OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rankin, Thomas

​RANKIN, THOMAS (1738–1810), methodist divine, and friend of John Wesley, was born in Dunbar, Haddingtonshire, in 1738. His early home training gave his mind a religious bent, but, on the death of his father in 1754, he grew dissipated. Shortly afterwards a troop of dragoons, some of whom had come under the influence of methodist preachers, came to Dunbar, and held religious meetings in the morning and evening. The strangeness of the proceeding brought crowds to the services, and Rankin was greatly influenced by them. Removing to Leith, he heard Whitefield preach his farewell sermon at Orphan-house Yard, Edinburgh, and finally decided to become a preacher. Circumstances delayed the fulfilment of his design. After spending a few months in Charlestown, South Carolina, as agent for a firm of Edinburgh merchants, he was induced by a Wesleyan itinerant preacher in 1759 to visit some methodist societies in the north of England, and during this tour Rankin preached his first sermons. For two years he endured much mental trouble and uncertainty, and at Morpeth, in 1761, sought the counsel of Wesley. After another interview with Wesley in London, Rankin's doubts were removed, and in that year he was appointed to the Sussex circuit. For twelve years he moved through the country, at times accompanying Wesley himself (1769–70). Between the two a close friendship arose, Wesley in his letters always addressing Rankin as ‘My dear Tommy.’
Meanwhile Wesley had become dissatisfied with the conduct of his friends in America, and on 9 April 1773 Rankin left England, specially chosen and commissioned by his chief to reform American methodism. As ‘general assistant and superintendent,’ he called the first conference of American methodist societies in Philadelphia on 4 July 1773. But the jealousy of those whom he had supplanted and his own brusque manners rendered him unpopular, and after the disputes with the American colonies had begun, and there was considerable ill-feeling stirred against Englishmen, he prudently returned to England in October 1777.
In England he resumed his old labours until 1783, when he retired from active work, and was appointed supernumerary of the London district. He was one of those who, after considerable dispute, and with some hesitation on Wesley's part, received ordination at the hands of Wesley in 1789. His uncompromising character again brought him into conflict with some of the methodist leaders, including Charles Wesley, but his sterling honesty was always recognised, if his defective education was never forgotten. The last years of his life were spent in London, where he died, 17 May 1810. He was buried near to Wesley in the City Road Chapel.
[M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclop. Bibl. Lit. viii. 907; ‘Autobiography,’ Armenian Magazine, 1779; Gorrie's Episcopal Methodism; Tyerman's Life and Times of John Wesley.]
J. R. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ranew, Nathanael

​RANEW, NATHANAEL (1602?–1678), ejected minister, was admitted sizar at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, on 10 June 1617, and graduated B.A. 1621, M.A. 1624. He was incorporated at Oxford on 10 July 1627. Upon leaving the university he became minister of St. Andrew Hubbard, Little Eastcheap, London, a rectory which had been sequestrated from Richard Chambers. There Ranew remained (cf. Calamy, Continuation, i. 37) until 29 Feb. 1647, when he was instituted under a parliamentary order to the vicarage of Felsted, Essex. One of the patrons, Robert, second earl of Warwick, and his wife, who lived at Leighs Priory, within two miles of Felsted, bestowed 20l. a year on Ranew during his lifetime.
Ranew soon took a prominent place among Essex nonconformists. On the division of the county into classes by the committee of the lords and commons and the standing committee of the county in 1648, he was placed in the eleventh, or East Hinckford classis. He subscribed the ‘Testimony of Essex Ministers in the Province of Essex,’ &c., issued in the same year, and the ‘Essex Watchmen's Watchword,’ London, 1649, the reply of the Essex ministers to the ‘agreement’ presented by the army to parliament. Ranew was reported to the triers or commissioners in 1650 as an able, godly minister. Newcourt (Repert. Eccles. ii. 160) says, improbably, that he was appointed by Charles, earl of Warwick, to Coggeshall, Essex, on 1 March 1660.
He was ejected from Felsted upon the passing of the Act of Conformity, and settled in Billericay, where he was buried on 17 March 1678. Calamy calls him ‘a judicious divine, generally esteemed and valued.’
Ranew was author of ‘Solitude improved by Divine Meditation; or, a Treatise proving the Duty, and demonstrating the Necessity, Excellency, Usefulness, Natures, Kinds, and Requisites of Divine Meditation. First intended for a person of honour, and now published for General Use,’ London, 1670. This was written for, and dedicated to, Mary, countess of Warwick, daughter of the first Earl of Cork, who lived in pious seclusion at Leighs Priory. The book attained a high reputation, and was reprinted by the Religious Tract Society, London, 1839.
Nathanael Ranew, bookseller and stationer, of the King's Arms, St. Paul's Churchyard, who published Ranew's book, was apparently son of the divine. Richard Ranew, who graduated M.A. from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1660, was possibly another son.
C. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ranken, Alexander

