OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Bryen, Dennis

​O'BRYEN, DENNIS (1755–1832), dramatist and political pamphleteer, born in Ireland in 1755, became a surgeon, but relinquished the practice of his profession and settled in London, where he distinguished himself as a zealous political partisan of Fox, with whom he was on terms of great intimacy. The work which first brought him into notice was an ironical ‘Defence of the Earl of Shelburne from the Reproaches of his numerous Enemies, in a Letter to Sir George Saville, bart., to which is added a Postscript addressed to the Earl of Stair’ relative to his pamphlet on the state of the public debt, London, 1782, 8vo; 2nd ed. 1783. He next wrote ‘A Friend in Need is a Friend indeed,’ a three-act comedy performed at the Haymarket Theatre on 5 July 1783, but not printed. The cast included Palmer, Edwin, Parsons, Baddeley, and Mrs. Inchbald. This play, which in some respects resembled Goldsmith's ‘Good-natured Man,’ was acted eight times, but did not meet with a very cordial reception, and it gave rise to a newspaper controversy between the author and Colman, the manager of the theatre (Baker, Biogr. Dramatica, 1812, i. 545, ii. 252; Genest, vi. 281).
In 1784 he published another ironical work, entitled ‘A Gleam of Comfort to this distracted Empire, demonstrating the Fairness and Reasonableness of National Confidence in the present Ministry’—meaning the ministry of Pitt. About the same time he published two papers, called ‘The Reasoner,’ which subsequently appeared in several compilations, the first being attributed by the compiler to Lord Erskine, and the second to Sheridan. In 1786 he printed ‘A View of the Commercial Treaty with France,’ negotiated by William Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland [q. v.] This was followed by ‘Lines written at Twickenham,’ 1788, in which year, immediately upon the king's illness, he published anonymously ‘The Prospect before us, being a Series of Papers upon the great Question [i.e. of the regency] which now agitates the Public Mind.’ This was reproduced under the title of ‘The Regency Question,’ with a new preface, in consequence of the discussions caused by the return of his majesty's malady in 1810. In 1796 he published ‘Utrum Horum? The Government or the Country?’ which rapidly passed through three editions.
Upon the change of ministry in 1806 he succeeded to the lucrative sinecure of deputy paymaster-general, and in the same year he was appointed by Fox to the patent office of marshal of the admiralty at the Cape of Good Hope, worth, it was said, 4,000l. per annum. He died at Margate on 13 Aug. 1832. He had resided in London in Craven Street, Strand. His political correspondence was sold by auction a year or two after his death.
[Addit. MS. 12099; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 255; Gent. Mag. 1832, ii. 189, 1835, i. 48; Literary Gazette, 6 Dec. 1834, p. 820; Lit. Memoirs of Living Authors, ii. 87; Reuss's Register of Authors, ii. 147, Suppl. p. 293; Watkins's Memoirs of Sheridan, ii. 348.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Bryen, Edward

​O'BRYEN, EDWARD (1754?–1808), rear-admiral, born about 1754, after serving for nearly five years in the Æolus in the Mediterranean, and for upwards of three in the Prudent in the East Indies with Sir John Clerke, passed his examination on 9 Aug. 1775, being then, according to his certificate, more than twenty-one. He was promoted to be lieutenant on 11 April 1778. In 1779–80 he was serving in the Ambuscade frigate attached to the Channel fleet, and early in 1781 went out to the West Indies in the Monsieur, from which he was appointed to the Actæon, on the Jamaica station. On 17 March 1783 he was promoted to the command of the Jamaica sloop, and on 6 Aug. 1783 was posted to the Resistance of 44 guns, which, in the following year, he brought home and paid off. For the next eleven years he seems to have remained on half-pay, and in June 1795 was appointed to the Windsor Castle, which he joined in the Mediterranean and brought to England in the following year, with the flag of Rear-admiral Man on board. In April 1797 he was appointed to the Nassau, but it seems doubtful if he ever joined her. In July he joined the Monarch as flag-captain of Vice-admiral Onslow, and had a very distinguished part in the battle of Camperdown on 11 Oct. Sir William Hotham [q. v.] noted that ‘soon after the action a nobleman very unkindly insinuated to the king that it was a lucky thing for Sir Richard Onslow that he had O'Bryen for his captain. His Majesty differed, and told his lordship they were equally brave men.’ The circumstance ​was reported to O'Bryen, who declared emphatically ‘from the time in which the enemy appeared to the hour at which the action ended, Sir Richard Onslow was his own captain.’ From 1801 to 1803 O'Bryen commanded the Kent in the Mediterranean. In May 1803 he was invalided. He had no further service; was promoted to be rear-admiral on 9 Nov. 1805, and died on 18 Dec. 1808.
[Official documents in the Public Record Office; Gent. Mag. 1809, i. 87.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lefebvre, Roland

