OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Charles (1785-1852)

According to the ODNB, Raisley Calvert was not the younger brother described here.
​CALVERT, CHARLES (1785–1852), landscape-painter, born at Glossop Hall, Derbyshire, on 23 Sept. 1785, was the eldest son of Charles Calvert, agent of the Duke of Norfolk's estate. He was apprenticed to the cotton trade, and began business as a cotton merchant in Manchester, but against the wishes of his friends he abandoned commerce for art and became a landscape-painter. He was one of those instrumental in the foundation of the Manchester Royal Institution (which has since become the City Art Gallery), and he gained the Heywood gold medal for a landscape in oil, and the Heywood silver medal for a landscape in water colour. Much of his time was necessarily devoted to teaching, but all the moments that could be spared from it were passed in the lake districts. Even in his later years, when confined to his bed by failing health, he occupied himself in recording his reminiscences of natural beauty. He died at Bowness, Westmoreland, on 26 Feb. 1852, and was buried there.
The father of the landscape-painter, Charles Calvert the elder, was an amateur. He was born in 1754; died on 13 June 1797, and is buried in St. Mary's churchyard, Manchester; a younger brother, Raisley Calvert, who died in 1794, was a sculptor, and is well known as the friend and admirer of Wordsworth, to whom he bequeathed 900l. Another son of Charles Calvert the elder, Frederick Baltimore Calvert, is separately noticed. Two other sons, Henry and Michael Pease, were both painters.
[Art Journal, 1852, p. 150 (the same notice appears in the Gent. Mag. June 1852, new ser. xxxvii. 630); Nodal's Art in Lancashire and Cheshire, 1884.]
W. E. A. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burnet, Thomas (d.1750)

1904 Errata appended.
​BURNET, THOMAS, D.D. (d. 1750), rector of West Kington, Wiltshire, of New College, Oxford, became D.D. in 1720, and was prebendary of Salisbury from 1711 till his death on 28 May 1750. He wrote: 1. ‘An Essay upon Government,’ 1716. 2. ‘The Scripture-Trinity intelligibly explained,’ 1720, published anonymously. 3. ‘The Demonstration of True Religion,’ in sixteen sermons (Boyle lecture), 1726. 4. ‘The Argument set forth in a late book entitled Christianity as old as the Creation, reviewed and confuted,’ 1730. 5. ‘The Scripture Doctrine of the Redemption of the World by Christ,’ 1737. Kippis in the ‘Biographia’ mentions ‘Scripture Politics,’ which seems to be merely a misdescription of No. 1. Burnet is a fair and candid, but by no means a lively writer. In his treatises on the Trinity and atonement and redemption, he endeavours to mediate between orthodox and Arian views. In his defences of revelation, as well as in his political treatise, he tries to reason logically from propositions assumed as axiomatic. In the dedication of his ‘Scripture Doctrine’ to the Bishop of Salisbury, he says: ‘It was composed by broken snatches, and at such leisure time as I could steal from a life encumbered with disagreeable business, and embarrassed with care and difficulties.’
R. G.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.43 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burnett, George