​RANKEN, ALEXANDER (1755–1827), author, was born in Edinburgh on 28 Feb. 1755. At the age of fifteen he entered the university of his native town, and, after graduating in arts, began to study divinity in 1775. On 28 April 1779 he was licensed to preach, and in the same year became assistant to the pastor of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh. Here he remained two years, when he was appointed minister of the parish of Cambusnethen, Lanarkshire. On the invitation of the provost and magistrates of Glasgow he removed to the church of St. David in that city in July 1785, and there he remained until his death on 23 Feb. 1827. ‘His style in preaching was distinguished by the utmost perspicuity, chasteness, and simplicity.’ In April 1801 Glasgow University gave him the degree of D.D., and in 1811 he was appointed moderator of the general assembly of the church of Scotland. He married in 1782 Euphemia Thomson, who predeceased him, leaving a son and daughter.
Ranken's chief work was ‘The History of France from the Time of its Conquest by Clovis to the Death of Louis XVI,’ London, 1802–22, in 9 vols. The work is inaccurate and badly arranged, and the first three volumes drew a vigorous criticism from Hallam in the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ April 1805. His other published works include: ‘The Importance of Religious Establishments,’ Glasgow, 1799, and ‘Institutes of Theology,’ Glasgow, 1822.
[Hew Scott's Fasti Ecclesia, ii. 26, &c.; Allibone's Dict. of English Lit.; Funeral Sermon by the Rev. J. Marshall.]
J. R. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rankins, William

Dates baptised 1565, died in or after 1609, according to the ODNB.
​RANKINS, WILLIAM (fl. 1587), author, published in 1587 a venomous attack on the theatre, resembling the earlier diatribes of Stephen Gosson, Northbrooke, and Philip Stubbes. It was entitled ‘Mirrour of Monsters, wherein is plainly described the manifold vices and spotted enormities that are caused by the infectious sight of Playes,’ &c., London, 1587 (British Museum and Bodleian; cf. Collier, Poetical Decameron, pp. 246–8). Some years later Rankins proved false to his own professions of hostility to the stage by turning playwright. On 3 Oct. 1598, Philip Henslowe, the theatrical manager, paid 3l. for a play by Rankins called ‘Mulmutius Dunwallow,’ which was probably an adaptation of another's work (Henslowe, Diary, p. 135). Subsequently he joined with Richard Hathway in writing for Henslowe a piece called ‘Hannibal and Scipio.’ Thomas Nabbes printed in 1637 a tragedy of the same name, which may have been indebted to the earlier effort. Between January and April 1600–1 Henslowe lent Hathway and Rankins many small sums on account of two pieces, in one of which the jesters Scogan and Skelton were leading characters (ib. pp. 97, 174–5); the other was called ‘The Conquest of Spain by John of Gaunt.’ None of these plays are extant.
There seems little doubt that Rankins was also author of ‘The English Ape, the Italian imitation, the Foote-steppes of Fraunce. Wherein is explained the wilfull blindnesse of subtill mischiefe, the striuing for Starres, the catching of Mooneshine, and the Secrete Sounde of many hollowe heartes. By W. R.,’ London, by Robert Robinson, 1588, 4to (Huth and Bodl. Libr.). In the dedication to Sir Christopher Hatton, the author mentions an earlier work, entitled ‘My Roughcast Conceit of Hell,’ which he had inscribed to the same patron. ‘The English Ape’ is a strenuous denunciation of the Englishman's habit of imitating foreign fashions in dress and the like (Collier, Bibliographical Catalogue, i. 27–8).
Rankins secured a somewhat more stable reputation by publishing, in 1598, ‘Seaven Satyres applyed to the weeke, including the worlds ridiculous follyes. True felicity described in the Phœnix. Maulgre. Whereunto is annexed the wandring Satyre. By W. Rankins, Gent. Imprinted at London by Edw. Allde,’ &c. 1598; ‘dedicated to his noble-minded friend John Salisbury of Llewenni, Esq.’ (Bridgwater Library). ‘True felicity described in the Phœnix’ is a pious poem. The seven satires, which are in seven-line stanzas, are not impressive, and are respectively entitled ‘Contra Lunatistum,’ ‘Contra Martialistam,’ ‘Contra Mercurialistam,’ ‘Contra Jovialistam,’ ‘Contra Venereum,’ ‘Contra Saturnistam,’ ‘Contra Sollistam.’ Meres, in his ‘Palladis Tamia’ (1598), names Rankins with Joseph Hall and John Marston as the three satirists of the age. Prefixed to the ‘Belvedere’ (1600) by John Bodenham are three seven-line stanzas called ‘A Sonnet to the Muse's Garden,’ and signed ‘W. Rankins, Gent.’
[Collier's Bibliographical Catalogue, ii. 227 sq.; Hazlitt's Handbook.]
S. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ranelagh