Rolland Lefebvre in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​LEFEBVRE, ROLAND (1608–1677), painter, was born at Anjou in 1608. He painted both history and portraits, and studied for many years in Italy. For a long time he resided at Venice, whence he is sometimes known as 'Lefebvre de Venise.' He was admitted a member of the Venetian Academy of Painting and Sculpture on 6 Jan. 1663, but after quarrelling because he was only admitted as a portrait-painter and not as a history-painter, he was excluded from the Academy on 14 March 1665. Lefebvre thereupon came over to England. He obtained the patronage of Prince Rupert by revealing to him a new method of staining marble. He painted portraits and small history pictures, but was not much esteemed. He died in Bear Street, Leicester Fields, in 1677, and was buried in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. A portrait of Lefebvre, in a fur cap, formerly in the possession of Philip Mercier the painter, was engraved for Walpole's 'Anecdotes of Painting.' He must be carefully distinguished from Claude Lefebvre, a well-known painter in Paris at the same time, who did not come to England, and also from Valentin Lefebvre, who resided many years at Venice, where he engraved works of Titian, Paolo Veronese, and others.
[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting; Vertues MSS. (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 23070, 23075); Mariette's Abecedario; Dussieux's Artistes Français à l'Etranger; Archives de l'Art Français, 1. 360, ii. 376.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lefroy, Thomas Langlois

​LEFROY, THOMAS LANGLOIS (1776–1869), Irish judge, born 8 Jan. 1776 in county Limerick, was eldest son of Anthony Lefroy of Carrickglass, co. Longford. His father, the representative of a Flemish protestant family which had sought refuge in England in the sixteenth century, was sometime colonel of the 9th dragoons. His mother's name was Anne Gardiner. He was educated from 2 Nov. 1790 at Trinity College, Dublin, where, after taking numerous university prizes and medals, he graduated B. A. in 1795, and afterwards LL.B. and LL.D. in 1827. He was called to the Irish bar in 1797, and practised for many years in equity with great success. He became king's counsel in 1806, king's Serjeant in 1808, and in 1819 a bencher of the King's Inns. He was frequently appointed a commissioner of assize, but in 1830, being mortified by his omission from the commissions, he resigned his 8erjeantcy (Fitzpatrick, Correspondence of O'Connell, i. 196). A typical Irish protestant tory, he first entered parliament in 1830 as one of the members for the university of Dublin. He steadily voted with Peel, and opposed the Irish measures of the Melbourne administration, but he made no great figure as a speaker in the House of Commons, tnough he spoke often. A baronetcy is said to have been offered to him in 1839. Having represented the university till 1841, he was then appointed a baron of the Irish court of exchequer, and took part in the political trials of 1848. In 1852 he became lord chief justice of the queen's bench, and, in spite of old age, did not resign that post until 1866. He died at Newcourt, near Bray, 4 May 1869, and was buried at Mount Jerome cemetery 12 May. He published in 1802 a law tract on 'Proceedings in Elegit.' and in 1806, with John Schoales, 'Reports of Cases in the Irish Court of Chancery under Lord Redesdale from 1802 to 1806.' He married in 1799 at Abergavenny Mary, only daughter and heiress of Jeffrey Paul of Silver Spring, co. Wexford, by whom he had four sons and three daughters.
[Memoir by Thomas Lefroy, Dublin, 1871; Times, 6 May 1869; Cat. of Graduates of Dublin University; Webb's Compendium. The references to him in Fitzpatrick's Correspondence of O'Connell are depreciatory.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lefevre, Charles Shaw, Viscount Eversley

