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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Home, Robert (d.1836?)

Date of death 1834 in later editions.
​HOME, ROBERT (d. 1836?), painter, son of Robert Boyne Home, army surgeon, of Greenlaw Castle, Berwickshire, and brother of Sir Everard Home, bart. [q. v.], was for some time a pupil of Angelica Kauffmann, R.A., and studied art at Rome. In 1770 and 1771, and again in 1778, he exhibited portraits at the Royal Academy. About 1778 he went to Dublin, where he practised for some years as a portrait-painter, and was a frequent contributor to exhibitions there. In 1781 he sent from Dublin to the Royal Academy ‘Zadig discovering Astarte,’ which was afterwards engraved by F. Haward. In 1789 he returned to London, and shortly afterwards went to India. Home settled at Lucknow, was for several years chief painter to the king of Oude, and amassed a considerable fortune by painting ceremonial pictures. After residing at Calcutta he died at Cawnpore, 12 Sept. 1834, aged 83 (Bengal Directory and Annual Register, 1835). In 1797 he sent home to England for exhibition at the Royal Academy ‘The Reception of the Mysore Princes as Hostages by the Marquis Cornwallis’ and ‘The Death of Colonel Morehouse at the Storming of Bangalore.’ At Hampton Court there is a painting by Home of ‘The Shah Zumeen, King of Oude, receiving Tribute,’ presented by Sir Everard Home in 1828. Home made numerous topographical drawings in India, and published in 1794 ‘Select Views in Mysore, the Country of Tippoo Sultan,’ representing scenes in the campaign, and in 1796 six views of Seringapatam, to illustrate ‘A Description of Seringapatam, the Capital of Tippoo Sultan.’ Home painted in India full-length portraits of Marquis Wellesley as commander-in-chief, and of the Duke of Wellington (as Colonel Wellesley) when governor of Mysore. Both portraits have been engraved. Home's portraits were well drawn and painted, but not of surpassing interest; many of them were engraved. He had two sons in the Indian army, one of whom fell at the battle of Sobraon.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Seguier's Dict. of Painters; Royal Academy Catalogues.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Homer, Philip Bracebridge

​HOMER, PHILIP BRACEBRIDGE (1765–1838), assistant-master at Rugby School, was the tenth son of the Rev. Henry Homer the elder [q. v.], rector of Birdingbury, Warwickshire, where he was born in 1765. He went to Rugby in 1772, and was distinguished for his classical attainments. He matriculated as a member of University College 31 Oct. 1781, and was elected a demy of Magdalen College in 1783 (B.A. 1785, M.A. 1788, B.D. 1804). In 1785 he returned to Rugby as an assistant-master of the school. This situation he held for thirty-seven years. He was also a probationer fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1802 to 1806. In 1825 he was elected a fellow of Rugby School, being the first of the newly created fellows on the foundation. He died at Rugby on 26 April 1838.
His works are: 1. ‘The Garland, a collection of poems,’ Oxford, 1788, 4to. 2. ‘Anthologia; or a Collection of Flowers,’ London [1789], 4to, in blank verse. 3. ‘Poems, translated from the Italian of Metastasio,’ Coventry, 1790, 8vo. 4. ‘The Wishes of the Public; a Consolatory Poem translated from the Italian of Metastasio,’ Nuneaton, n.d., 8vo. 5. ‘Observations on a short Tour made in the Summer of 1803 to the Western Highlands of Scotland, interspersed with original pieces of descriptive and epistolary poetry,’ London, 1804, 8vo. 6. ‘The Introduction to the Greek Tongue,’ being the Eton Greek grammar with English notes, London, 1825, 12mo; 2nd edit. 1839. 7. ‘A Concise View of the Evidences of the Christian Religion,’ Rugby, 1827, 8vo. 8. An English-Hebrew Lexicon in manuscript, presented by his son Henry to the library of Magdalen College, Oxford.
He was also a contributor to the miscellany called ‘Olla-Podrida,’ edited by Thomas Monro, and with his brother Arthur completed and prepared for publication the editions of the Latin classics which his brother Henry Homer the younger [q. v.] had left unfinished.
[Bloxam's Magdalen Coll. Register, vii. 76; Colvile's Warwickshire Worthies, p. 437; Foster's Alumni Oxon. ii. 683; Gent. Mag., 1806 pt. ii. p. 1210, 1838 pt. i. p. 661; Johnstone's Life of Parr, p. 750; Rugby School Registers, p. 29.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Homer, Henry (1719-1791)