​RANELAGH, third Viscount and first Earl of (1636?–1712). [See Jones, Richard.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rankeillor, Lord

​RANKEILLOR, Lord (1639–1706). [See under Hope, Sir John, Lord Craighall.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wylde, Robert

​WYLDE, ROBERT (1609–1679), puritan divine and poet. [See Wild.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wylde, Henry

​WYLDE, HENRY (1822–1890), Gresham professor of music, son of Henry Wylde, was born at Bushey, Hertfordshire, on 22 May 1822. At the age of thirteen he became organist of Whitchurch, near Edgware, and three years later a pianoforte pupil of Moscheles. From October 1843 to December 1846 he was a student at the Royal Academy of Music, of which institution he subsequently became a professor of harmony. Wylde was organist of Eaton Chapel and St. Anne's, Aldersgate Street (now demolished). In 1851 he accumulated the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Music at the university of Cambridge. In 1852 he was one of the founders of the now defunct New Philharmonic Society, whose concerts he, in co-operation with Hector Berlioz, Lindpainter, and Spohr, conducted for three seasons; in 1858 Wylde assumed the entire responsibility of the undertaking until 1879, when he retired in favour of Mr. Wilhelm Ganz.
Wylde founded in 1861 the London Academy of Music, a private teaching institution which still exists. Its locale was first at St. James's Hall, but in 1867 it was removed to a building in Langham Place erected by Wylde, and named by him St. George's Hall. In 1863, on the death of Edward Taylor [q. v.], Wylde was appointed Gresham professor of music. This post he held till his death, which took place at 76 Mortimer Street, Regent Street, on 13 March 1890. He was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.
Wylde composed a few pianoforte pieces and songs, and wrote a setting of ‘Paradise Lost’ (1850) and a cantata, ‘Prayer and Praise’ (1850). His musico-literary productions include: ‘Harmony and the Science of Music’ (1865 and 1872); ‘Music in its Art Mysteries’ (1867); ‘Modern Counterpoint in Major Keys’ (1873); ‘Occult Principles of Music’ (1881); ‘Music as an Educator’ (1882); and ‘Evolution of the Beautiful in Music’ (1888).
F. G. E.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wylde, John

​WYLDE, JOHN (1590–1669), chief baron of the exchequer, [See Wilde.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wynn, Charlotte Williams

