came into favour; when he entered the court he had the chamber, yea the closet of a prince; a gentleman that did much in his person, and, as he would say, let reputation do the rest; he and Sir Edmund Fortescue were always observed so wary as to have all their enemies before them and leave none behind them’ (Lloyd, Memoirs, p. 669). The allusion to Sir Edmund may refer to Sir Edmund Fortescue of Fallapit [q. v.]; but it seems more probable that it relates to Edmund, brother of Sir Nicholas, who held a post at court as sewer to the queen.
G. K. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fortune, Robert

​FORTUNE, ROBERT (1813–1880), traveller and botanist, was born at Kelloe in the parish of Edrom, Berwickshire, 16 Sept. 1813. After education in the parish school and apprenticeship in local gardens, he entered the Edinburgh Botanical Garden, and became subsequently superintendent of the indoor-plant department in the Royal Horticultural Society's garden at Chiswick. In 1842 he was sent as collector to the society to China. He visited Java on his way out in 1843 and Manilla in 1845, returning to England in 1846 after many adventures from shipwreck, pirates, hostile natives, and fever. He entered the city of Loo-chow, then closed to Europeans, disguised as a Chinaman. Among the many beautiful and interesting plants which he then sent home were the double yellow rose and the fan-palm (Chamærops Fortunei) that bear his name, the Japanese anemone, many varieties of the tree-peonies, long cultivated in North China, the kumquat (Citrus japonica), Weigela rosea, and Dicentra spectabilis, besides various azaleas and chrysanthemums. He was appointed curator of the Chelsea Botanical Garden, but had to resign in 1848 on his return to China to collect plants and seeds of the tea-shrub on behalf of the East India Company. In 1847 he published ‘Three Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China, including a Visit to the Tea, Silk, and Cotton Countries, with an Account of the Agriculture and Horticulture of the Chinese.’ In 1851 he successfully introduced two thousand plants and seventeen thousand sprouting seeds of the tea into the north-west provinces of India, as described in his ‘Report upon the Tea Plantations in the North-west Provinces,’ London, 1851, 8vo; ‘A Journey to the Tea Countries of China,’ London, 1852, 8vo; and ​‘Two Visits to the Tea Countries of China and the British Plantations in the Himalayas,’ London, 1853, 2 vols. 8vo. In 1853 he visited Formosa and described the manufacture of rice-paper carried on there, and about the same time paid several visits to Japan, whence he introduced the variegated China-rose (Kerria japonica), Aucuba japonica, Lilium auratum, and the golden larch (Larix Kæmpferi), with many other species now widely known in our gardens. In 1857 he published ‘A Residence among the Chinese,’ describing the culture of the silkworm, and in the same year was commissioned to collect tea-shrubs and other plants in China and Japan on behalf of the United States government. The story of this journey was told in his last work, ‘Yeddo and Peking,’ London, 1863, 8vo, written after his retirement, when he engaged for a time in farming in Scotland. He died at Gilston Road, South Kensington, 13 April 1880.
G. S. B.