​LEFEVRE, CHARLES SHAW, Viscount Eversley (1794–1888). [See Shaw-Lefevre.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leeves, William

​LEEVES, WILLIAM (1748–1828), poet and composer, son of Henry Leeves, esq. of Kensington, was born on 11 June 1748. He entered the first regiment of foot-guards as ensign on 20 June 1769, and was promoted lieutenant on 23 Feb. 1772. In 1779 he decided to take holy orders, and was appointed to the living of Wrington in Somerset, the birthplace of Locke and the abode of Hannah More, at whose house he was a frequent and welcome visitor. Leeves continued rector of Wrington until his death there on 28 May 1828. A portrait of him in his lieutenant's uniform was painted in 1773, and this was engraved for Mrs. Moon's 'Memoir.' He married^ on 4 May 1786, Anne, youngest daughter of Samuel Wathen, M.D. She was possessed of great musical talent, and was a skilful performer on the violin. Their eldest son, William Henry, had & splendid bass voice. Another son, Henry Daniel, was in holy orders, and was chiefly instrumental in the erection of the English church at Athens. George was in the navy, on retiring from which he settled in America. Marianne married the Rev. Robinson Elsdale, son of Robinson Elsdale [q. v.] the autobiographer.
Leeves was a good musician and a competent performer on the violoncello. In 1772 he wrote the music to the song 'Auld Robin Gray.' by Lady Anne Barnard [q. v.] The autograph is in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 29387). Lady Anne had originally written her words to a Scottish melody previously known as 'The Bridegroom greets.' but Leeves's music at once superseded the old tune. According to Oliphant, in his edition of 'Auld Robin Gray.' published in 1843, Leeves brought out about 1790, in conjunction with Dr. Harrington of Bath and Mr. Broderip of Wells, a volume of glees. In 1812 he published 'Six Sacred Airs, intended as a Domestic Sunday Evening Recreation, accompanied by a Pianoforte or Harpsichord, two of them by a Violoncello Obligato or Violin.' In the dedication to his friend, Thomas Hammersley, Leeves first publicly acknowledged the composition of 'Auld Robin Gray.' owing, it was said, to the delight with which he had recently heard the air sung by Miss Stephens, afterwards Countess of Essex. Besides musical compositions he was author of a considerable number of short occasional poems, some of which were published.
[In Memoriam: the Rev. William Leeves, by his granddaughter, Mrs. Moon (privately printed), 1873; Gent. Mag. 1828, pt. ii. p. 91.]
A. H.-H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lefevre, John George Shaw

​LEFEVRE, Sir JOHN GEORGE SHAW, K.C.B. (1797–1879), clerk of the parliaments. [See Shaw-Lefevre.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lefebure, Nicasius

​LEFEBURE, NICASIUS or NICOLAS (d. 1669), chemist. [See Le Fevre.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hubbock, William

​HUBBOCK, WILLIAM (fl. 1605), divine, born in 1560 in the county of Durham; matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 15 April 1580, aged 19; proceeded B.A. from Magdalen College early in 1581; and was in 1585 admitted M.A. from Corpus Christi College, where he was elected a probationer-fellow (cf. Oxf. Univ. Reg., Oxf. Hist. Soc.,ii. ii. `91, iii. 95). He was incorporated in the degree of M.A. at Cambridge in 1586. His opinions were puritanical, and he was cited before the Archbishop of Canterbury for a sermon preached about 1590 (cf. Lansdowne MS. lxviii. 77; Strype, Whitgift, ii. 32-4). He became chaplain at the Tower of London, and on 12 July 1594 wrote to Burghley complaining that his lodging at the Tower was defective; he was ill at the time, and stated that his salary was but twenty nobles (ib. lxxvii. 48). In 1595 he published a sermon entitled 'An Apologie of Infants,' a work intended to prove 'that children prevented by death of their Baptisme by God's election may be saved.' On 6 Feb. 1596-7 he was appointed lecturer at St. Botolph's Without, Aldgate, and preached twice on Sundays. When James I visited the Tower in March 1604 on his way to his coronation, Hubbock composed and delivered to the king a congratulatory address which, although in Latin, was published with an English title, 'An Oration gratulatory,' &c., at Oxford, 'by his highnesse special command.' It was reprinted, with translation, in Nichols's 'Progresses of James I,' i. 325*.
About 1609 he claimed in a petition to the king the constable's lodgings in the Tower as a residence; the petition was forwarded to Sir William Waad, lieutenant of the Tower, who reported adversely. The mint (according to Waad) was the usual residence of the chaplain when he had not 'a wife and family as this man hath.' Waad also states that when he came to the Tower Hubbock was resident at a benefice in Leicestershire, and provided 'lewd substitutes' at the Tower. In an undated letter to Burghley Hubbock urged him to provide learned ministers, and described himself as 'a poore exile.'
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i.752-3;Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr.ii. 528-9; Bodl. Libr., MS.Rawl.D. 796.]
W. J. H-y.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hubert, Francis