​HOMER, HENRY, the elder (1719–1791), miscellaneous writer, son of Edward Homer, gentleman, of Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, was born in 1719, and educated at Oxford, where he matriculated on 26 June 1736 as a member of University College. He became a demy of Magdalen College in 1737, and graduated B.A. in 1740, M.A. in 1743. He was appointed rector of Birdingbury, Warwickshire, and vicar of Willoughby in 1764; and chaplain to Edward, lord Leigh, lord high steward of the university of Oxford. From 1774 to 1779 he also held the vicarage of Anstey, Warwickshire. He died on 24 July 1791, and was buried at Birdingbury. Of his seventeen children Arthur (see below), Henry, and Philip Bracebridge are separately noticed.
His works are: 1. ‘An Essay on the Nature and Method of ascertaining the specific Shares of Proprietors upon the Inclosure of Common Fields; with Observations on the Inconveniences of Open Fields, and upon the objections to this Inclosure, particularly as far as they relate to the Public and the Poor,’ Oxford, 1766, 8vo. 2. ‘An Enquiry into the means of Preserving and Improving the Publick Roads of this Kingdom. With Observations on the probable consequences of the present plan,’ Oxford, 1767, 8vo. Macadam, in his ‘Remarks on the present System of Roadmaking,’ pp. 11 and 12, quotes this work with approval. Homer's opinions on highways, the enclosure of waste lands, and the value of inland navigation were far in advance of his time.
Arthur Homer (1758–1806), the fourth son of Henry Homer the elder, was educated at Rugby and Magdalen College, Oxford. He graduated B.A. 1778, proceeded M.A. 1781, B.D. 1790, and D.D. 1797; from 1782 to 1802 he was a probationary fellow of Magdalen. In 1802 the college presented him to the rectory of Standlake, Oxfordshire, where he died 2 July 1806. There is a monument to his memory, with an inscription supposed to have been written by Dr. Parr, on the south wall of the chancel of Standlake Church. He published one volume of his ‘Bibliographia Americana, or a Chronological Catalogue of the most Curious and Interesting Books, Pamphlets, State Papers, &c., upon the subjects of North and South America,’ London, 1789, 4to.
[Colvile's Warwickshire Worthies, p. 430; Foster's Alumni Oxon. ii. 683; Bloxam's Reg. of Magdalen College, vols. i. vi. and vii.; Gent. Mag. 1791 pt. ii. p. 685, 1806 pt. ii. p. 1209; MacCulloch's Lit. of Political Economy, p. 199; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 660; Cat. of Oxf. Graduates, 1851, p. 332.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hondius, Abraham

​HONDIUS (DE HONDT), ABRAHAM (1638?–1691), painter, was born in Rotterdam in 1638. He may possibly be the Abraham, son of Isaack Maertens, who was baptised there on 9 Jan. 1639. Early in life Hondius displayed varied artistic abilities. He painted conflagrations, such as ‘The Destruction of Troy;’ night scenes, such as ‘The Nocturnal Carnival Scene at Rome,’ 1660 (in the Schwerin gallery); sacred subjects, such as ‘Christ as the Gardener,’ 1662 (in the Oldenburg gallery); and two conversation-pieces in the style of Palamedes, 1668 (in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg). Hondius gained his chief distinction as a painter of animals, especially of dogs, and painted numerous hunting and sporting scenes with a firm pencilling and good colour. These are highly valued. Hondius ​ has been called a ‘Snyders in miniature,’ though there is little resemblance in their style. Good examples of his hunting-pieces are in the galleries at Dresden, Schwerin, Rotterdam, the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, and elsewhere. Some are also in private collections in England. Hondius came to England about 1665, and resided there till his death in London in 1691. According to Vertue he lived in Ludgate Hill, but died of a fit of the gout at the Blackamoor's Head over against Water Lane, Fleet Street, in 1695. He mentions a picture of a dog-market containing thirty different kinds of dogs, and states that Hondius was a man of humour and irregular life. Hondius appears to have had a wife, Geertruyt Willems, and a son, Isaack, who also became a painter. A set of etchings of animals, executed in 1672, and a few others by Hondius, are highly prized by collectors. He painted his own portrait, which was engraved in mezzotint by John Smith.
[Walpole's Anecd. of Painting, ed. Wornum; Immerzeel's Leven der Hollandsche Schilders, &c.; Scheffer and Obreen's Rotterdamsche Historienbladen, iii. 611; Woltmann and Woermann's Geschichte der Malerei; Houbraken's Grosse Schouburgh, ed. Wurzbach; Seguier's Dict. of Painters; Catalogues of the galleries at Dresden, Schwerin, &c.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hondius, Jodocus

