OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Agapetus 2.

AGAPE'TUS (Άγαπητός). 2. St., born at Rome, was Archdeacon and raised to the Holy See A.D. 535. He was no sooner consecrated than he took off the anathemas pronounced by Pope Boniface II. against his deceased rival Dioscorus on a false charge of Simony. He received an appeal from the Catholics of Con­stantinople when Anthimus, the Monophysite, was made their Bishop by Theodora. [Anthimus.] The fear of an invasion of Italy by Justinian led the Goth Theodatus to oblige St. Agapetus to go himself to Constantinople, in hope that Justinian might be diverted from his purpose. (See Breviarium S. Liberati, ap. Mansi, Concilia, vol. ix. p. 695.) As to this last object he could make no impression on the emperor, but he suc­ceeded in persuading him to depose Anthimus, and when Mennas was chosen to succeed him, Agapetus laid his own hands upon him. The Council and the Synodal (interpreted into Greek) sent by Agapetus relating to these affairs may be found ap. Mansi, vol. viii. pp. 869, 921. Com­plaints were sent him from various quarters against the Monophysite Acephali; but he died suddenly a. d. 536, April 22, and they were read in a Council held on 2nd May, by Mennas. (Mansi, ibid. p. 874.) There are two letters from St. Agapetus to Justinian in reply to a letter from the emperor, in the latter of which he refuses to ac­knowledge the Orders of the Arians; and there are two others: 1. To the Bishops of Africa, on the same subject; 2. To Reparatus, Bishop of Carthage, in answer to a letter of congratulation on his elevation to the Pontificate. (Mansi, Con­cilia, viii. p,p. 846—850.)
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Aeschrion 4.

​AE′SCHRION (Αἰσχρίων), a native of Pergamus, and a physician in the second century after Christ. He was one of Galen's tutors, who says that he belonged to the sect of the Empirici, and that he had a great knowledge of Pharmacy and Materia Medica. Aeschrion was the inventor of a celebrated superstitious remedy for the bite of a mad dog, which is mentioned with approbation by Galen and Oribasius (Synops. iii. p. 55), and of which the most important ingredient was powdered crawfish. These he directs to be caught at a time when the sun and moon were in a particular relative position, and to be baked alive. (Gal. De Simpl. Medic. Facult. xi. 34, vol. xii. p. 356; C. G. Kühn. Additam. ad Elench. Med. Vet. a J. A. Fabric. in "Bibl. Gr." exhibit.) [W. A. G.]
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Aeschylides

​AESCHY′LIDES (Αἰσχυλίδης), wrote a work on agriculture, entitled Γεωργικὰ, which was at least in three books. (Athen. xiv. p. 650, d; Aelian, de Anim. xvi. 32.)
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Agathon 1.

​A′GATHON (Ἀγάθων) the son of the Macedonian Philotas, and the brother of Parmenion and Asander, was given as a hostage to Antigonus in B. C. 313, by his brother Asander, who was satrap of Caria, but was taken back again by Asander in a few days. (Diod. xix. 75.) Agathon had a son, named Asander, who is mentioned in a Greek inscription. (Böckh, Corp. Inscr. 105.)
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Andrews, Miles Peter

​ANDREWS, MILES PETER (d. 1814), dramatist, was the son of a drysalter in Watling Street. After assisting his father in business during the day, he was accustomed ‘to sally forth in the evening with sword and bag to Ranelagh or some other public place,’ giving himself the airs of a man of fashion. Gradually forming higher connections, he engaged in certain very profitable speculations. He became the constant companion of the dissolute Lord Lyttelton, and is responsible for a story of the appearance to him of that nobleman's ghost (see Ward's Illustrations of Human Life, 1837). He was the owner of powder magazines at Dartford, said to be the most extensive in England, and became member of parliament for Bewdley. Occupying a large mansion in the Green Park, formerly tenanted by Lord Grenville, his grand entertainments and gala nights were of great attraction to the fashionable world of London. He affected the society of actors and authors, and was elected a member of the Beefsteak, the Keep-the-Line, and other convivial clubs. He enjoyed a reputation for wit and good humour, for kindliness and hospitality, while his temper was said to be extremely irritable, and he was nervous, credulous, and superstitious. He was the author of the following plays: the ‘Conjuror,’ a farce, produced at Drury Lane in 1774; the ‘Election,’ a musical interlude, produced at the same theatre in the same year; ‘Belphegor, or the Wishes,’ a comic opera, produced at Drury Lane in 1778; ‘Summer Amusement, or an Adventure at Margate,’ written in conjunction with William Augustus Miles, produced at the Haymarket in 1779; ‘Fire and Water,’ a ballad opera, produced at the Haymarket in 1780; ‘Dissipation,’ a comedy, produced at Drury Lane in 1781; the ‘Baron Kinkvervankotsdorssprakengatchdern,’ a musical comedy, founded on a novel by Lady Craven, produced at the Haymarket in 1781; the ‘Best Bidder,’ a farce, produced at the Haymarket in 1782; ‘Reparation,’ a comedy, produced at Drury ​Lane in 1784; ‘Better Late than Never,’ a comedy, produced at Drury Lane in 1790; the ‘Mysteries of the Castle,’ produced at Covent Garden in 1795. In the two last-named works Andrews was assisted by Frederick Reynolds. Andrews was less successful with his plays than with his prologues and epilogues, which, although tawdry and vulgar enough, laden with slang and with gross caricatures of the foibles of the day, were so skilfully delivered by the popular comedians, Lewis and Mrs. Mattocks, as to command great applause. Sheridan said of Andrews that he only succeeded in the head and tail of a play and always broke down in the body. George Colman the younger describes Andrews as ‘one of the most persevering poetical pests,’ and his plays as ‘like his powder mills, particularly hazardous affairs, and in great danger of going off with a sudden and violent explosion.’ Andrews's ‘doggrel’ and ‘unmeaning ribaldry’ were severely censured by Giffard in his ‘Baviad.’
D. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Andrews, John (1736-1809)