​BURNETT, GEORGE (1776?–1811), miscellaneous writer, was the son of a respectable farmer at Huntspill in Somersetshire, where he was born in or about 1776. He had more intellect than the rest of his family, and, after a suitable introduction to classical literature under the care of a clergyman in the neighbourhood, he was sent to Balliol College, Oxford, with a view to his taking orders in the established church. After two or three years' residence he became disgusted with a college life, and took part in the well-known scheme of ‘pantisocracy’ with Coleridge and Southey. After lingering about for a year or two, dependent upon the supplies which he drew from his father, Burnett obtained admission as a student into the dissenting college at Manchester. He was appointed pastor of a congregation at Yarmouth, but did not remain there long. He subsequently became, for a short time, a student of medicine in the university of Edinburgh. Through the influence of friends he was at one time appointed domestic tutor to two sons of Lord Stanhope, but he idled away a month or more in a needless excursion into the country, and had scarcely entered upon his charge when both his pupils—though not through any fault of his—left their father's house. Lord Stanhope paid 200l.—a year's salary—to Burnett, who afterwards became an assistant surgeon in a militia regiment. This situation he soon quitted, and went to Poland with the family of Count Zamoyska, as English tutor, but in less than a twelvemonth returned to England, without any employment. Shortly afterwards he contributed to the ‘Monthly Magazine’ a series of letters which were reprinted under the title of ‘View of the Present State of Poland,’ Lond. 1807, 12mo. He next published ‘Specimens of English Prose Writers, from the earliest times to the close of the seventeenth century; with sketches biographical and literary; including an account of books, as well as of their authors, with occasional criticisms,’ 3 vols. Lond. 1807, 8vo; a judicious compilation, forming a companion to George Ellis's ‘Specimens of the Early English Poets.’ He also wrote the introduction to the ‘Universal History,’ published under the name of Dr. Mavor. His last production, consisting of a selection from Milton's ‘Prose Works,’ with new translations and an introduction ​(2 vols. Lond. 1809, 12mo), was compiled at Huntspill in 1808–9, and dedicated to Lord Erskine. On its completion he left his native place, and his relatives never received any communication from him afterwards, so that it is not known how he subsisted from November 1809 till his death, which took place in the Marylebone infirmary in February 1811.
[Biog. Dict. of Living Authors (1816), 48; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. i. 325, iii. 1564; Monthly Mag. xlii. 311; Watt's Bibl. Brit. under ‘Burnet;’ Cottle's Recollections of Coleridge, i. 6, 246.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burnett, Gilbert Thomas

​BURNETT, GILBERT THOMAS (1800–1835), botanist, was born on 15 April 1800, his father, Gilbert Burnett, a London surgeon, being a descendant of Bishop Burnet. He was educated by Dr. Benson at Hounslow Heath. Commencing medical study at the age of fifteen, he made medical botany his favourite pursuit, at a time when, in his own words, ‘the study entailed both on teacher and on pupil sarcasm and contempt.’ Soon after commencing practice as a surgeon he gave lectures on medical and general botany in the Great Windmill Street School of Medicine, and was made honorary professor to the Medico-Botanical Society. Becoming a popular lecturer, he frequently lectured at the Royal Institution, and gave a regular course at St. George's Hospital. On the opening of King's College, London, in 1831, he was chosen the first professor of botany, and was very zealous and successful as a teacher. He published in 1835 ‘Outlines of Botany,’ in 2 vols., written in too diffuse a style, having previously edited Stephenson and Churchill's ‘Medical Botany,’ in 3 vols. In 1835 he was elected professor of botany to the Apothecaries' Society, and gave a course of thirty lectures at their Chelsea garden; but it had scarcely ended when he died, worn out by multiplied literary, lecturing, and professional labours, on 27 July 1835. A large series of ‘Illustrations of Useful Plants employed in the Arts and Medicine,’ in 4 vols. 4to, beautifully drawn and coloured by his sister, M. A. Burnett, with text chiefly by Gilbert Burnett, was published (1840–9) after his death. Slight and delicate in person, with dark and sparkling eyes, Burnett was most vivacious and interesting in style, modest and prepossessing in manners, accurate and precise, yet endowed with exquisite sensibility, and enthusiastic for his science.
Besides the above works, Burnett published two ‘King's College Introductory Lectures,’ 1832 (British Museum, King's College Lectures), and numerous papers in the ‘Journal of the Royal Institution’ and ‘Quarterly Journal of Science,’ 1828–30.
[Annual Biography and Obituary (1836), 264–75.]
G. T. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burnett, John (1764?-1810)

​BURNETT, JOHN (1764?–1810), Scotch lawyer, was the son of William Burnett, procurator-at-law in Aberdeen, where he was born about 1764. He was admitted advocate at Edinburgh on 10 Dec. 1785. In 1792 he was appointed advocate-depute, and in October 1803 sheriff of Haddingtonshire. In April 1810 he became judge-admiral of Scotland. He was also for some time counsel for the city of Aberdeen. He died on 8 Dec. 1810, while his work on the ‘Criminal Law of Scotland’ was passing through the press. It was published in 1811. Though in certain respects imperfect and misleading, it is a work of great merit, the more especially that it is one of the earliest attempts to form a satisfactory collection of decisions in criminal cases.
T. F. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burnett, John (1729-1784)

