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

​HECAME′DE (Ἑκαμήδη), a maiden of Tenedos, and daughter of Arsinous. When Achilles took the island, Hecamede was given to Nestor as a slave. (Hom. Il. xi. 622, xiv. 6.)
[L. S.]
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Helpidius 2.

2. A Spaniard, cousin of the emperor Theodosius the Great, who wished to force St. Olympias to marry him. (Baronius, Annal. ad Ann. 388. c.xliv.; Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. vol. v. p. 291.) [J.C. M.]
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Helpidius 3.

3. A friend of Symmachus. A considerable number of the extant letters of Symmachus were addressed to him, and owe their preservation to the care of Helpidius. (Symmach. Epist. v. 83, 84, ed. Genev. 1587, v. 85, 86, ed. Paris, 1604; Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. vol. v. p. 409.) [J.C. M.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Berkeley, George (1601-1658)

​BERKELEY, GEORGE (1601–1658), eighth Baron Berkeley (since the writ of 1421), and thirteenth baron (since the writ of 1295) [see Berkeley, Family of], son of Sir Thomas Berkeley, by Elizabeth Cary, daughter of George, Lord Hunsdon, was born at Lowlayton on 7 Oct. 1601, and succeeded to the honours of Berkeley, Mowbray, Segrave and Bruce, on 26 Nov. 1613, by the death of his grandfather, Henry. He married, 13 April 1616, Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir Michael Stanhope of Sudborn, Suffolk. The ceremony was performed in the church of Great Bartholomew, London, in the presence of the parents of the contracting parties, who were respectively thirteen and nine years of age. The bride continued to reside with her father at St. John Jerusalem (St. John's Square, Clerkenwell). In the following year the bridegroom was made a knight of the Bath on the occasion of the creation of Charles Prince of Wales (3 Nov.) In 1619 (21 May) he was entered as a canon-commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, having hitherto been under the care of tutors. Here he 'was actually,' says Wood, 'created M.A.' 18 July 1623. He was regarded by his family as a linguist, and, as he spent most of his time in foreign travel, probably he succeeded in picking up a smattering of modern languages. He appears to have had landed property in Carolina. He showed his appreciation of an eccentric genius by presenting Burton, who had previously (1621) dedicated the 'Anatomy of Melancholy' to him, to the living of Segrave in Leicestershire in 1630. He died in 1658, and was buried at Cranford, Middlesex. He had two sons, of whom the elder, Charles, was drowned while crossing the Channel, 27 Jan. 1641. The younger, George [q. v.], succeeded to the family honours, and in 1679 was created Viscount Dursley and Earl of Berkeley.
[Fosbrooke's Berkeley MSS. p. 217; Berkeley Peerage Claim, vol. ii. Auths. and Precs. p. 174; Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 418; Cal. State Papers; Dom., (1627–1628) 169, (1638–1639) 478; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 414 ; Collins's Peerage (Brydges), Berkeley Title; Cal. State Papers, Colonial (1574–1660) 116; Kennet's Register, 321.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Berkeley, George (1693?-1746)

1904 Errata appended.
​BERKELEY, GEORGE (1693?–1746), politician, born in or about 1693, was the fourth and youngest son of Charles, second earl of Berkeley. He was admitted to Westminster School on the foundation in 1708, and thence was elected to a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1711, where he graduated M.A. in 1713. He was elected in 1718 M.P. for Dover, which constituency he continued to represent in the two following parliaments. He sat for Hey don, Yorkshire, from the beginning of the parliament of 1734 until his death. He voted against the measures of Sir Robert Walpole. On 28 May 1723 he was appointed master-keeper and governor of St. Katharine's, near the Tower. He died on 29 Oct. 1746.
Late in life he married Henrietta, daughter of Sir Henry Hobart, and widow of Henry Howard, ninth earl of Suffolk. This lady was celebrated for her intimacy with George II. Her marriage with Berkeley took place about July 1735, some nine months after her rupture with the king, and their union was the subject of much merriment among the courtiers of that day. Lord Hervey (Memoirs, ii. 10-13) says: 'Mr. Berkeley was neither young, handsome, healthy, nor rich, which made people wonder what induced Lady Suffolk's prudence to deviate into this unaccountable piece of folly: some imagined it was to persuade the world that nothing criminal had ever passed between her and the king, others that it was to pique the king. If this was her reason, she succeeded very ill in her design.' Berkeley seems to have been very gouty, but his age did not exceed forty-two at this time; and his sister, Lady Betty Germaine, in announcing the match to Dean Swift on 12 July 1735, remarks: 'She is indeed four or five years older than he; but for all that he has appeared to all the world, as well as to me, to have long had (that is, ever since she has been a widow, so pray do not mistake me) a most violent passion for her, as well as esteem and value for her numberless good qualities.'
[Walpole's George II, i. 154, 512; Swift's Works (Scott), 2nd ed. xviii. 347, 348, 359, 496; Welch's Alumni Westmon. (Phillimore), 250, 255, 257, 533, 544.]
T. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.24 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 348 | i | 28 | Berkeley, George (1693?-1746): for Heydon read Hedon |
| | | 30 | after death insert with only a break in 1741, when he was defeated at the poll, but was seated on petition next year |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baskerville, Thomas (1812-1840?)