​ANDREWS, JOHN (1736–1809), historical writer and pamphleteer, produced numerous works towards the end of the last and beginning of the present century. Among these are: 1. ‘History of the Revolutions of Denmark,’ &c., 1774. 2. ‘History of the War with America, France, Spain, and Holland, commencing in 1775 and ending in 1783,’ four vols., London, 1785–86. 3. ‘Letters to his Excellency the Count de Welderen on the present Situation of Affairs between Great Britain and the United Provinces,’ London, 1781 (of which a Dutch translation appeared in the same year at Amsterdam). 4. ‘Letters to a Young Gentleman on his setting out for France, containing a survey of Paris and a review of French literature,’ 1784. 5. ‘Historical Review of the Moral, Religious, Literary, and Political Character of the English Nation,’ 1806. The ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for February 1809 has the following obituary announcement: ‘At his house at Kennington, Surrey, in his seventy-third year, Dr. John Andrews, a gentleman well known in the literary world. By his death the nation is deprived of an able historian, a profound scholar and politician, and a man ever ready to take up his pen in his country's cause.’
A. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Andrews, Henry C.

​ANDREWS, HENRY C. (fl. 1799–1828), botanical artist and engraver, lived at Knightsbridge, Middlesex, and there published the following works:
(1799–1811), in 10 vols. 4to.
* ‘Coloured Engravings of Heaths’ (1802–30), 4 vols. folio.
* ‘The Heathery’ (1804–12), 6 vols. 8vo.
* ‘Geraniums’ (1805), 2 vols. 4to.
* ‘Roses’ (1805–28), 2 vols. 4to.
The drawings for these, which are careful and artistic, were executed by Andrews; but the letterpress accompanying them was in many instances by other hands; that of the ‘Heaths’ was by James Wheeler, then curator of the Chelsea Botanic Gardens, while in the first five volumes of the ‘Repository’ he was ‘assisted by gardeners and cultivators,’ and in the sixth ‘by a botanist whose opinions were diametrically opposed to those of the former.’ In consequence of this, Andrews tells us in the preface to his ‘Geraniums,’ that he thought it ‘much better [in that work] to try his own strength, however weak, than to remain tottering between the support of two such unequal crutches.’ Andrews does not seem to have contributed to contemporary periodical literature, and we have no record of the date of his death. Ventenat named a genus Andreusia after him, which is synonymous with Myoporum.
[Prefaces to Andrews's works.]
J. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Andrews, James Pettit