​HONDIUS, JODOCUS [Joos or Josse de Hondt] (1563–1611), engraver, born at Wacken in Flanders in 1563, was son of Olivier de Hondt and Petronella van Havertuyn. Hendrik Hondius the elder, the better-known engraver and publisher, was a brother; a sister was wife of Pieter van den Berghe, better known as Petrus Montanus. When he was two years old his parents removed to Ghent, and Hondius was educated there. He is said to have engraved original compositions on copper and ivory at the age of eight, and was apprenticed to a painter, from whom he learnt drawing. His talents attracted the notice of Alessandro Farnese, duke of Parma, the governor of the Netherlands, who gave him employment, and would have sent him to Italy. Hondius, however, remained at Ghent, studied Greek and Latin, busied himself with cosmography, type-founding, &c., until the siege of Ghent compelled him to take refuge in England. In London Hondius set up as a type-founder, an engraver of maps and charts, and a maker of globes and mathematical instruments. He made celestial and terrestrial globes larger than any known before. He engraved some of the earliest maps of England and other countries, and illustrated the voyages of Sir Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish. He also engraved the portraits of the two navigators and those of Elizabeth, Henri IV, and Gerard Mercator. About 1594 Hondius removed with his household to Amsterdam. This may have been due to the death of Gerard Mercator, for Hondius purchased the plates of Mercator's ‘Atlas,’ and added fifty more in a new edition of the ‘Atlas’ published by him in 1606 at Amsterdam. He also published a treatise on the construction and use of the globes (1597), one on calligraphy with examples from the best masters (1594), and similar works. He died at Amsterdam on 10 Feb. 1611. He married on 11 April 1587, at the Dutch Church in Austin Friars, London, Colette van der Keere of Ghent, and by her had thirteen children, of whom two sons and four daughters survived. His two sons, Jodocus and Hendrik, both set up as publishers of prints, maps, &c., at Amsterdam, and completed the works left unfinished by their father, including the maps for Speed's ‘Britain.’
[Biography in the preface to Mercator and Hondius's Atlas (ed. 1633); Immerzeel and Kramm's Levens der Hollandsche Konstschilders, &c.; Dodd's manuscript Hist. of English Engravers (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 33402); Moen's Reg. of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars; Hessel's Eccl. Lond.-Batav. ii. 592.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Home, William

​HOME, WILLIAM, eighth Earl of Home (d. 1761), second son of Alexander, seventh earl, by his wife, Lady Anne, second daughter of William Ker, second marquis of Lothian, succeeded his father in 1720. He obtained a cornet's commission in the second regiment of dragoon guards 13 May 1735, and a troop in Churchill's dragoons in May 1740. In July 1743 he received a captain's commission in the third regiment of dragoon guards, with which he served on the continent. Being in Scotland at the time of the rebellion in 1745, he offered his services to Sir John Cope after he landed at Dunbar, only bringing with him two body servants. Along with the Earl of Loudon he was sent forward by Cope to mark out a camp near Musselburgh, but they returned soon after with the news that the highland army were in full march towards them. At ​the battle of Prestonpans (21 Sept. 1745), Home, with Loudon, assisted Cope in his vain attempt to rally the dragoons. He was afterwards appointed to the command of the Glasgow volunteer regiment of six hundred foot, which in December was sent to the defence of Stirling. In 1749 he was promoted major of the third regiment of foot-guards, in 1750 colonel of the 48th foot, and in 1752 colonel of the 29th foot. On 16 April 1757 he was made governor of Gibraltar. His term of office was uneventful. He died at Gibraltar 28 April 1761, being then a lieutenant-general of the army. At the election of 1741, and on several subsequent occasions, he was chosen a representative peer of Scotland. He was married, 25 Dec. 1742, to Mrs. Laws of Albemarle Street, London, but had no issue, and was succeeded by his brother Alexander, ninth earl.
[Home's and Chambers's Histories of the Rebellion; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 739; Scots Mag. 1761, xxiii. 279.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barret, John (1631-1713)

