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

​BA'PHIUS, a Greek commentator on the Basilica (cited Basilica vol. vii. p. 787, ed. Fabrot). His date and history are uncertain, but he probably lived in the 10th or 11th century. Suarez (Notida Basilicorum, § 39) thinks, that Baphius is not strictly a proper name, but an appellative epithet given to an annotator on the Rubrics of the Basilica. This opinion is rejected by Bach. (Hist. Jur. Rom. 676, n. i.) Tigerström (Aeuss. Röm. Rechtsgesch. p. 330) erroneously calls him Salomon Baphius. The names should be separated by a comma, for Salomon is a distinct scholiast (cited Basilica, vol. iii. p. 361 ). [J.T. G.]
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Barbatio

​BARBA'TIO, commander of the household troops under the Caesar Gallus, arrested his master, by command of Constantius, at Petovium in Noricum, and thence, after stripping him of the ensigns of his dignity, conducted him to Pola in Istria, A. D. 354. In return for his services, he was promoted, upon the death of Silvanus, to the rank of general of the infantry (peditum magister), and was sent with an army of 25,000 or 30,000 men to cooperate with Julian in the campaign against the Alemanni in 356 ; but he treacherously deserted him, either through envy of Julian, or in accordance with the secret instructions of the emperor. In 358, he defeated the Juthungi, who had invaded Rhaetia; and, in the following year, he was beheaded by command of Constantius, in consequence of an imprudent letter which his wife had written him, and which the emperor thought indicated treasonable designs on his part. (Amm. Marc. xiv. 11, xvi. 11, xvii. 6, xviii. 3; Liban. Orat. x. p. 273.)
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Balista

​Balista, one of the thirty tyrants of Trebellius Pollio. [Aureolus.] He was prefect of the praetorians under Valerian, whom he accompanied to the East. After the defeat and capture of that emperor, when the Persians had penetrated into Cilicia, a body of Roman troops rallied and placed themselves under the command of Balista. Led by him, they raised the siege of Pompeiopolis, cut off numbers of the enemy who were straggling in disorderly confidence over the face of the country, and retook a vast quantity of plunder. His career after the destruction of Macrianus, whom he had urged to rebel against Gallienus, is very obscure. According to one account, he retired to an estate near Daphne ; according to another, he assumed the purple, and maintained a precarious dominion over a portion of Syria and the adjacent provinces for three years. This assertion is however based on no good foundation, resting as it does on the authority of certain medals now universally recognised as spurious, and on the hesitating testimony of Trebellius Pollio, who acknowledges that, even at the time when he wrote, the statements regarding this matter were doubtful and contradictory. Neither the time nor manner of Balista 's death can be ascertained with certainty, but it is believed to have happened about 264, and to have been contrived by Odenathus. (Trebell. Pollio, Trig. Tyrann. xvii., Gallien. 2, &c. ; see Macrianus, Odenathus, Quietus.) [W. P.]
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Barba, Cassius

​BARBA, CA'SSIUS, a friend of J. Caesar, who gave Cicero guards for his villa, when Caesar paid him a visit in B. C. 44. (Cic. ad Att. xiii. 52; comp. Phil. xiii. 2.)
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Baubo

BAUBO (Βαυβώ or Βαβω), a mythical woman of Eleusis, whom Hesychius calls the nurse of Demeter; but the common story runs thus :— on her wanderings in search of her daughter, Demeter came to Baubo, who received her hospitably, and offered her something to drink; but when the goddess, being too much under the influence of grief, refused to drink, Baubo made such a strange gesture, that the goddess smiled and accepted the draught. (Clem. Alex. Cohort. p. 17.) In the fragment of the Orphic hymn, which Clemens Alex. adds to this account, it is further related, that a boy of the name of Iacchus made an indecent gesture at the grief of Demeter. Arnobius (Adv. Gent. v. p. 175) repeats the story of Baubo from Clemens, but without mentioning the boy Iacchus, who is otherwise unknown, and, if meant for Dionysus, is out of place here. The different stories concerning the reception of Demeter at Eleusis seem all to be inventions of later times, coined for the purpose of giving a mythical origin to the jokes in which the women used to indulge at the festival of this goddess. [See also ASCALABUS and ASCALAPHUS, No. 2.][L. S.]
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Bassianus 2.