​ANDREWS, JAMES PETTIT (1737?–1797), antiquary and historian, was the younger son of Joseph Andrews, of Shaw House, a fine Elizabethan mansion near Newbury, and was born about 1737. He served in the Berkshire militia from the date of its being called out until it was disembodied, and after that date exchanged arms for the law, ultimately becoming in 1792, and remaining until his death, one of the magistrates at the police court in Queen Square, Westminster. His wife, Miss Anne Penrose, was a daughter of the Rev. Mr. Penrose, the rector of Newbury, and a sister of the Rev. Thomas Penrose, whose poetical pieces, edited by Mr. Andrews in 1781, are included in several old collections of English poetry. Mr. Andrews built at great expense a large house, called Donnington Grove, near his father's seat, but soon disposed of it to another. His wife died in 1785, and he himself 6 Aug. 1797; both lie buried in Hampstead church. His chief works are:
* ‘The Savages of Europe,’ a translation from the French [of Messrs. Lesuire and Louvel], 1764, with illustrations by the translator—a grotesque satire on the English.
* ‘An Appeal to the Humane on behalf of Climbing Boys employed by the Chimney Sweepers,’ 1788.
* ‘Anecdotes, antient and modern,’ 1789, with ‘Addenda’ in 1790—an amusing collection of gossip from old books.
* ‘History of Great Britain from death of Henry VIII to accession of James VI of Scotland,’ published in 1796 in one volume, second edition in two vols. in the same year, and third edition in 1806.
* ‘History of Great Britain connected with the Chronology of Europe from Cæsar's invasion to accession of Edward VI,’ 1794–95, 2 vols.
Both histories, though long since superseded, contained much curious information from ancient literature; the former work was intended as a continuation of Dr. Henry's history of Great Britain. In 1798 he joined Pye, the poet laureate, in a five-act tragedy from the German, called the ‘Inquisitor.’ Mr. Andrews contributed many topographical papers to the ‘Archæologia’ and to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine.’
[Gent. Mag. lxvii. pt. ii. 716, 796 (1797); Hist. and Antiquities of Newbury (1839), 116–20, 172–75.]
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Andrews, Robert

​ANDREWS, ROBERT (d. 1766?), a translator of Virgil, was descended from an eminent nonconformist family which had lived for nearly two centuries at Little Lever and at Rivington Hall, near Bolton, Lancashire. He received his theological education under Dr. Caleb Rotheram, at Kendal. He was chosen in 1747 minister of the presbyterian congregation at Lydgate, in the parish of Kirkburton, Yorkshire. He continued to hold this charge till about 1753, when he became minister of Platt Chapel, a place of worship for protestant dissenters in Rusholme, Lancashire. His stay there did not exceed three years. He afterwards presided over a presbyterian congregation at Bridgnorth, where he remained till his health broke down and he became mad.
He was a man of considerable taste and scholarship. In the earlier part of his life he sent to the press a criticism on the sermons of his friend, the Rev. John Holland, and some animadversions on Dr. Brown's ‘Essays on the Characteristics.’ His ‘Virgil Englished,’ 1766, 8vo, was dedicated to the Hon. Booth Grey. It is in blank verse, and has the strange peculiarity of conveying the sense of Virgil, or what Andrews conceived to be such, line for line. This rare book, printed by Baskerville, now finds a place among the curiosities of literature. There is no copy in the British Museum Library. Another work of his, called ‘Eidyllia,’ is a volume of poems, 1757, 4to, dedicated to the Hon. Charles Yorke. The preface contains a violent attack on rhyme.
J. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Andrews, William (1802-1880)

​ANDREWS, WILLIAM (1802–1880), naturalist, was born at Chichester, but is chiefly known in connection with Irish natural history. He was one of the earliest members, and subsequently secretary and president, of the Dublin Natural History Society, in the proceedings of which he took a very active part. He at first devoted his attention to botany, but subsequently took up marine ichthyology, in which branch of science he made some important discoveries: he also published papers on ornithology and entomology. He distributed many botanical specimens, many of which were taken from plants cultivated in his garden, and hence accidental mistakes as to their origin not unfrequently arose. His name is best known to botanists in connection with a variety (Andrewsii) of the Killarney fern (Trichomanes radicans). He died in Dublin, 11 March 1880.
J. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Andrews, William (fl.1656-1683)

​ANDREWS, WILLIAM (fl. 1656–1683), astrologer, is the author of some astrological works ranging from 1656 to 1683. The first of these is the ‘Astrological Physician,’ 1656, to which William Lilly contributed a preface. Among the Ashmolean MSS. (227–8) is preserved a letter, dated from Ashdown, Essex, 31 March 1656, in which Andrews thanks Lilly for writing the preface. In 1672 he published ‘Annus Prodigiosus, or the Wonderful Year 1672,’ 4to, and ‘More News from Heaven unto the World, or the Latter Part of the Wonderful Year 1672; being a further Account of the Portents and Signification of the Stars touching the United Netherlands,’ 4to. His last work was ‘An Almanack for 1683,’ 4to.
A. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Coryate, George