​HUBERT, Sir FRANCIS (d. 1629), poet, was probably son of Edward Hubert, one of the six clerks in chancery. Hubert, who appears to have been a member of the Middle Temple, was appointed clerk in chancery 9 March 1601 (Hardy, Catalogue of Chancellors, &c., p. 109). He was buried at St. Andrew's, Holborn, on 13 Dec. 1629. A poem by Hubert entitled ‘The Historie of Edward the Second, surnamed Carnarvon, one of our English Kings: together with the fatall Downfall of his two Vnfortunate Favorites, Gaveston and Spencer,’ was completed in the reign of Elizabeth, but owing to the freedom with which it treated kings, favourites, and affairs of state, a license for its publication was refused. A surreptitious and incorrect edition appeared in 1628, and in the following year Hubert issued the first authentic edition, 8vo, London, 1629 (other editions, 1631 and 1721), with portrait of the author. Manuscript copies are in the Harleian MSS., Nos. 558 and 2393, the former in the handwriting of Ralph Starkie. Hubert also published ‘Egypt's Favorite. The Historie of Joseph, divided into foure parts … Together with Old Israels progresse into the land of Goshen,’ 8vo, London, 1631.
[Addit. MS. 24490, ff. 270–1; Gent. Mag. vol. xciv. pt. ii.pp. 21–2; Brydges's Restituta,i.93;Lowndes's Bibl. Man.(Bohn), ii. 1133; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Huddart, Joseph

​HUDDART, JOSEPH (1741–1816), hydrographer and manufacturer, was born on 11 Jan. 1740-1 at Allonby in Cumberland, where his father was a shoemaker and farmer. He was educated at a school kept by the clergyman of the parish, and is said to have shown aptitude for mathematics and mechanics, to have constructed the model of a mill, and to have built a miniature 74-gun ship from the description in a work on naval architecture. On leaving school Huddart was sent to sea in the interests of a fish-curing business in which his father had engaged. On the death of his father in 1762 he succeeded to a share in the business, and took command of a small brig belonging to it, trading principally to Ireland. In 1768 he built another brig, mainly with his own hands, and while commanding these devoted much of his leisure to the study of navigation and to the survey of the ports he visited. In 1771 he went to London on a visit to a brother of his father, described as a wealthy tradesman in Westminster, whose daughters had married Sir Richard Hotham and Mr. Dingwall, both shipowners and holders of East India stock. On the introduction of these persons he entered the service of the East India Company, and in 1778 was appointed commander of the ship Royal Admiral, in which he made four voyages to the East. Meanwhile he occupied himself with the survey of the coasts and ports that came under his notice, and constructed charts of Sumatra and the coast of India from Bombay to the mouth of the Godavery, as well as—at home—of St. George's Channel. In 1788 he retired from the company's service, and seems to have been employed for the next three years in surveying among the Hebrides. In 1791 he was elected an elder brother of the Trinity House, and also a F.R.S. Several years before, the accident of a cable parting had turned his attention to the faulty manufacture of rope, and he invented a method ' for the equal distribution of the strains upon the yarns.' He now entered into business for the manufacture of cordage on this principle, in which he realised a handsome fortune. He died in London on 19 Aug. 1816, and was buried in a vault under the church of St.Martin's-in-the-Fields. He married in 1762 and had issue five sons, of whom one only survived him. His portrait, by Hoppner, is in the Institution of Civil Engineers.
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Huddesford, William