BASSIA´NUS 2. A Phoenician of humble extraction, who nevertheless numbered among his lineal descendants, in the three generations which followed immediately after him, four emperors and four Augustae, —Caracalla, Geta, Elagabalus, Alexander Severus, Julia Domna, Julia Maesa, Julia Soemias, and Julia Mamaea, besides having an emperor (Sept. Severus) for his son-in-law. From him Caracalla, Elagabalus, and Alexander Severus all bore the name of Bassianus; and we find his grand-daughter Julia Soemias entitled Bassiana in a remarkable bilinguar inscription discovered at Velitrae and published with a dissertation at Rome in 1765. (Aurelius Victor, Epit. c. 21, has preserved his name; and from an expression used by Dion Cassius, lxxviii. 24, with regard to Julia Domna, we infer his station in life. See also the genealogical table prefixed ot the article Caracalla.) [W. R.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dease, William

​DEASE, WILLIAM (1752?–1798), surgeon, was born about 1752 at Lisney, co. Cavan, of a good but impoverished family. He was sent to Dr. Clancy's school in Dublin, and afterwards studied medicine in that city and in Paris. He set up in practice in Dublin, and quickly gained repute as a surgeon, holding good hospital appointments. He took an active part in procuring a charter of incorporation for the Dublin surgeons, and became the first professor of surgery in the new college in 1785, and president of the college in 1789. He had a good practice, and was much esteemed for his virtues. He married Eliza, daughter of Sir Richard Dowdall. His death was in June 1798, under circumstances which no coroner's inquest would seem to have cleared up. According to one account he had made the mistake of opening an aneurism in a patient with a fatal result, taking it for an abscess, and was so overcome by the misadventure that he went to his study and opened his own femoral artery; according to another account, he died from an accidental wound of the femoral artery; and by a third account, from the rupture of an aneurism. In 1812 the Irish College of Surgeons procured his bust and placed it in the inner hall; in 1886 a statue of him, presented by his grandson, was placed in the principal hall of the college.
His writings are: 1. ‘Observations on Wounds of the Head,’ Dublin, 1776 (much enlarged, 1778). 2. ‘Different Methods of treating the Venereal Diseases,’ Dublin, 1779. 3. ‘Radical Cure of Hydrocele, and on Cutting for the Stone,’ Dublin, 1782. 4. ‘Observations on Midwifery,’ Dublin, 1783.
C. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Deasy, Rickard

​DEASY, RICKARD (1812–1883), Irish judge, was the second son of Rickard Deasy of Clonakilty, county Cork, by his wife Mary Anne Caller. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated as B.A. in 1833, M.A. in 1847, and LL.B. and LL.D. in 1860. Deasy was called to the Irish bar in Michaelmas term 1835, and quickly acquired a very large practice. In 1849 he was made a queen's counsel, and at once became the leader in the equity courts and on the Munster circuit. At a bye election in April 1855 he was returned for county Cork, and he continued to sit for this constituency until ​his elevation to the bench in January 1861. In 1858 he was elected a bencher of King's Inns, Dublin, and became third serjeant-at-law. Being a sound lawyer, as well as a liberal and a Roman catholic, he was appointed solicitor-general for Ireland in Lord Palmerston's administration in July 1859. In 1860 he succeeded the present Lord Fitzgerald as attorney-general for Ireland, and was sworn a member of the Irish privy council. Upon the resignation of Baron Greene in 1861 Deasy was made a baron of the court of exchequer in Ireland, and in 1878 was promoted by the conservative government to the post of lord justice of appeal. In 1861 Deasy married Monica, younger daughter of Hugh O'Connor of Sackville Street, Dublin, by whom he had several children. He died at No. 41 Merrion Square East, Dublin, on 6 May 1883, in the seventy-first year of his age, and was buried in the family vault in Dean's Grange cemetery, Blackrock, near Dublin, where his wife had been interred but five weeks previously. Deasy was an accomplished lawyer, and a patient and impartial judge. He was described by Chief-justice Morris as the Bayard of the Irish bench. Owing to his exertions the Landlord and Tenant Law Amendment Act, Ireland, 1860 (23 & 24 Vict. c. cliv.), was passed, in which a successful attempt was made to codify the great mass of law relating to the duties of landlord and tenant; while his fairness to his political adversaries in debate, his conciseness of speech, and businesslike habits made him a general favourite in the House of Commons.
G. F. R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Debrett, John