​CORYATE, GEORGE (d. 1607), writer of Latin verse, was born in the parish of St. Thomas, Salisbury, whence he proceeded to Winchester School, and from there was admitted probationary fellow of New College, Oxford, 15 Dec. 1560. He was admitted to the B.A. degree in March 1564, and incepted as M.A. in July 1569. In the following year he became rector of Odcombe in Somersetshire, and thereupon resigned his fellowship. He appears to have had the knack of writing Latin verses from boyhood, and on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth visiting Winchester in August 1560, he was either set, or set himself, to write a copy of trumpery elegiacs which should be fixed on the door of the palace of the Bishop of Winchester. If any ​serious interpretation is to be found for the words prefixed to another copy of verses which follows, the queen gave the youth five pounds for his pains; whereupon he wrote another poem recommending her majesty to marry without delay. He can hardly have been more than fourteen years old when he tendered this piece of advice. While at Oxford he was evidently in needy circumstances, and in great measure had to live by his wits. He translated the whole book of psalms into Latin verse, a performance which happily was never printed, and has perished, but its completion was the occasion of another letter to Queen Elizabeth. He seems to have had no scruple about writing Latin verses to the nobility and others from whom there was any hope of getting a douceur. Once, at least, he addressed Lord Burghley, who sent him forty shillings in acknowledgment. On the occasion of the death of William, earl of Pembroke, he composed a silly elegy upon the deceased peer, whose son, Henry, lord Pembroke, made him his chaplain. At another time he sent some verses to the Lord-keeper Puckering, as well as to Archbishop Whitgift, besides writing epitaphs on Bishop Jewell and Archbishop Piers of York. His son inherited from him a considerable spice of the cunning and impudence which characterised that eccentric adventurer. He is registered as having ‘supplicated’ for the B.D. degree in July 1592, and as New College men were exempt from ‘supplication,’ this may have been a mistake of the registrar for Coryate's actual graduation. He was presented to the prebendal stall of Warthill in the cathedral of York, 17 Jan. 1594, but never rose to higher preferment. He died in the parsonage house at Odcombe, 4 March, 1606–7; ‘whereupon his son Tom, upon some design, preserving his body from stench above ground, till the 14th April following, 'twas then buried in the chancel of the church at Odcombe.’ He left behind him a widow, Gertrude, of whose parentage nothing is known. She survived her husband nearly forty years, and was buried near him 3 April 1645.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 774; Register of the Univ. of Oxford (Boase), Oxf. Hist. Soc. i. 254; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy); Posthuma Fragmenta Poematum Georgii Coryati, to be found at the end of some copies of Tom Coryate's Crudities.]
A. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cosby, Francis

​COSBY, FRANCIS (d. 1580), Irish general, settled in Ireland in Henry VIII's reign. In 1548 Bellingham, the lord deputy, acknowledged the resource and courage displayed by Cosby in attacking the marauders who infested the boundaries of the English pale, and ten years later Sussex was as enthusiastic in his commendation. In 1558 Cosby was appointed general of the Kerne, and in 1562 was granted the suppressed abbey of Stradbally in Queen's County. In 1565 he became governor of Maryborough, and seneschal of Queen's County. He helped to massacre, although the amount of his responsibility is doubtful, many of the O'Mores at Mullagh, near Athy, in 1567, who had been summoned to the fortress on avowedly peaceful business. (The date 1577 in the ‘Annals of the Four Masters’ is corrected to 1567 in the ‘Annals of Lough Cé.’) Cosby was not successful in repressing disorder in Queen's County. Rory Oge O'More was continually threatening him, and took his eldest son prisoner in 1577. The murder of Rory in the following year relieved Cosby of his chief difficulty, but the outbreak of the Desmond rebellion in 1580 caused him new anxieties, and he was killed by the rebels at the battle of Glenmalure, 25 Aug. 1580. He married Elizabeth Palmer, by whom he had three sons, Alexander, Henry, and Arnold, and one daughter. Alexander succeeded to the estates, received additional grants in Queen's County, and was, with his son Francis, killed at the battle of Stradbally Bridge. The estates subsequently passed to Richard, another son of Alexander, whose descendants still possess them. Arnold, Francis Cosby's second son, served under the Earl of Leicester in the Low Countries.
[Burke's Landed Gentry; Four Masters, ed. O'Donovan (1856); Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors; Webb's Irish Biography; Carew MSS.; Cal. Irish State Papers; Froude's Hist. x. 580.]
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cosin, Edmund