Typo in author initials.
​BASKERVILLE, THOMAS (1812–1840?), botanical writer, was born on 26 April 1812, and served a four years' apprenticeship to Mr. Soulby, of Ash, Kent. From 1 Dec. 1829 to 9 April 1834 he attended lectures on anatomy under Jones Quain, dissection under Richard Quain, and surgery under Samuel Cooper. In November of the latter year he attended the North London Hospital, obtained the membership of the College of Surgeons on 22 Dec. 1835, and settled in practice at Canterbury. He was the author of ‘Affinities of Plants, with some Observations upon Progressive Development,’ London, 1839, 8vo. He is stated to have died in London in 1840, but his name appears in the college annual list of members so late as 1843.
B. D. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baskerville, Thomas (d.1597)

1904 Errata appended.
​BASKERVILLE, Sir THOMAS (d. 1597), general, was the son of Henry Baskerville, Esq., of the city of Hereford, and is described as of Good Rest, Warwickshire. He obtained a high reputation as a military commander. In the Harleian MSS. there is an account of his voyage after the great treasure at Porto Rico, when he was general of Queen Elizabeth's Indian armada. He was sent with Lord Willoughby to France to assist Henry IV in 1589. He was M.P. for Carmarthen borough in 1592. Subsequently he commanded the troops despatched to Brittany (1594) and Picardy (1596). He died of a fever at Picqueny, in Picardy, on 4 June 1597, and was buried in the new choir of St. Paul's, beneath a monument, consumed in the fire of London in 1666. He married Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Throgmorton. He left a son, Hannibal [q. v.]
T. C.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.17 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 369 | i | 10 f.e. | Baskerville, Sir Thomas: after 1589 insert He was M.P. for Carmarthen borough in the parliament of 1592 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bass, George

1904 Errata appended.
​BASS, GEORGE (d. 1812?), the discoverer of Bass's Strait, was born at Asworthy, near Sleaford, in Lincolnshire. On the death of his father, who was a farmer, his mother removed to Boston, and after being apprenticed to a surgeon there he obtained his diploma in London, and was appointed surgeon on board H.M.S. Reliance. This vessel being ordered to Sydney in 1795, Bass there found ample opportunity to indulge his passion for exploring. In 1796 he sailed from Port Jackson, in a small whaling-boat, to examine the coast of New South Wales southwards, and having observed, after turning Cape Howe, that there was a strong swell rolling in from the south-west, he inferred the existence of a sea-passage at about the parallel 40° S. Next year Governor King allowed him a sloop of 25 tons, commanded by Lieutenant Flinders, in order to 'project' the coast of Tasmania; and in 1798 Bass not only sailed through the important ocean thoroughfare which has ever since borne his name, but circumnavigated Tasmania, thus first proved to be an island, and explored a considerable part of the coast. Two of the principal islands in Bass's Strait were named by him after Governor King and Lieutenant Flinders respectively. Except that he left Australia in 1799 to return to England, nothing certain is known of Bass's subsequent history. He probably died in South America.
[Flinders's Voyage to Terra Australia, pp. cxvii, cxx, and Observations on Van Dieman's Land; Heaton's Australian Dict. of Dates, 1879.]
R. E. A.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.17 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 371 | ii | 29 | Bass, George: after South America add Bass's Journal was printed in the 'Historical Account of New South Wales,' 1799, by David Collins [q. v.] |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baskerville, Simon