​DEBRETT, JOHN (d. 1822), publisher and compiler, took over the business of John Almon [q. v.], opposite Burlington House in Piccadilly, in 1781. His shop continued to be the resort of the whigs, the Pittites going chiefly to his neighbour, Stockdale. Among Debrett's publications were a new edition of ‘The New Foundling Hospital for Wit,’ 1784, 6 vols. 12mo, and ‘Asylum for Fugitive Pieces in Prose and Verse,’ 1785–1788, 4 vols. 12mo. At the end of the former work, ‘The New Peerage,’ 1784, 3 vols. 8vo, is advertised. This had been Almon's, who published peerages, but is not known to have had any share in their compilation. The first edition of Debrett's ‘Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland, containing an Account of all the Peers,’ 2 vols. 12mo, was published in May 1802, with plates of arms, a second edition appeared in September 1802, a third in June 1803, a fourth in 1805, a fifth in 1806, a sixth in 1808, a seventh in 1809, an eighth in 1812, a ninth in 1814, a tenth in 1816, an eleventh in 1817, a twelfth in 1819, a thirteenth in 1820, a fourteenth in 1822, a fifteenth in 1823, which was the last edition edited by Debrett, and not published until after his death. The next edition came out in 1825. The first edition of ‘The Baronetage of England, containing their Descent and Present State, by John Debrett,’ 2 vols. 12mo, appeared in 1808. The latter and the ‘Peerage’ still flourish, and Debrett's name has become so associated with such books of reference that it is also used in the title of companion works. For a time the ‘British Imperial Calendar’ was edited by Debrett. He retired from business about 1814, and lived partly upon a pension from his wife and partly from his compilations. He is described as a kindly, good-natured man, but without business aptitudes. He died at his lodgings in Upper Gloucester Street, Regent's Park, on 15 Nov. 1822.
H. R. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dee, Duncan

​DEE, DUNCAN (1657–1720), pleader, son of Rowland Dee, a London merchant, and grandson of Arthur Dee, M.D., physician to Charles I, was born 3 Nov. 1657. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and went thence in 1673 to St. John's College, Oxford. It does not appear that he graduated. He was a common pleader of the City of London 1682–90, a judge of the sheriff's court 1690–1700, and common serjeant of the city of London from 1700 till death. He was also commissioner of appeals in the excise 1713–4. He defended Dr. Sacheverell in his trial before the House of Lords in 1710, speaking on four successive days. He died in 1720, and was buried in St. Mary Aldermanbury.
C. J. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Decuman

​DECUMAN or DEGEMAN, Saint (d. 706?), a Welsh hermit, was, according to legend, born of noble parents in the south-west of Wales, and instructed in catholic, that is, perhaps, in Latin as opposed to Celtic doctrine. Wishing to escape from worldly companions he crossed the Severn sea (Bristol Channel) on a hurdle, and landed near Dunster Castle in Somerset (‘prope castrum Dorostorum’). There he became a hermit, and kept a cow, until he was slain by a murderer in 706. The place of his retirement and death is supposed to be commemorated by the name of the parish of St. Decumans, which includes the ancient borough of Watchet and the town of Williton. A chapel was dedicated to him at Wendron, Cornwall, and he is also the patron of Rosecrowther, Pembrokeshire, and of a chapel once standing in Llanfihangel Cwm Dû, Brecknockshire. The saint's well at St. Decumans was an object of veneration in the sixteenth century. His day is 27 Aug.
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dee, Arthur