​COSIN or COSYN, EDMUND (fl. 1558), vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, a native of Bedfordshire, entered King's Hall, Cambridge, as a bible clerk; proceeded B.A. early in 1535, M.A. in 1541, and B.D. in 1547; was successively fellow of King's Hall, St. Catharine's Hall, and of Trinity College (on its formation in 1546); and held from 21 Sept. 1538 to November 1541 the living of Grendon, Northamptonshire, which was in the gift of King's Hall. Cosin was proctor of the university in 1545, and his zeal in the catholic cause combined with Gardiner's influence to secure his election early in Mary's reign to the mastership of St. Catharine's Hall, and his presentation by the crown to the Norfolk rectories of St. Edmund, North Lynn (1553) and of Fakenham (1555), and to the Norfolk vicarages of Caistor Holy Trinity, and of Oxburgh (1554). In 1555 Trinity College presented him to the rectory of Thorpland, Norfolk. At the same time Cosin held many minor ecclesiastical offices, being chaplain to Bonner, bishop of London, and assistant to Michael Dunning, chancellor of Norwich diocese. In 1558 he was elected vice-chancellor of his university, but failing health and the ecclesiastical changes which accompanied Elizabeth's accession induced him to resign all his preferments in 1560 (cf. his letter to Parker in Strype's Parker, i. 176). He subsequently lived in retirement in Caius College, Cambridge, of which he was a pensioner in 1564. In 1568 the lords of the council summoned him before them to answer a charge of nonconformity, but Cosin appears to have preferred leaving the country to complying with the order. He was known to be living abroad in 1576.
[Strype's Memorials, III i. 80; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. i. 204, 552; Egerton Papers (Camd. Soc.), p. 65; Nichols's Prog. Eliz. iii. 173; Blomefield's Norfolk.]
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cosin, Richard

​COSIN, RICHARD (1549?–1597), civil lawyer, born at Hartlepool about 1549, was the son of John Cosin of Newhall, lieutenant to Thomas Dudley at the battle of Musselburgh (1547), who was either killed by the Scots soon after that battle, or was drowned on his way home. Richard's mother remarried one Medhope, by whom Richard was brought up. He was educated at Skipton school, and evinced so much precocity that he became a pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge, 12 Nov. 1561, before he was twelve years old, and was soon afterwards elected a scholar, and subsequently fellow. Whitgift was his tutor, and was much impressed with his abilities. He proceeded B.A. in 1565–6, M.A. in 1569, and LL.D. in 1580. He subscribed against the new university statutes in May 1572; became chancellor of Worcester diocese and visitor of Lichfield Cathedral (20 Jan. 1582–3), and was appointed dean of arches and vicar-general of the province of Canterbury by Archbishop Whitgift 10 Dec. 1583. Cosin was an ecclesiastical commissioner of the diocese of Winchester in 1583–4, a visitor for the diocese of Gloucester in 1584, a member of the Society of Advocates 14 Oct. 1585, M.P. for Hindon, Wiltshire, 29 Oct. 1586 and again for Downton 4 Feb. 1588–9, and master in chancery 9 Oct. 1588. He was also a member of the ecclesiastical commission court. He died at his lodgings in Doctors' Commons 30 Nov. 1597, and his body was removed for burial at Lambeth on 9 Dec. Lancelot Andrewes preached the funeral sermon, and William Barlow, afterwards bishop of Lincoln [q. v.], for whose education Cosin had paid, wrote a biography in Latin, published in 1598. Barlow describes Cosin as learned and witty, and of powerful physique. With Barlow's biography was issued a collection of ‘Carmina Funebria’ in Greek, Latin, English, and Italian from the pens of Cosin's Cambridge friends. Cosin left 40l. to Trinity College Library, and 10l. to two poor scholars.
Cosin was the author of the following works on ecclesiastical law, all of which were treated as high authorities:
* ‘An Apologie of and for sundrie proceedings by Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall,’ London, 1591, 1593, a defence of the ex-officio oath, in reply to ‘A Brief Treatise of Oaths,’ by James Morice, attorney of the court of wards. Morice's reply to Cosin was not published, and is in MS. Cott. Cleop. F. i.
* ‘An Answer to the two first and principall treatises of a certeine factious libell put foorth latelie … under the title of An Abstract of certeine Acts of Parliament,’ 1584. The ‘Abstract’ was a collection of canons and statutes claimed to support the presbyterian system of church government.
* ‘Conspiracie for Pretended Reformation, viz. Presbyteriall discipline,’ with a life of Hacket, executed as a presbyterian in 1591, and accounts of the opinions of Edmund Coppinger [q. v.] and H. Arthington.
* ‘Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ Politeia in Tabulas digesta,’ 1604, 1634.
[Strype's Whitgift; Strype's Aylmer, 91; Strype's Annals, III. i. 338, iv. 196; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. ii. 230–2, 551; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. xi. 300; Coote's Civilians, 55–8; Brit. Mus. Cat. ]
S. L. L.