​BASKERVILLE, Sir SIMON, M.D. (1574–1641), physician, son of Thomas Baskervile or Baskerville, apothecary, and sometime one of the stewards of Exeter, who was descended from the ancient family of the Baskerviles in Herefordshire, was baptised at the church of St. Mary Major, Exeter, on 27 Oct. 1574. After receiving a suitable preliminary education, he was sent to Oxford, and matriculated on 10 March 1591 as a member of Exeter College, where he was placed under the care of William Helm, a man famous for his piety and learning. On the first vacancy he was elected a fellow of the college before he had graduated B.A., and he did not take that degree till 8 July 1596. Subsequently he proceeded M.A. On the occasion of King James I's visit to the university, Baskervile was ‘chosen as a prime person to dispute before him in the philosophic art, which he performed with great applause of his majesty, who was not only there as a hearer, but as an accurate judge.’ Turning his attention to the study of physic, he graduated M.B. on 20 June 1611, and was afterwards created ​doctor in that faculty. He seems to have practised at Oxford for some years with considerable success. Then he removed to London, where he was admitted a candidate in the College of Physicians on 18 April 1614 and a fellow on 20 March 1614–15. He was censor of the college in 1615 and several subsequent years, anatomy reader in 1626, and consiliarius in 1640. He attained to great eminence in his profession, and was appointed physician to James I and afterwards to Charles I, who conferred on him the honour of knighthood 30 Aug. 1636. Dr. Baldwin Hamey says: ‘Rex autem in Bibliotheca Oxoniensi, tanquam in acie sui generis instructissima eundem in Equestrem cooptavit’ (MS. Sloan. 2149, p. 9). It is related that he had no fewer than a hundred patients a week, and that he amassed so much wealth as to acquire the title of ‘Sir Simon Baskerville the rich.’ Further it is recorded of him ‘that he was a great friend to the clergy and the inferior loyal gentry,’ insomuch that ‘he never took a fee of an orthodox minister under a dean, nor of any suffering cavalier in the cause of Charles I under a gentleman of an hundred a year, but with physick to their bodies generally gave relief to their necessities’ (Lloyd, Memoires, ed. 1677, p. 635).
He died on 5 July 1641, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, where a mural monument, with a Latin epitaph, was erected to his memory.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Baskerville, Thomas (1630-1720)

Date of death 1700 in the ODNB.
​BASKERVILLE, THOMAS (1630–1720), topographer, the fourth son of Hannibal Baskerville, the antiquary [q. v.], was born at Bayworth House, Sunningwell, near Abingdon, in 1630, since, according to the ‘Visitation of Berkshire,’ his age on 16 March 1664 was thirty-four. He wrote an account of a journey which, in 1677 and 1678, he made through several counties in England; and a part of his manuscript relating to Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire is still preserved in the Harleian Collection. This journal, though referred to by several of his contemporaries, mainly consists of short notes of the towns and places successively visited by the writer, interspersed with epitaphs copied in churchyards, and some doggerel verse. He died on 9 Feb. 1720.
[Harleian MSS. 1483, 6344, and 4716, 53 i.; Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), Life, xxxiii, xxxiv, p. 86; Granger's Letters, p. 264; Hearne's MS. xi. 38.] E. D. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bentley, John