​BURNETT, JOHN (1729–1784), founder of the Burnett prize, was the son of an Aberdeen merchant, who belonged to the episcopal church. Burnett was born in 1729, entered business in 1750, his father having failed shortly before, and made a competence. He was concerned in stocking-weaving and salmon-fishing. He and his brother paid off their father's debts, amounting to 7,000l. or 8,000l. Burnett was ‘hard at a bargain,’ but returned any profits which exceeded his expectations. He gave up attending public worship, lest he should be committed to the creed of a church, but gave religious instruction to his servants. He was influenced by the example of Howard, the philanthropist, whom he probably met in 1776 in Scotland, and took an interest in various charitable movements. He died unmarried on 9 Nov. 1784. He directed that part of his estate should be applied for the benefit of the poor of Aberdeen and the neighbourhood, and part to a fund for inoculation (the last was afterwards applied to vaccination). The remaining income was to accumulate for a period, and then to be given as a first and second prize for essays in proof of the existence of a supreme Creator, upon grounds both of reason and revelation. In 1815 the first prize was won by William Laurence Brown [q. v.] and the second by John Bird Sumner, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. In 1855 the first prize (1,800l.) was won by the Rev. Robert A. Thomson, and the second by John Tulloch, afterwards principal of St. Andrews. The funds have since been applied to the support of a lectureship on some branch of science, history, or archæology treated in illustration of natural theology. The first lectures under the new scheme were delivered at Aberdeen by Professor Stokes of Cambridge in November 1883.
[Memoir by W. L. Brown prefixed to Essay on the Existence of a Supreme Creator, being the first Burnett prize essay; Aberdeen Free Press, 6 Nov. 1883.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Camm, John

​CAMM, JOHN (1604?–1656), quaker, was born at Camsgill, near Kendal, Westmoreland, and was a man of good birth, tolerable education, and considerable property. When comparatively young he left the national church and established a small religious society. About 1652, after hearing George Fox preach at Kendal, he embraced quakerism. He speedily became a preacher, although, according to Thomas Camm's ‘Testimony,’ it involved the renunciation of brilliant prospects. In 1654 he and Francis Howgill visited London, where he attempted to found a quaker society. The principal object of their journey, however, was to ‘declare the message of the Lord to Oliver Cromwell, then called Protector,’ in favour of toleration. They were received very courteously, but Cromwell, supposing them to require the assistance of the law, gave them no encouragement. An interesting letter which Camm wrote to undeceive the Protector is still extant. After revisiting the north Camm spent a considerable time in London, and in 1654, in company with John Audland, visited Bristol. It is said that they were favourably received by the inhabitants until the clergy incited a mob to illtreat them and the magistrates to issue a warrant for their apprehension. Nothing further is known of Camm till 1656, when a letter records that he was residing at Preston Patrick, near Kendal. During the same year he again visited Bristol. He was a man of weakly constitution, and he is said to have been usually obliged to take his son Thomas [q. v.] to wait on him. His bodily ailments rapidly increased, and, according to the register preserved at Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, he died of consumption at the end of this year (1656). Thomas Camm, in his ‘Testimony,’ written in 1680, says he died in 1665, and the same date is given in Whiting's ‘Catalogue.’ Camm was an untiring minister, and an amiable, simple-minded man. Although his literary ability was small and his style clumsy and obscure, his works were highly esteemed.
Camm's most important works are: 1. ‘This is the Word of the Lord which John Camm and Francis Howgill was moved to declare and write to Oliver Cromwell, who is named Lord Protector, shewing the cause why they came to speak with him, …’ 1654. 2. ‘A True Discovery of the Ignorance, Blindness, and Darkness of … Magistrates, …’ J. C. attributed to Camm, 1654. 3. ‘Some Particulars concerning the Law sent to Oliver Cromwell, …’ 1654 (reprinted 1655). 4. ‘The Memory of the Righteous revived, being a brief collection of the Books and Written Epistles of John Camm and John Audland, …’ 1689.
[Brief Lives of Camm are to be found in Tuke's Biog. Notices of Friends, and in the Friends' Library, Philadelphia, 1841; the foundation for both is Thomas Camm's Testimony, 1680. A full description of his writings is given in Smith's Catalogue of Friends' Books, i. 376; see also Sewel's History of the Rise, &c., of the Society of Friends.]
A. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Camm, Thomas