​WYNN, CHARLOTTE WILLIAMS (1807–1869), diarist, born on 16 Jan. 1807, was the eldest daughter of Charles Watkin Williams Wynn [q. v.] Her childhood was passed at Dropmore on the Thames, the seat of her great-uncle, Lord Grenville. There, and at her father's house in London, she became acquainted with some of the most distinguished persons of the day, both in literature and in politics. Her father's declining health compelled him to journey in 1836 to Wiesbaden, and while proceeding in the steamboat from Rotterdam to Biebrich she met Varnhagen von Ense. During her father's annual visits to Germany Varnhagen made a point of coming to see them, and their friendship lasted until his death in 1858.
Miss Wynn knew many parts of England, and travelled much in Italy and Switzerland as well as in Germany. She was in Paris during the troubled period from 2 Nov. 1851 to the end of February 1852, and describes in detail the events of that time. Later on, in her English home at 43 Green Street, London, she formed ‘close and lasting friendship’ with Bunsen, Rio, Thomas Carlyle, and F. D. Maurice. Letters to her from Maurice are printed in his ‘Life’ (ii. 315–16, 346, 382, 463, 511, 569, 575–8), and one from him, descriptive of her character, is found in the preface (pp. ix–xi) of her ‘Memorials.’ In 1866 Miss Wynn was compelled through illness to reside nearly all the year in a foreign climate. She died at Arcachon on 26 April 1869, and was buried in the cemetery there.
A volume, entitled ‘Memorials of Charlotte Williams-Wynn, edited by her Sister’ (Mrs. Harriot H. Lindesay) was published in 1877, and reissued in 1878. Many of the letters and extracts had previously appeared in a volume printed solely for private circulation. They show her to have been well read in modern literature, both English and foreign, and to have possessed a cultivated mind instinct with religious feeling. Prefixed to both the published editions of her ‘Memorials’ is a signed engraving, by H. Adlard, from a drawing of her by H. T. Wells, R.A., in 1856.
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wyndham, Thomas (1681-1745)

​WYNDHAM, THOMAS, Baron Wyndham of Finglass (1681–1745), grandson of Sir Wadham Wyndham [q. v.], being the fourth and youngest but eldest surviving son of John Wyndham of Norrington, M.P. for Salisbury in 1681 and 1685, by his wife Alice, daughter of Thomas Fownes, was born at Norrington, near Salisbury, on 27 Dec. 1681. He was educated at the cathedral school, Salisbury, and matriculated from Wadham College, Oxford, on 19 Nov. 1698. He does not appear to have taken any university degree, but he was admitted of Lincoln's Inn on 11 July 1698, and called to the bar on 9 May 1705. He was appointed recorder of Sarum in 1706, and in 1724 was promoted to the chief-justiceship of the court of common pleas in Ireland, a very ‘easy post’ according to Archbishop Boulter, in succession to Sir Richard Levinge [q. v.] In a brief memorandum diary that he kept Wyndham ​mentions that he left Salisbury for Dublin on 16 Nov. 1724, and that the journey took him twenty-four days. On the death of Lord-chancellor West in November 1726, Wyndham's claims to the vacant place were strongly pressed by Boulter, who was the factotum of the party organised for the purpose of defeating Irish appointments being given to natives. The great seal was eventually given to Wyndham in accordance with his advice. In 1730, in the case of Kimberly, an attorney who had been sentenced to death for abduction, the chancellor overruled the claim, raised upon a technical plea, that the sentence should be quashed. In the following year, on 18 Sept., he was raised to the peerage as Baron Wyndham of Finglass, co. Dublin. He presided in six sessions of the Irish parliament as speaker of the House of Lords. On 20 Aug. 1735 he tells us that Dean Swift dined at his table. He acted as lord high steward at the trial of Henry Barry, lord Barry of Santry, for murder on 27 April 1739, and sentenced him to death. Wyndham was the first lord high steward so appointed in Ireland. He resigned the chancellorship on 7 Sept. 1739, and on 8 Sept. he sailed for England. He died in Wiltshire on 24 Nov. 1745, and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral, where there is a white marble monument to him by Rysbrack on the south side of the west door. He was unmarried, and his title became extinct. He bequeathed some 2,500l. to the family foundation of Wadham, in the hall of which college a portrait of the Irish chancellor is hung. This portrait, executed in 1728, was engraved by Marshall.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Gardiner's Reg. of Wadham College; Gent. Mag. 1745, p. 614; Harris's Salisbury Cathedral Epitaphs, 1825, p. 3; Miscellanea Geneal. et Herald. 2nd ser. iv. 36, 54, 77; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; Burke's Landed Gentry; Noble's Biogr. Hist. ii. 186; Letters of Hugh Boulter, D.D., 1770; O'Flanagan's Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland, ii. 51.]
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wynn