​BARRET, JOHN (1631–1713), nonconformist divine, was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he proceeded to the degree of M.A. Afterwards he became a presbyterian divine, and minister of St. Peter's church at Nottingham (1656), but was ejected from his living at the Restoration for refusing to read the Common Prayer (1662). He afterwards ‘kept conventicles in those parts;’ and died at Nottingham, 30 Oct. 1713, in his eighty-third year. His funeral sermon was preached by his colleague, the Rev. John Whitlock, jun. He had a son, Joseph [q. v.], whose literary ‘Remains’ were printed in 1700. Among Barret's works are: 1. ‘Good Will towards Men, or a treatise of the covenants, viz., of works and of grace, old and new. By a lover of truth and peace,’ 1675. 2. ‘The Christian Temper, or a discourse concerning the nature and properties of the graces of sanctification,’ 1678. 3. ‘ A Funeral Sermon, preached at Nottingham, occasioned by the death of that faithful servant of Christ, Mr. John Whitlock, sen., 8 Dec. 1708,’ London, 1709. 4. ‘The Evil and Remedy of Scandal, a practical discourse on Psalm cxix. clxv.’ 1711. 5. ‘Away with the Fashion of this World. Come, Lord Jesus. Being a small ​legacy of a dying minister to a beloved people,’ 1713. 6. ‘Reliquiæ Barretteanæ, or select sermons on sundry practical subjects,’ Nottingham, 1714. Palmer (Nonconformists' Memorial, iii. 105) says he also wrote (7) ‘Two pieces in defence of Nonconformity against Stillingfleet.’
[Creswell's Collections towards the Hist. of Printing in Nottinghamshire, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (ed. Bliss), i. 455; Palmer's Nonconf. Memorial, iii. 103.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barret, Joseph

​BARRET, JOSEPH (1665–1699), theological writer, was the son of John Barret [q. v.], a nonconformist minister at Nottingham, and was born at Sandivere, Derbyshire, 2 Aug. 1665. He was educated at Nottingham, where, from the sobriety of his ways, the boys called him ‘good man.’ His parents wished him to be apprenticed in London, but he preferred remaining at Nottingham, where he married Millicent, daughter of John Reyner, sometime fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He appears to have prospered in business, and to have been remarkable from childhood for his consistent piety. He died 28 Aug. 1699, leaving five children.
His ‘Remains,’ London, 1700, include an account of his religious experiences, occasional meditations, letters, and a brief character of him by his father.
[Barrett's Remains, as above.]
A. R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barre, Richard

​BARRE, RICHARD (fl. 1170–1202), ecclesiastic and judge, acted as the envoy of Henry II to the papal court, both shortly before and immediately after the murder of Thomas Becket. On the first occasion he was the bearer of a haughty and even minatory message from the king demanding that the pope should absolve all those who had been excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The mission, it need hardly be said, failed of its object. The letter from Alexander III to the Archbishop of York, which Foss connects with it, is without a date, and its authenticity, as well as the date to which, if authentic, it should be assigned, has been the subject of much controversy, both questions being still unsettled. On the second occasion Barre was despatched in company with the Archbishop of Rouen, the Bishops of Evreux and Worcester, and others of the clergy, to express to the pope the king's horror and detestation of the murder. The Archbishop of Rouen got no further than Normandy, falling ill by the way, and Barre was sent forward to Italy alone. On reaching Tusculanum he was refused audience by the pope; but on the arrival of others of his party two, ‘qui minus habebantur suspecti,’ were admitted, and in the end the embassy was successful in averting the impending excommunication. Barre was entrusted with the custody of the great seal on the coronation of the heir apparent in 1170, but on the revolt of the prince in 1173 he offered to surrender it to the king, disclaiming all allegiance to his son. Henry, however, refused to receive him. Barre probably succeeded Richard de Ely, otherwise FitzNeale, as archdeacon of Ely in 1184. However this may be, he is known to have held that post between 1191 and 1196. He was appointed one of the justices of the king's court at Westminster 1195–6, and his name is found as one of those before whom fines were levied there as late as the beginning of the reign of King John. In the third year of that reign he acted as one of the coadjutors of Geoffrey FitzPiers in the business of levying amerciaments in Leicestershire.
[Rymer's Fœdera, i. 29; Matthew Paris's Majora, ii. 248–9; Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II and Rich. I (Stubbs), i. 20–2; Le Neve, i. 350; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 5; Fines (Hunter), 1–4; Rot. Cancell. (Hardy), p. 14, Pref. p. x.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barret, George (d.1842)