​CAMM, THOMAS (1641–1707), quaker, was born at Camsgill, Westmoreland, in 1641, and was the son of John Camm [q. v.] As both his parents were quakers, he was educated in their faith, and when very young became one of its ministers. In 1674 he was sued by John Ormrod, vicar of Burton, near Kendal, for small tithes, and in default of payment was imprisoned for three years. In 1678 a magistrate broke up a meeting of quakers held at Ackmonthwaite, committed several Friends to prison, and also seems to have fined them, for Camm, who had been the preacher at the meeting, lost nine head of cattle and fifty-five sheep. Shortly after this another distraint was made upon his property by warrant from the same justice. Somewhat later he was imprisoned for nearly six years in Appleby gaol, probably for some offence against the Conventicle Act. Camm did much to prevent the growth of the schisms to which quakerism at that time was liable. He continued his preaching expeditions till he was advanced in years, died after a short illness in 1707, and was buried in the Friends' burial-ground at Park End, near Camsgill.
Camm wrote considerably, and his works were fairly popular among the early Friends, but they are now utterly forgotten; a full list is given in Joseph Smith's ‘ Catalogue of Friends' Books.’ The most important are: 1. ‘The Line of Truth and True Judgement stretched over the heads of Falsehood and Deceit …’ 1684. 2. ‘The Admirable and Glorious Appearance of the Eternal God, ​…’ 1684. 3. ‘Thomas Camm's Testimony concerning John Camm and John Audland,’ 1689. 4. ‘A Testimony to the fulfilling the Promise of God relating to … prophetesses, …’ 1689. 5. ‘An Old Apostate justly exposed,’ 1698. 6. ‘Truth prevailing against Reason, …’ 1706. 7. ‘A Lying Tongue reproved, …’ 1708.
[A short account of Thomas Camm is given in the Friends' Library, vol. i. (Philadelphia, 1841); see also Swarthmore MSS., Besse's Sufferings.]
A. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Campbell, Alexander (d.1608)

​CAMPBELL, ALEXANDER (d. 1608), bishop of Brechin, son of Campbell of Ardkinglass, Argyllshire, received through the recommendation of his kinsman, the Earl of Argyll, while still a boy, a grant from Mary Queen of Scots of the see of Brechin, of which he was the first protestant bishop. He was endowed with all the patronage formerly belonging to the bishops of Brechin (Reg. Priv. Sig.) The boy bishop was never consecrated, nor did he attempt to exercise any episcopal functions. According to Keith (Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, 1755, p. 98) the only use he made of his position was to alienate the greater part of the lands and tithes belonging to the see in favour of the Earl of Argyll, leaving barely sufficient for the support of a minister for the city of Brechin. This alienation was confirmed by parliament. In May 1567 he obtained a license from the queen to leave the realm for seven years, but his name appears on the list of those who personally attended the convention of Perth in 1569. In the ‘Book of Assumption’ the bishop is mentioned as being at the schools at Geneva in January 1573–4 (Keith, History, &c., p. 507, and App. p. 181). After his return to Scotland in the following July he for some time exercised the office of particular pastor at Brechin, retaining the title of bishop, but without exercising any episcopal authority. In 1574 he complained to the general assembly that the Bishop of Dunkeld had alleged that he had been compelled by the Earl of Argyll ‘to give out pensions,’ which he considered a slander. He was also present at the general assemblies of 1575 and 1576. In 1580 he and several other bishops were summoned to appear before the next general assembly to answer charges of having alienated the lands of their benefices, and in 1582 Campbell was directed by the general assembly to appear before the presbytery of Dundee to account for various negligences in the performance of the duties of his office. The process against him was duly produced to the general assembly in 1583, but there is no record of any further steps having been taken. He continued to ​sit in parliament on the spiritual side until his death, which took place in 1608. Keith gives the date as 1606, but the records of the Edinburgh Commissary Court (quoted by M'Crie) refer his death to February 1608. The deed appointing him to the bishopric of Brechin is printed in the ‘Registrum Episcopatus de Brechin’ (Bannatyne Club).
[Anderson’s Scottish Nation, p. 369; Registrum Episcopatus de Brechin (Bannatyne Club), 1850; Keith’s Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, 1824; Acts of the General Assembly, &c. mdlx.-mdcxviii. (Bannatyne Club); M‘Crie's Life of Andrew Melville; Stephens’s History of the Church of Scotland, 1843, i. 157.]
A. C. B.
# Description of Greece (Jones)