​DEE, ARTHUR (1579–1651), alchemist, eldest son of John Dee [q. v.], by his second wife, Jane, daughter of Bartholomew Fro​mond of East Cheam, Surrey, was born at Mortlake in that county on 13 July 1579. He accompanied his father in his travels through Germany, Poland, and Bohemia, and at an early age was initiated into the mysteries of the occult sciences. After his return to England he was placed at Westminster School, 3 May 1592, under the tuition of Grant and Camden. Wood was informed that he subsequently studied at Oxford, but he took no degree, and his college is unknown. He afterwards was perhaps at Cambridge. Settling in London with the intention of practising physic he exhibited at the door of his house a list of medicines which were said to be certain cures for many diseases. Forthwith the censors of the College of Physicians, regarding this as 341 ' intolerable cheat and imposture,' summoned him to appear before them; but it is not stated whether a penalty was inflicted (Goodall, Royal College of Physicians of London, p. 364). Proceeding to Manchester Dee there married Isabella, daughter of Edward Prestwych, justice of the peace. Through the recommendation of James I he was appointed one of the physicians to the Tsar, and he remained in Russia for about fourteen years, residing principally at Moscow. On his return he brought imperial commendations to Charles I, was nominated one of the physicians-in-ordinary to the king, and settled in London. Eventually he retired to Norwich, where he practised medicine with success. For many years he was a familiar friend of Sir Thomas Browne [q. v.], who, in a letter to Elias Ashmole, 25 Jan. 1658, says that Dee was a persevering student in hermetical philosophy, and with the highest asseverations affirmed that he had 'ocularly, undeceavably, and frequently' seen projection made in Bohemia. Indeed, not many years before his death he would have gone abroad and 'fallen upon the solemn processe of the great worke ' had not an accident prevented the fulfilment of this design (Sir T. Browne, Works, ed. Wilkin, i. 463). Dee died at Norwich in September 1651, and was buried in the church of St. George, Tomblands, in that city. He had seven sons and six daughters.
He wrote, during his residence at Moscow, 'Fasciculus Chemicus, abstrusae Hermeticae Scientiae ingressum, progressum, coronidem, verbis apertissimis explicans,' Paris, 1631, 12mo. This was translated under the title of 'Fasciculus Chemicus: or Chymical Collections. Expressing the Ingress, Progress, and Egress of the Secret Hermetick Science, out of the choisest and most famous Authors. . . . Whereunto is added, The Arcanum or Grand Secret of Hermetick Philosophy. Both made English by James Hasolle, Esquire [i.e. Elias Ashmole]. Qui est Mercuriophilus Anglicus,' London, 1650, 12mo.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrild, Robert

​HARRILD, ROBERT (1780–1853), inventor, was born in Bermondsey, London, on 1 Jan. 1780. He commenced life as a printer, and in 1809 began business as manufacturer of printers' materials and 'printers' engineer.' From that date he is mainly identified with an important improvement in the inking of types an invention indispensable to good and rapid printing by introducing 'composition' rollers instead of the ancient method by 'balls,' which had continued from the days of Caxton. This improvement was only effected by dint of combined energy and tact on the part of Harrild, so persistent was the opposition of the workmen and others till they began to understand their proper interests. After 1810, when he first began to manufacture the composition rollers and balls for the trade, his method speedily became widely known, and was at last adopted universally. Before those inking rollers were introduced only from one hundred and fifty to two hundred copies of a newspaper were printed in an hour. Harrild's factories in London were visited by printers and compositors from all parts of England, and he came to be considered one of the heads of the trade, the more so that his character as an energetic and philanthropic citizen gained him much esteem. Antiquaries have to thank Harrild for the preservation of the Benjamin Franklin printing-press, which is still to be seen in the patent office at Washington, U.S.A. Rendered obsolete by the introduction of the Blaew press, which itself was soon superseded by the Stanhope, the machine which Franklin when an unknown journeyman had worked in London in 1725-6 was kept by Harrild till 1841, when he presented it to Mr. J. B. Murray, an American, who removed it to the United States. Before being shipped from England it was exhibited in public, and the money accruing was handed over to Harrild for the London Printers' Pension Society, in which he took an active interest. He was one of the first parish guardians appointed after the passing of the Poor Law Act, and retained that office for many years. At Sydenham, where his last years were spent, he largely contributed towards the conversion of what had previously been a wild common into a populous and wealthy neighbourhood. Harrild died at Sydenham on 28 July 1853, leaving 1,000l. by his will to the Printers' Society to endow a 'Franklin pension.'
[Gent. Mag. 1853, pfc. ii. p. 320; Preface (by J. R. Murray) to a Lecture on B. Franklin by the Rev. H. W. Neile (17 Nov. 1841), p. 48; information from Mr. Harrild's family; Bigmore and Wyman's Bibl. of Printing, i. 206, 232, 234.]
R. E. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harriman, John