​BENTLEY, Sir JOHN (d. 1772), vice-admiral, entered the navy about the year 1720, and was made lieutenant 28 March 1734. In the battle of Toulon, 11 Feb. 1743-4, he was a lieutenant of the Namur, Mathews's flag-ship, and was immediately afterwards promoted to the command of the Sutherland hospital-ship. On 1 Aug. 1744 he was posted into Burford, 70, and a few months later was sent home as a witness on the courts martial which rendered the years 1745-6 notorious. In the spring of 1747, when Anson took command of the Channel fleet, Bentley was chosen to be his flag captain in the Prince George, and was with him in the battle of Cape Finisterre, 3 May. When the fleet returned to England, and Anson hauled down his flag, Bentley was transferred to the Defiance, 60, in which he shared in Hawke's victory in the Bay of Biscay, 14 Oct. 1747. He afterwards, during the peace, successively commanded the Invincible, the Charlotte yacht, and the Barfleur, at Portsmouth, and in 1757 was a member of the court martial on Admiral Byng. In 1758 he was again in command of the Invincible, one of the finest 74-gun ships in the service, and which he had himself helped Anson to capture from the French. She was under orders to proceed to Louisbourg with Admiral Boscawen, when, on 19 Feb., weighing from St. Helen's, her rudder jammed, and she grounded heavily on the Dean Sand. In the evening it came on to blow very hard, and the ship became a complete wreck. Bentley, with his officers, was acquitted of all blame (Minutes of the Court Martial), and shortly afterwards appointed to the Warspite, which through the summer of 1759 was in the Mediterranean with Boscawen, and on 18 Aug. when the French squadron, under De la Clue, was defeated. On the 19th, when the ships that had sought refuge in Lagos Bay were captured or destroyed, it was by Bentley's exertions that the Téméraire, which had been run ashore was brought off and added to the strength of the English navy. In September Bentley was sent to England, was presented to the king, was knighted, and, still in the Warspite was ordered to join Hawke in the blockade of Brest. It was thus his peculiar fortune, after sharing in the defeat of De la Clue, to be present also in the great victory of Quiberon Bay, 20 Nov. 1759. The Warspite continued through 1760 attached to the grand fleet under Hawke, but the victory of 1759 had minimised the action of the navy in European waters, and Bentley's further service afloat was uneventful. In 1761 he was appointed to a commissionership of the ​navy, but resigned it on being promoted to his flag, 28 Dec. 1763. He held no further command, but became a vice-admiral in October 1770, and died 3 Jan. 1772.
[Charnock's Biog. Nav. v. 280; Gent. Mag. (1772), xlii. 46.]
J. K. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bentley, Joseph Clayton

​BENTLEY, JOSEPH CLAYTON (1809–1851), line-engraver, was born at Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1809. He commenced life as a landscape-painter, but in 1832 he came to London and studied engraving under Robert Brandard. He did not, however, entirely abandon painting, but exhibited occasionally from 1833 onwards landscapes, chiefly views in Yorkshire, painted with a great freedom of hand and a nice feeling for colour, at the Royal Academy, British Institution, Society of British Artists, and the exhibitions of several provincial towns. Many of his plates were executed for the publications of Messrs. Fisher and Messrs. Virtue, and especially for the ‘Gems of European Art,’ for which he engraved ‘The Fountain,’ after Zuccarelli, and ‘A Sunny Day,’ after Cuyp, and for the ‘Art Journal.’ Some of his best works are those for the Vernon Gallery: ‘The Brook by the Way,’ after Gainsborough, ‘Lake Avernus,’ after Richard Wilson, ‘The Valley Farm,’ after Constable, ‘The Windmill,’ after John Linnell, ‘The Way to Church,’ after Creswick, and ‘The Wooden Bridge,’ the ‘Port of Leghorn,’ and ‘Sea-shore in Holland,’ after Sir Augustus W. Callcott. His style of engraving was not of the highest class, but he threw much artistic feeling into his works, and laboured so incessantly that he undermined a naturally weak constitution and brought on an illness which terminated his life at Sydenham on 9 Oct. 1851.
[Art Journal, 1851, p. 280. 1852. p. 15.]
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bentley, Nathaniel

​BENTLEY, NATHANIEL (1735?–1809), called Dirty Dick, kept a warehouse in Leadenhall Street. It was the first glazed handware shop in London, having been glazed by Pick's father. The elder Bentley had a country house at Edmonton. He presented a bell to the church of St. Catherine Cree in 1754 to he rung on his birthday as long as he lived. He died in 1760. Young Nathaniel Bentley was well educated, but ran away from home to escape the severity of his father, he learned several modern languages during his absence. he afterwards entered the business of his father, from whom he inherited a considerable estate, besides the business in Leadenhall Street. For some years before and after his father's death, Bentley was known as the 'Beau of Leadenhall Street,' exhibiting a fastidious taste, whether in dress or in manners, and frequently presenting himself at court. At Paris he was introduced personally to Louis XVI, and 'was considered the handsomest and best dressed English gentleman then at the French court' Granger's Wonderful Museum). But with this occasional magnificence, he was developing strange habits of squalor, which increased with his years. The filth of his premises became proverbial. His eccentricity has been attributed to a shock caused by the death on the eve of the marriage of a lady to whom he was betrothed. He always kept closed the room which had been made ready for the wedding breakfast. In business transactions, although miserly, he was prompt and honourable. Bentley quitted the premises in which the undisturbed dirt of forty years had accumulated in February 1804. He lived in Jewry Street, Aldgate, for three years, and then in Leonard Street, Shoreditch. Here he was robbed of a considerable sum, so that little remained to him beyond a balance of 400l. at the bank. He lived in Leonard Street for about twelve months when he 'commenced a perambulation from one country place to another, more in the habit of a beggar than a traveller for pleasure.' He died at Haddington about the close of the year 1809, and was buried in the churchyard.
[History of the Extraordinary Dirty Warehouse in Leadenhall Street, together with the Memoirs of its Eccentric Inhabitant. Nath. Bentley, Esq., 8vo, 1803; Granger's Wonderful Museum, vols. i. and ii., 1802 and 1804, and Life of the celebrated Nath. Bentley, Esq., &c., 12mo. London. extracted from Granger; Wilson's Wonderful Characters. 1821, i. 166-80.]
A. H. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bentinck-Scott, William John Cavendish