​HUDDESFORD, WILLIAM (1732–1772), antiquary, was baptised on 15 Aug. 1732 at St. Mary Magdalen, Oxford, and was son of George Huddesford, president of Trinity College, Oxford. George Huddesford [q.v.] was his youngest brother. He matriculated at Trinity College on 20 Oct. 1749, was elected scholar in 1750 and fellow in 1757. He graduated B.A. in 1753, M.A. in 1756, and B.D. in 1767, and he was proctor of the university in 1765. In 1758 he was ordained, and held from 1755 until his death the keepership of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. He was appointed in 1761 vicar of Bishop's Tachbrook, Warwickshire. Huddesford died unexpectedly at Oxford on 6 Oct. 1772.
During his short life he worked vigorously. He published: 1. ‘Edvardi Luidii … lithophylacii Britannici ichnographia,’ Oxford, 1760, a new edition of the treatise of Edward Lhuyd [q.v.], whose fossils were under his charge at the Ashmolean. It contained some new plates and the author's discourse on the sea-shells of the British ocean. 2. ‘Martini Lister, M.D., Historiæ, sive Synopsis Methodicæ Conchyliorum et Tabularum Anatomicarum editio altera,’ Oxford, 1760. The plates in this edition were especially fine. Two indices are added, one for the shells in Lister's arrangement, the other for that of Linnæus. The latter is in both Latin and English. 3. ‘Catalogus librorum Manuscriptorum Antonii à Wood,’ 1761, a new edition of which was struck off by SirThomas Phillipps at the Middlehill press in 1824. 4. ‘An Address to the Freemen and other Inhabitants of the City of Oxford,’ 1764, an anonymous address playfully described as printed at ‘Lucern for Abraham Lightholder.’
In 1772 Joseph Pote, bookseller at Eton, published in two volumes the lives of Leland, Hearne, and Anthony à Wood, and in the last two memoirs obtained some aid from Huddesford. At the time of his death Huddesford had many works in view, including a collection of curiosities from the 160 pocketbooks of Hearne, and he had collected materials for the lives of two Welsh antiquaries, Humphry and Edward Lhuyd. His description of Osney Abbey is in the ‘Gentleman's ​Magazine,' 1771, pp. 153, 204; his character of Wood is in Bliss's ' Athenæ Oxonienses,' i. 135-8 (introd.); and his memoir of the Rev. Francis Wise, B.D., is inserted in Nichols's 'Illustrations of Literature,' iv. 479-80. A parody on Cato's soliloquy in 'Granger's Letters,' App. pp. 11-12, is tentatively ascribed to Huddesford, and in the same work (pp. 136-51) are numerous letters by him. Many letters to and from him are printed in Nichols's 'Illustrations of Literature,' iv. 456-80, v. 586, and a volume of his correspondence is among the Ashmole MSS. in the Bodleian Library. His library was sold by James Fletcher & Son at Oxford in 1771.
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Huddleston, John (1636-1700)

​HUDDLESTON alias DORMER, JOHN (1636-1700), jesuit. [See Dormer.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Huckell, John

​HUCKELL, JOHN (1729–1771), poet, son of Thomas Huckell, burgess of Stratford-upon-Avon, was baptised there 29 Dec. 1729. He studied at the grammar school of Stratford, matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 8 April 1747, proceeded B.A. 11 March 1751, and 'was presented to the curacy of Hounslowin Middlesex, and the chapel standing on the confines of two parishes, Heston and Isleworth.' He resided in the latter (preface to Avon), and on his death was buried there, 20 Sept. 1771. Huckell wrote: 1. 'Avon; a Poem, in three parts.' The first edition was published in 1758, 'being printed in quarto at Birmingham in an elegant manner by the celebrated Baskerville' (preface to Avon). A new edition was published at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1811. 2. 'An Epistle to David Garrick, Esq., on his being presented with the Freedom of Stratford-upon-Avon; and on the Jubilee held there to the Memory of Shakespeare in September 1769 ' (Gent. Mag. April 1813, p.357).
F. W-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Huck, Richard

​HUCK, RICHARD (1720–1785), doctor of medicine. [See Saunders, Richard Huck]