​HARRIMAN, JOHN (1760–1831), botanist, was born in 1760 at Maryport, Cumberland, of a family of German extraction named Hermann. Two Hermanns, professors of botany, one at Strasburg the other at Leyden, in the latter of whom may be recognised the precursor of Linnaeus, were probably of the same family. John Harriman became a student of medicine at the age of seventeen, and applied himself to anatomy, materia medica, and clinical study. But dissecting work soon fatigued his delicate constitution. After two years he returned to his classical studies and took holy orders. He became curate of Bassenthwaite in 1787. Thence he passed to Barnard Castle, Egglestone, and Gainford in Durham, Long Horseley, Northumberland, Heighington, and Croxdale, and lastly to the perpetual curacy of Satley, Durham. He devoted himself, while holding these cures, to acquiring a knowledge of the botany of Teesdale. Although he wrote nothing, botany owes him much. He maintained a frequent correspondence with other botanical students, and generously informed them of his own discoveries and notes. He was specially versed in the knowledge of lichens and discovered many species. Harriman was a fellow of the Liniiean Society, but when the president offered to give the name of 'Harrimannia' to one of his discoveries, he refused to sanction it. After his death, however, 3 Dec. 1831, ​at Croft, in York, Dr. Smith, the president, called the microscopic dot lichen, 'lichen Harrimanni.'
The Linnean Society possesses a copy of 'Acharii Methodus Lichenum,' Stockholm, 1803, with manuscript notes and figures added by Harriman, which was presented by his widow. Harriman furnished plants for Smith's 'English Botany' (such as Bartsia alpina), which he gathered in Teesdale. He was the first botanist to find Gentiana verna in England, and several rare plants in Westmoreland and Cumberland. He sent also a valuable collection of lichens from Egglestone to Smith.
[Information from James Britten, esq.; Smith's English Botany, passim.]
M. G. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrington, Earls of

​HARRINGTON, Earls of. [See Stanhope.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harraden, Richard

​HARRADEN, RICHARD (1756–1838), artist and engraver, was born in London in 1756. His family came from Flintshire, and originally bore the name of Hawarden. His father was a physician. He spent some time in Paris, but left on the taking of the Bastille. On returning to England he worked as an artist in London till 1798, when he removed to Cambridge. In old age he resided at Trumpington, near Cambridge, where he died 2 June 1838, aged 82.
In 1797-8 he published 'Six Large Views of Cambridge' (subsequently extended to seven), about fifteen inches high by twenty-two inches wide, of considerable historical ​ value; in 1800 twenty-four smaller views of the university and town, bound in an oblong volume; prefaced by ten pages of descriptive letterpress (a work of little merit); in 1803 'Costume of the various Orders in the University of Cambridge,' a series of coloured lithographs with descriptive letterpress; and in 1811, in conjunction with his son, R. B. Harraden (see below), a quarto volume called 'Cantabrigia Depicta; a series of Engravings representing the most picturesque and interesting Edifices in the University of Cambridge.'
Harraden, Richard Bankes (1778-1862), son of the above, made the drawings of Cambridge for his father's work, 'Cantabrigia Depicta,' and in 1830 published an oblong volume called ' Illustrations of the University of Cambridge.' It contains fifty-eight views, of which twenty-four had appeared in the former work. Harraden was a member of the Society of British Artists from 1824 to 1849. He died at Cambridge 17 Nov. 1862, aged 84.
[Arch. Hist, of the Univ. of Cambridge, by R. Willis and J. W. Clark, 1886, i. cxv-xvni.]
J. W. C-k.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrington, John

​HARRINGTON, Sir JOHN. [See Harington.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harrington, Maria

​HARRINGTON, MARIA, Countess of. See Foote, Maria (1797?–1867), actress.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harpur, Joseph

​HARPUR, JOSEPH (1773–1821), critic, son of Joseph Harpur of Motcombe, Dorsetshire, was born there in 1773. He matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, 10 March 1790, and proceeded B.C.L. in 1806, and D.C.L. in 1813. After a long absence he returned to the university about 1806, and held for many years the office of deputy-professor of civil law. He died in his lodgings, Clarendon Street, Oxford, from an attack of paralysis on 2 Oct. 1821, and was interred in the churchyard of St. Michael's parish. Harpur wrote 'An Essay on the Principles of Philosophical Criticism applied to Poetry,' 1810.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1888, ii. 610; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. iv. 190, 278; Gent. Mag. 1821, ii. 381; Cat. Oxford Graduates. 1851, p. 296.]
F. W-t.