* Book I
* Book II
* Book III
* Book IV
* Book V
* Book VI
* Book VII
* Book VIII
* Book IX
* Book X
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Copland, William

​COPLAND, WILLIAM (fl. 1556–1569), printer, is believed by Dibdin (Typogr. Antiq. iv. 127) to have been the younger brother of Robert Copland [q. v.] He worked in his office until the death of the latter, and continued as printer in the same house. An original member of the Stationers' Company, he was named in the charter of 1556 (Arber, Transcript, i. xxviii). The first book for which he is recorded to have had license was an edition of Isocrates' ‘Admonition to Demonicus,’ in 1557 (ib. i. 79), but it does not seem ever to have been printed. The earliest dated volume bearing his imprint is ‘The Understandinge of the Lordes Supper. … Jmprinted at London, in Fletestrete, at y$^e$ signe of the Rose Garland,’ in 1548. In 1561 he was in Thames Street, ‘in the Vyntre upon the Three Craned Warfe,’ and at one time had an office in Lothbury, ‘over against Sainct Margarytes church.’ Among the noteworthy books issued from his press were ‘The xiii bukes of Eneados’ (1553, 4to), ‘The foure Sonnes of Aimon’ (1554, folio), ‘Kynge Arthur’ (1557), folio, and the following without a date: ‘Syr Isenbras,’ 4to, ‘Howleglas’ (three editions), 4to, ‘The Knyght of the Swanne,’ 4to, ‘Jyl of Breyntford's Testament’ (two editions, 4to), Borde's ‘Introduction of Knowledge,’ 4to, ‘Valentyne and Orson,’ 4to, and other popular romances. Dibdin knew of no book printed by Copland after 1561, although ‘A Dyaloge between ij Beggers’ is registered for him between 1567 and 1568 (Transcript, i. 355).
He compiled ‘A boke of the Properties of Herbes,’ 1552, 4to, issued from his own press. Both Robert and William Copland used the same kind of worn and inferior types, and their workmanship shows little of the beauty that marks the productions of Wynkyn de Worde, but the memory of William deserves respect as one who printed many interesting specimens of popular English literature, all of which are now extremely rare. The titles of many of them are in the list of Captain Cox's library, and it is extremely likely that Copland's actual editions were those in that famous collector's cabinet. William Copland died between July 1568 and July 1569 (Ames, Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), i. 353). The fact that the Stationers' Company ‘Payd for the buryall of Coplande vjs’ must not be considered to mean that they were called upon to bear his funeral expenses, but rather that the company had in some way honoured the last ceremonies of a benefactor and original member.
[Besides the authorities mentioned above see Collier's Bibliographical Account, i. 11, 153; Catalogue of Books in the British Museum, printed to 1640, 1884, 3 vols. 8vo; Captain Cox, his Ballads and Books, ed. by F. J. Furnivall (Ballad Soc.), 1871.]
H. R. T.