​WYNN. [See also Wynne.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wynn, Henry Watkin Williams

​WYNN, Sir HENRY WATKIN WILLIAMS (1783–1856), diplomatist, born on 16 March 1783, was younger brother of Charles Watkin Williams Wynn [q. v.] He entered the foreign office as clerk in January 1799, when his uncle, Lord Grenville, was its head, and early in 1801 was appointed his private secretary and précis writer. From April 1803 to April 1807 he was envoy extraordinary to the elector of Saxony, and his services were rewarded with a pension of 1,500l. a year (Hansard, 15 May 1822, p. 624). For a few months (January to April 1807) he sat in parliament for the borough of Midhurst. In his uncle's first year of office as chancellor of the university of Oxford he was created D.C.L. (6 July 1810). Wynn was made envoy extraordinary ​and minister plenipotentiary to Switzerland in February 1822; the appointment was criticised in the House of Lords on 26 March 1822, and in the commons on 15 and 16 May (ib. vi. new ser. pp. 1287–1307, and vii. 608–70). He was transferred to a like position at the court of Würtemberg in February 1823. In September 1824 he was sent in a similar capacity to Copenhagen, remaining there until early in 1853. He was created a privy councillor on 30 Sept. 1825, made a Knight Grand Cross of Hanover in 1831, and K.C.B. on 1 March 1851. He died on 28 March 1856. On 30 Sept. 1813 he married Hester Frances, sixth daughter of Robert, lord Carrington. She died on 5 March 1854, having had issue three sons and three daughters. His favourite son was killed in the Crimea in 1854 (Memorials of Charlotte Williams-Wynn, p. 206).
Letters from Wynn are in the Duke of Buckingham's ‘Court of George IV’ (i. 225, 261, 284, ii. 86, 117, 172) and his ‘Court of William IV’ (i. 52). Letters to him from Lady Hester Stanhope from the Desert in 1813 are in Frances Williams Wynn's ‘Diaries’ (pp. 320–7).
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wyndham-Quin, Edwin Richard Windham

​WYNDHAM-QUIN, EDWIN RICHARD WINDHAM, third Earl of Dunraven (1813–1871). [See Quin.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wynford, first Baron

​WYNFORD, first Baron. [See Best, William Draper, 1767–1845.]
# Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 2

See also the Conspectus and Index for this edition.
Layout 2
THE
DIVINE COMEDY
OF
DANTE ALIGHIERI
TRANSLATED BY
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
I follow here the footing of thy feete That with thy meaning so I may the rather meete
Spenser.
VOL. II.
BOSTON
TICKNOR AND FIELDS
1867
I ENTER, and I see thee in the gloom Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine! And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine. The air is filled with some unknown perfume; The congregation of the dead make room For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine; Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb. From the confessionals I hear arise Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies, And lamentations from the crypts below; And then a voice celestial that begins With the pathetic words, "Although your sins As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow."
WITH snow-white veil and garments as of flame, She stands before thee, who so long ago Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe From which thy song and all its splendors came; And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name, The ice about thy heart melts as the snow On mountain heights, and in swift overflow Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame. Thou makest full confession; and a gleam, As of the dawn on some dark forest cast, Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase; Lethe and Eunoe—the remembered dream And the forgotten sorrow—bring at last That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.
CONTENTS
OF VOL. II.
PURGATORIO.
CANTO I.
CANTO II.
CANTO III.
CANTO IV.
CANTO V.
CANTO VI.
CANTO VII.
CANTO VIII.
CANTO IX.
CANTO X.
CANTO XI.
CANTO XII.
CANTO XIII.
CANTO XIV.
CANTO XV.
CANTO XVI.
CANTO XVII.
CANTO XVIII.
CANTO XIX.
CANTO XX.
CANTO XXI.
CANTO XXII.
CANTO XXIII.
CANTO XXIV.
CANTO XXV.
CANTO XXVI.
CANTO XXVII.
CANTO XXVIII.
CANTO XXIX.
CANTO XXX.
CANTO XXXI.
CANTO XXXII.
CANTO XXXIII.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge.