OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Diary of One Month in Honolulu/Day 6

Went to church this morning. It seemed like a little trip back home.
This afternoon wrote letters for tomorrow's mail, while Jack tried to get friendly with a surf-board. He said to give everybody his regards—that's the way he always writes letters. He thinks he's the greatest surfer on the beach because he caught a wave today. He came in with it all right—but the board was on top.
This is the most marvelous climate. The days are never too hot, and the nights are always cool, though never chilly, and the atmosphere is clear, never sticky or muggy the least bit.
Hawaiian boys sang Hawaiian songs while we were at dinner, and gave a concert on the lanai afterward. I love their music. I am going to get a ukulele tomorrow and take some lessons. I shall not tell Jack until I begin to practice.
# Diary of One Month in Honolulu/Day 7

A wonderful tramp today. I'm glad Jack and I have feet and ambition—we would miss two-thirds of our good times if we hadn't. Went up Palolo Gorge. Drove to the beginning of the trail, because Jack said we were out of training and must start easy. The car would have taken us to within three miles of it.
The trail goes up a little stream which you cross over and over again, and the mountain sides crowd you and are covered with great ferns and kukui and mountain apple trees, and strange, twisting vines, and there is sweet wild ginger all about, and wild bananas. At the upper end is a high fall of water coming down into a wide pool with black boulders and dripping green things all about. The trail goes around this fall to another, just as beautiful, above. We didn't have—time to go farther, but there are seven falls, one above another, coming from a crater 1500 feet up in the mountains. Jack cut me a bamboo alpenstock from a beautiful clump beside the stream.
# Diary of One Month in Honolulu/Day 31

Aboard ship. It is a perfectly good ship and I'm not a bit seasick, but I feel as if I had been sent away from the table before I had half finished. Here are just a few of the things that we wanted to do and didn't have time to:
Go to Hanauma Bay, near Koko Crater.
See the blow-hole by moonlight.
Tramp to the top of Mount Olympus.
Do the long trail from Tantalus along the ridge back of Manoa Valley and down Palolo.
Visit the Kaau Crater, 1500 feet up in the mountains.
Explore a lot of valleys and gorges where no one ever goes.
Take train to Makua and tramp to Waianae and see caves and barking sands.
Take train to Leilehua and tramp across Waianae Range to Waianae Town.
We were loaded with leis when the boat sailed—carnations, roses, hydrangeas, ilima and violets, and the band played, and when it came to "Aloha Oe," I—came into my stateroom!
# Diary of One Month in Honolulu/Day 5

Motored around the Island. Started at 8:30 this morning and went to the Pali and down the face of it—"Pali" means precipice—and then along the windward side of the Island, and around the point to Haleiwa. Had a fine luncheon there at a lovely little hotel, beautifully situated.
Wandered around and took some pictures while Jack talked hunting and fishing possibilities until he got the fever. The golf links are fine. Guess we'll go back for a day or so.
Came home through pineapple and cane country and past the cavalry barracks and reached here at five o'clock. The trip was 83 miles—a glorious 83 miles. Jack acquired so much information that there'll be no living with him.
Saw grass houses, and natives making poi, and men working or riding horseback with wreaths of fresh flowers on their hats. It makes you think that they must be sweet-natured.
I never saw so many different kinds of costumes in my life as this cosmopolitan population presents—and every individual seems to have an eye for color. It is fascinating.
# Diary of One Month in Honolulu/Day 8

Swam before breakfast this morning. Don't feel at all tired from yesterday's tramp.
Motored out to a sugar mill this afternoon and saw the entire process from growing cane to finished sugar—and we tested it at each stage. Jack was so interested that I think he contemplates starting a sugar mill in the front yard when we get home. He'll know how to, anyway.
The road out to the mill was very interesting. We went through some beautiful gardens called Moanalua, and are going again to explore them, as they say that everyone is permitted to do. Jack says that the person who owns them evidently knows how to get the best out of his possessions by sharing them. I wonder why it should be such a surprise to find a very generous person, but it is.
Went to a band concert in Thomas Square this evening. The Royal Hawaiian Band played and we enjoyed it immensely. The bandmaster has led that band for more than forty years. Two Hawaiian women sang in their own language. It was beautiful, for their voices are very rich and sweet and there were curious cadences in the songs. Jack was enthusiastic.
# Diary of One Month in Honolulu/Day 4

Went out in a surf-boat this morning. A wonderful experience. The waves were splendid and we came in for at least half a mile at express train speed. We did it five times and I wasn't at all frightened but wanted to keep on forever. You couldn't drown if you wanted to, with those Hawaiian boys around.
Jack tackled a surf-board afterward and I watched him. I think if he would diet for a while he could ride better—but he got along very well, considering.
This evening we went out to Punahou College grounds to see the night-blooming cereus. Two sides of a long block in one great hedge crowded with white blossoms each a foot long and a foot across and deliciously fragrant. I saw some of the same blossoms that had climbed high into the trees. The texture of the petals is like that of water lilies.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Colquhoun, Janet

​COLQUHOUN, JANET, Lady (1781–1846), religious writer, was the second daughter of the Right Hon. Sir John Sinclair. of Ulbster, bart., by his first wife, Sarah, only child and heiress of Alexander Maitland of Stoke Newington. She was born in London 17 April 1781, but, together with her elder sister Hannah, passed her childhood at Thurso Castle with their grandmother, Lady Janet Sinclair, daughter of William, lord Strathnaven. This lady took the sisters to live in the Canongate of Edinburgh, whence they went to complete their education at a school at Stoke Newington. The younger of the two was about fifteen when they returned to be introduced into Edinburgh society. In June 1799 Janet was married to Major James Colquhoun, eldest son of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, bart., on whose death, in 1805, her husband succeeded to the title, and Rossdhu, on Loch Lomond, became her home. Here she took a keen interest in all philanthropic and religious schemes, especially in the Luss and Arrochar Bible Society. In 1820 her health became enfeebled, and she was prevented from taking any active share in these or other benevolent objects, but she devoted herself to the composition of religious works, the first of which was published anonymously in 1822 under the title of 'Despair and Hope.' This was followed by 'Thoughts on the Religious Profession,' 1823; 'Impressions of the Heart,' 1825; 'The Kingdom of God,' 1836; and 'The World's Religion,' 1839. It was not until the death of her husband, in 1836, that her name was appended to her books. Dr. James Hamilton, her biographer, quaintly apologises for defects of artistic skill in Lady Colquhoun's books, but insists on their graceful ease and natural truthfulness. 'Like the conversation of their compiler, they are genuine and inartificial, spontaneous and heartfelt.' At the time of the disruption of the Scotch church in 1843, she took an ardent interest in the question at issue, throwing herself heart and soul into the Free church cause. She died at Helensburgh, on 21 Oct. 1846, and was buried on the 27th at Luss.
J. A. F. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Colquhoun, John (1805-1885)

​COLQUHOUN, JOHN (1805–1885), writer on sport, second son of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, third baronet, and of Janet, lady Colquhoun [q. v.], was born in Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, 6 March 1805. Together with his elder brother he was educated first at a school in Edinburgh, subsequently at a private school in Lincolnshire (Rev. Mr. Grainger's of Winteringham), and finally at the university of Edinburgh. In 1828 he joined the 33rd regiment in the wilds of Connaught, where he had plenty of hard work and a full share of adventures in the way of protecting the excise, or 'still-hunting,' as it was called. His autobiographical preface to 'The Moor and the Loch' contains a very vivid description of his life at this time. In 1829 he was gazetted into the 4th dragoon guards. He sold out of the army on the occasion of his marriage with Frances Sarah, fourth daughter of Ebenezer Fuller Maitland of Park Place, Henley-on-Thames, which took place on 29 Jan. 1834. She herself is not without a claim to notice, since, when quite young, she completed Henry Kirke White's fragment, beginning 'Much in sorrow, oft in woe,' and this completion has been universally accepted for church use (see Book of Praise). A small volume of her poems was published in 1876 under the title 'Rhymes and Chimes.' Four sons and five daughters were the issue of this marriage, and all, with the exception of the eldest and youngest sons, survive Colquhoun. He was always a keen sportsman and an accurate observer of nature, and during his long life he acquired an experience in matters of sport and natural history that was quite exceptional, for the summer quarters were changed almost every year, and the list of places rented by him embraces nearly every district of Scotland, so that his opportunities for observation were especially favourable. In 1840 he embodied his experiences in 'The Moor and the Loch,' which speedily took a high rank among books on Scotch sport. In 1851 the third edition was published, and the fourth, which was not issued until 1878, contained many additions, notably the most valuable portions of some other books written in the meantime, 'Rocks and Rivers,' 1849; 'Salmon Casts and Stray Shots,' 1858; and 'Sporting Days,' 1866. Besides these works he wrote two lectures, 'On the Feræ Naturæ of the British Islands,' and 'On Instinct and Reason,' which were published in 1873 and 1874 respectively. It was not until the fifth edition of 'The Moor and the Loch' appeared that the autobiographical introduction, which now forms not the least interesting portion of the book, was prefixed to the text, and a sixth edition was issued in 1884, the year before the author's death. This took place on 27 May 1885 at Royal Terrace, Edinburgh, after a short illness.
[Autobiographical preface to The Moor and the Loch; The Chiefs of Colquhoun and their Country, by William Fraser, 2 vols. privately printed, Edinburgh, 1869; information from private sources.]
J. A. F. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Colson, Lancelot

​COLSON, LANCELOT (fl. 1668), was an astrologer who practised at the sign of the Royal Oak on Great Tower Hill. His almanack or ephemeris was published there from 1660 to 1676, together with his 'Philosophia Maturata, an Exact Piece of Philosophy, containing the practick and operative part thereof in gaining the philosopher's stone,' &c. (London, 1668, 12mo). This volume is one of the leading works on the philosopher's stone.
[Colson's Ephemerides.]
E. H.-A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Colquhoun, John (1748-1827)

​COLQUHOUN, JOHN, D.D. (1748–1827), theological writer, born at Luss in Dumbartonshire in January 1748, was originally a shepherd and weaver, but, having acquired the rudiments of knowledge at a village school, studied at Glasgow for the Scottish ministry, and was licensed in August 1780 and received a charge in South Leith in March 1781. He died on 27 Nov. 1827 at South Leith. He published 'A Treatise on Spiritual Comfort,' 1813; also 'The Covenant of Grace,' 1818.
[Irving's Book of Scotsmen; Allibone's Dict. of English Literature.]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Colquhoun, John Campbell (1785-1854)

​COLQUHOUN, JOHN CAMPBELL (1785–1854), writer on psychical research, fifth son of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, second (brother of the third) baronet, by Jane, daughter of James Falconer of Monkstown in the county of Edinburgh, and Miltonhaven and Lauriston, Kincardineshire, was born at Edinburgh on 31 Jan. 1785. Having studied law and philosophy at Göttingen, where he made the acquaintance of Herbart and Ludwig crown prince of Bavaria, he returned to Scotland in 1806, and was called to the Scottish bar. While in Germany he had acquired a taste for the investigation of the phenomena then grouped under the category of 'animal magnetism,' which were just beginning to attract the attention of scientific men. In 1831 a report on the subject was read before the Académie des Sciences, in which it was pronounced worthy of systematic investigation. This report Colquhoun translated and published with an historical introduction and an appendix embodying the results of his own research in 1833, Edinburgh, 8vo, and it became the basis of a work entitled 'Isis Revelata,' published in 1836, Edinburgh, 8vo. Colquhoun was an intimate friend of Sir William Hamilton and Sir David Brewster. In 1815 he was appointed sheriff-depute of Dumbartonshire. He held this office until a few months of his death, which took place on 21 Aug. 1854. He was buried at Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh. He never married. Besides the above-mentioned work, Colquhoun contributed to the third volume of Sir J. ​Sinclair's 'Code of Health and Longevity,' Edinburgh, 1806, 8vo, a translation of Kant's treatise on the power of the mind in overcoming unpleasant sensations by mere resolution. He also published a translation of Wienholt's 'Seven Lectures on Somnambulism,' with a preface, introduction, and notes, Edinburgh, 1845, 8vo.
[Fraser's Chiefs of Colquhoun; Brit. Mus. Cat]
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Colquhoun, John Campbell (1803-1870)

​COLQUHOUN, JOHN CAMPBELL (1803–1870), miscellaneous writer, was born in Edinburgh on 23 Jan. 1803, and educated at the high school, Edinburgh, and at Oriel College, Oxford. In 1832 he was elected member for Dumbartonshire, and in 1837 for the Kilmarnock burghs. He unsuccessfully contested the Kilmarnock burghs in July 1841, but was elected in July 1842 one of the members for Newcastle-under-Lyme, which he continued to represent till the dissolution of 1847, when he retired from reasons of health. He was chairman of the general committee of the National Club, of the Church of England Education Society, and of the Irish Church Mission to Roman Catholics. Besides a number of political and religious pamphlets upon questions of the day in Scotland and Ireland, he was the author of 'Short Sketches of some Notable Lives,' 1855; 'Life in Italy and France in the Olden Time,' 1858; 'Scattered Leaves of Biography,' 1864; 'William Wilberforce, his Friends and his Times,' 1866, 2nd edit. 1867; and 'Memorials of Henrietta Maria Colquhoun,' 1870. He died 17 April 1870.
[Men of the Time, 7th ed.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beckett, Isaac

Date of death 1688 in the ODNB.
​BECKETT, ISAAC (1653–1719), mezzotint engraver, was born in Kent in 1653, and apprenticed to a calico printer in London, but happening to visit Lutterel, he became captivated by a desire of learning the new art of engraving in mezzotint. Hearing that one John Lloyd was acquainted with the process, and being obliged through an intrigue to absent himself from his business, Beckett ​offered his services to him, and entered into articles to work for him. Before long, however, he again fell into trouble, and was assisted by Lutterel, with whom he became associated in the development of the art. He is said to have been noted for his gallantries, and to have married a woman of fortune, which enabled him to set up as the publisher of his own prints, and Lutterel did many heads for him, being more expeditious and more skilful in drawing than Beckett, but they were often finished by the latter. His plates are all referable to dates between 1681 and 1688, yet he survived until 1719. Isaac Beckett and Robert Williams were the first native Englishmen who extensively practised engraving in mezzotint, and, in a measure, may be considered to have founded the school, for the earlier works were executed chiefly by engravers of foreign birth. John Smith was Beckett's pupil, and appears to have obtained possession of many of his plates and to have placed his own name on them, not only as publisher, but on some even as engraver.
Beckett executed several scriptural and allegorical subjects, as well as a few landscapes, but by far the greater number of his plates are portraits, of which Mr. Chaloner Smith describes 107. Among the best of them may be mentioned full-length portraits of Charles II, the Duchess of Portsmouth, James II, and Catharine Sedley, countess of Dorchester, after Kneller; and of Lady Williams, said by Granger to have been a mistress of the Duke of York, after Wissing; and other portraits of Catharine of Braganza, queen of Charles II, Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland, and Elizabeth, countess of Chesterfield, after Sir Peter Lely; Mary of Modena, queen of James II, after Kneller and Largillière; Queen Anne, after Wissing; Prince George of Denmark, after Riley and Wissing; Beau Fielding, after Kneller and Wissing; Henry Compton, bishop of London, after Riley; Thomas Cartwright, bishop of Chester, after Soest; and Sir Peter Lely, Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Nicolas de Largillière and his family, after paintings by themselves. The most important of Beckett's subject plates are 'The Virgin and St. Joseph, with the Infant Jesus asleep;' 'Time cutting the Wings of Love;' 'Cupid and Psyche,' after Turchi; 'The Village Surgeon,' after Lingelbach; and 'The Dutch School,' after Egbert van Heemskerk. Beckett's own portrait has been engraved by John Smith and others.
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Becket, William

​BECKET, WILLIAM (1684–1738), surgeon and antiquary, was born at Abingdon, Berkshire. In the early years of the eighteenth century he was well known in London as a surgeon and an enthusiastic antiquary. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 11 Dec. 1718, and read three papers on 'The Antiquity of the Venereal Disease' at its meetings during the same year (Phil. Trans. vi. 368, 467, 492), and one on another subject in 1724 (ib. vii. 25). Becket was an original member of the Society of Antiquaries, which was virtually established in 1717, and lived on intimate terms with Stukeley, Bowyer, Browne-Willis, and other antiquaries. He was for some years surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, Southwark, but before 1736 he had retired to Abingdon, where he died 25 Nov. 1738. Dr. Stukeley, the well-known antiquary, adds in his common-place book to his note of the death of 'my old friend William Becket, surgeon,' that his papers were bought 'by the infamous Curl,' and purchased of Curll for thirty guineas by Dr. Milward (Stukeley's Memoirs, ed. Lukis (Surtees Soc.), i. 97).
His works are: 1. 'New Discoveries relating to the Cure of Cancers,' 1711 and 1712. 2. 'An Enquiry into the Antiquity and Efficacy of Touching for the King's Evil, with a Collection of Records,' 1722. John Anstis the elder gave Becket some assistance in this work (Nichols, Lit. Anecdotes, ii. 498). 3. 'Practical Surgery, illustrated and improved, with remarks on the most remarkable Cases, Cures, and Discussions in St. Thomas's Hospital,' 1740. 4. 'A Collection of Chirurgical Tracts,' 1740. Gough in his 'British Topography,' 1780 (i. 519), remarks, on Stukeley's authority, that Becket examined the wills in the prerogative office referring to Lincolnshire and other counties.
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Becher, Henry

​BECHER, HENRY (fl. 1561), translator, was vicar of Mayfield, in the jurisdiction of South Malling. He translated into the English tongue and adorned with a long preface against the late Pelagians — i.e. Henry Hart and others in Kent, Essex, London, and other places — the two books of 'St. Ambrose de Vocatione Gentium.' In the preface are many things concerning this heresy which infested no small number of provinces in England in the times of Henry VIII and Queen Mary. The full title of his translation is as follows: 'Two Books of Saint Ambrose, Bysshoppe of Mytleyne, entituled Of the Vocation and Calling of all Nations: newly translated out of Latin into Englyshe, for the edifying and comfort of the single-mynded and godly, unlearned in Christes Church, agaynst the late stronge secte of the Pelagians, the maynteyners of the free wyll of men, and denyers of the grace of God,' London, 1561, 8vo.
J. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beck, David

​BECK, DAVID (d. 1656), portrait painter, was born at Delft. His name is variously written B'eec and Beek. The statement of Houbraken and the writers who follow him, that he was born 25 May 1621, is contradicted by the existence of an authenticated picture at St. Petersburg, which is dated 1631, and made at least doubtful by the fact, which Houbraken himself adduces, that he taught drawing to the children of Charles I. In this country he was Vandyck's pupil, and had so much facility in painting that Charles I is stated to have said, 'Faith, Beck! I believe you could paint riding post.' He left England, and worked as a portrait-painter in the courts of France and of Denmark. Still later he entered the service of the Queen of Sweden, and was sent by her to various courts of Europe with a commission to paint portraits of the most illustrious persons of Christendom. This information we find in Cornelius de Bie's 'Het gulden Cabinet,' where is also a panegyrical poem and a fine, as well as very handsome, portrait of the painter. He accompanied the queen to Rome, and was elected a member of the painters' guild of that city in 1653. Returning, he accompanied his patroness as far as Paris, and then left her upon a plea that he wished to revisit his old friends in Holland. He died suddenly at the Hague on 20 Dec. 1656. Houbraken describes him as 'a handsome distinguished man, but without genius.' He also asserts that he was poisoned by order of the Queen of Sweden, who feared he did not intend to keep his promise of returning to her; but Houbraken's tales are in general debateable.
Beck's pictures, the number of which should be very great if the tales of his celerity have any truth, are now rare. There is one in the National Gallery of Stockholm, a three-quarter portrait of his patroness, the Queen of Sweden, which shows him to have been a sober follower of Vandyck; and there is another in a private collection in the same city. His best work is seen in small portraits, as in that already mentioned picture at St. Petersburg, in the possession of Peter von Semmnow, dated 1631 . Even here the influence of Vandyck is marked. Beck has little claim to rank among English artists, and the printed accounts of him in English are incomplete and incorrect. The best account is by W. Bode in the latest edition of Nagler.
E. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beck, Thomas Alcock

​BECK, THOMAS ALCOCK (1795–1846), author of 'Annales Furnesienses,' was the son of James Beck, gentleman, and was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne 31 May 1795. He was educated at Archbishop Sandys's grammar school, Hawkshend, Lancashire, and later in life by a private tutor. He never adopted any profession. Having, owing to a special complaint, become unable to walk somewhat early in life, he mitigated the tedium of confinement at his residence of Esthwaite Lodge, Lancashire, by the composition of his 'Annales Furnesienses,' published in 1844 in a splendid quarto volume, a work not only completely exhaustive on all matters bearing on the history of the abbey of St. Mary, but of prime importance with regard to antiquarian research throughout the whole district of Furness. He died 24 April 1846, and was buried in Hawkshead churchyard. A beautiful mural tablet has been erected in the church to his memory.
T. F. H.