​BARRET, GEORGE the younger (d. 1842), landscape painter, was son of George Barret, the landscape painter, who died in 1784 [q. v.] Nothing is known of the history of this admirable artist till 1795. From this year till 1803 he appears as a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy. In 1805 he became one of the first members of the Society of Painters in Watercolours, and for thirty-eight years he did not miss one of their exhibitions, occasionally also sending a drawing or an oil picture to the Academy. He excelled especially in painting light, and all his scenes, whether sunrise, sunset, or moonlight, are remarkable for their fine rendering of atmosphere, their diffusion and gradation of light, and their poetic feeling. In these respects he rivalled Turner. His later works are generally ‘compositions’ of the ‘classical’ school, but the pure and lucid quality of his radiant skies and sunlit distances, and the rich transparent harmony of his shady foregrounds, are his own, and preserve, in the midst of much conventionality, the distinction of an original genius. In spite of industry, merit, and frugal habits, he earned only enough to meet daily wants. When he died, in 1842, after a long illness aggravated by grief at the loss of his son, a subscription was opened for his family. His works are now eagerly sought for, and fetch high prices. He published, in 1840, ‘The Theory and Practice of Watercolour Painting, elucidated in a series of letters.’ There is a fine collection of his drawings in the South Kensington Museum.
[Redgraves' Century of Painters; Redgrave's Dictionary; Cat. of Nat. Gall. at South Kensington.]
C. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barret, Robert

​BARRET, ROBERT (fl. 1600), military and poetical writer, spent much of his life in the profession of arms among the French, Dutch, Italians, and Spaniards. Before 1598 he had ‘retyred to a rustique lyfe,’ and addressed himself to literature. His first work was entitled ‘The Theorike and Practike of Modern Warres. Discourses in Dialogue wise, wherein is disclosed the neglect of Martiall discipline: the inconvenience thereof,’ and more to like effect. It was published in London in 1598 with two dedicatory addresses, the one to the Earl of Pembroke ​and the other to his son William, Lord Herbert of Cardiff, for whose instruction the book was professedly prepared. A prefatory poem is signed ‘William Sa——.’ Barret deals largely with military tactics, and many interesting diagrams may be found among his pages. Some eight years later he completed a more ambitious production. After three years' labour he finished, ‘26 March, anno 1606,’ the longest epic poem in the language, numbering more than 68,000 lines. The work never found a publisher, and is still extant in a unique manuscript. It was entitled ‘The Sacred Warr. An History conteyning the Christian Conquest of the Holy Land by Godfrey de Buillion Duke of Lorraine, and sundrye other Illustrious Christian Heroes. Their Lyues, Acts, and Gouernments even untill Jherusalem's Lamentable Reprieze by Saladdin, Ægypts Calyph and Sultan,’ with continuations down to 1588. The authorities cited are ‘the chronicles of William Archbishoppe of Tyrus, the Protoscribe of Palestine, of Basilius Johannes Heraldius and sundry other.’ The poem is in alternate rhymes; the language is stilted and affected and contains many newly-coined words. In an address to the reader, Barret apologises for intermixing ‘so true and grave an history with Poetical fictions, phrases, narrations, digressions, reprizes, ligations,’ and so forth; but Sallust and Du Bartas have been his models. The work is in thirty-two books, and at its close are ‘An Exhortacion Elegiacall to all European Christians against the Turks,’ in verse, and an account in prose of ‘the Military Offices of the Turkish Empery.’ The completed volume bears date 1613. The manuscript at one time belonged to Southey the poet; it subsequently passed into the Corser Library, and thence into the possession of James Crossley of Manchester. Shakespeare, according to Chalmers, caricatured Barret as Parolles in ‘All's well that ends well.’ But the statement is purely conjectural. Parolles (iv. 3, 161–3, Globe ed.) is spoken of as ‘the gallant militarist—that was his own phrase—that had the whole theoric of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practice in the chape of his dagger’—words which may possibly allude to the title of Barret's military manual, but are in themselves hardly sufficient to establish a more definite connection between him and Parolles.
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barret, Patrick

​BARRET, PATRICK (d. 1415), ecclesiastic and judge, one of the canons of the Augustinian abbey of Kells in Ossory, was consecrated bishop of Ferns in Wexford by the pope at Rome in December 1400 and restored to the temporalities on 11 April in the following year. He was created chancellor of Ireland in 1410, and held the office two years, being superseded in 1412 by Archbishop Cranley. He died on 10 Nov. 1415, and was buried in the abbey of Kells. During the later years of his life he compiled a catalogue of his predecessors in the see of Ferns. He appropriated the church of Ardcolm to the abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul at Selsker in Wexford.
[Ware's Bishops of Ireland, 444; Holinshed's Chron. of Ireland, 264; Ware's Writers of Ireland, 88; Cotton's Fasti Eccles. Hibern. ii. 333; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. Hib.; Archdall's Monast. Hibern. 363.]
J. M. R.