1904 Errata appended.
​BENTINCK-SCOTT, WILLIAM JOHN CAVENDISH, fifth Duke of Portland (1800–1879), son of William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, the fourth duke, who, by royal license dated 5 Sept. 1705, was authorised to assume the additional final surname of Scott, by Henrietta, eldest daughter and coheir of Major-general John Scott of Balcomie in the county of Fife, was born 17 Sept. 1800. By the death of his elder brother, William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (4 March 1824) he succeeded to the title of manquis of Titchfield, and to the seat of the late marquis in parliament as member for the borough of King's Lynn, being returned on the 19th of the ​same month. He represented that constituency until 1820, when he gave place to his brother, Lord George Bentinck [q. v.] He succeeded to the dukedom in March 1854, but did not take the oaths and his seat until 6 June 1857. From 1859 till his death he was deputy-lieutenant for Nottinghamshire. As head of the Portland family, he was the person in whom the power of nominating a trustee to represent the Harley family on the British Museum trust is vested by statute. Throughout life he was an adherent of the tory party, but did not distinguish himself as a debater in either house of parliament. The turf and the management of his large estates chiefly occupied his time. He lived the life of a recluse, unmarried, and seeing little or no society, and it is said that he even refused to allow the workpeople engaged on the improvements which he carried out on his estates to show any sign of respectful recognition on meeting him. By assiduous care he succeeded in bringing the demesne and grounds of Welbeck Abbey to a high degree of perfection, his hothouses and greenhouses being reputed the best in the kingdom. He was a munificent donor to various charities. He died 6 Dec. 1879, and was buried on the 12th following at Kensal Green Cemetery with the utmost simplicity. His younger brother, Henry William, having died without male issue, 31 Dec. 1870, the title devolved upon the late duke's cousin, Lord William John Arthur Charles James Cavendish-Bentinck, the present duke.
[Times, 13 Dec. 1879, p. 5. col. 6; Foster's Peerage; Burke's Peerage; Official Return of Members of Parliament, part ii. pp. 289, 304; Lords' Journals, lxxxix. 63; Stat. 26 Geo. II. c. 22, 8. 7; Sims's Handbook to the Library of the British Museum, vii.]
J. M. R.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.23 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 305 | i | 3 | Bentinck-Scott, William J. C., 5th Duke of Portland: for his brother Lord George Bentinck [q. v.] read his uncle Lord William Bentinck [q. v.] |
| | | 33 | omit Lord |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bentley, Charles

​BENTLEY, CHARLES (1806–1854), water-colour painter, was a member of the old Water-Colour Society, to which he was elected in 1844. 'His contributions,' Redgrave says, 'were chiefly coast and river scenes, but extended over a wide range, and included the numerous and varied incidents which belong to such subjects.' The British Museum contains one very fine example, a highly decorative drawing, bold, fine in colour and composition, not precisely drawn, however, and careless in matters of detail. The South Kensington Museum has four of his paintings. He died of cholera 4 Sept. 1854.
[Ottley's Supplement to Bryan's Dict.; Art Journal, 1854, p. 314; Athenæum. 9 Sept. 1854, p. 1090; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of English School]
E. R.
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Lepidus 18.

​18. Scipio, a brother of the two preceding [Nos. 16 and 17], and a son of No. 13, must have been adopted by one of the Scipios. He fell in battle in the war of his father against the aristocratical party, b. c. 77. (Oros. v. 22.)
# Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Lepidus 5.

​5. Q. Aemilius Lepidus, brother of Nos. 3 and 4. (Liv. xxiii. 30.)