OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hunt, Frederick Knight

​HUNT, FREDERICK KNIGHT (1814–1854), journalist and author, was born in Buckinghamshire in 1814. His family appear to have been in narrow circumstances. At the time of his father's death about 1830 Hunt was a night-boy in a printer's office. To support his family, which he continued to do more or less until his death, he procured a diurnal engagement as clerk to a barrister. His employer, fortunately for him, had but little practice; and Hunt, who for years together never enjoyed a continuous night's rest more than once a week, filled up his time with study instead of sleep. His master, struck with his industry and attainments, introduced him to a connection with a morning newspaper. While labouring on the press, the indefatigable Hunt found time to study medicine, and combined both professions in the establishment in 1839 of the 'Medical Times,' which was incorporated in January 1852 with the 'Medical Gazette,' and successfully continued as the `Medical Times and Gazette' until 1885. Little profit nevertheless accrued to the projector, who, becoming temporarily embarrassed from the misconduct of a relative, was obliged to part with the property and accept the situation of surgeon to a poor-law union in Norfolk. He returned to London after a year, and, while continuing to practise medicine, resumed his connection with the press. He was successively sub-editor of the 'Illustrated London News' and editor of the 'Pictorial Times,' and upon the establishment of the 'Daily News' in 1846, was selected by Dickens as one of the assistant editors. In 1851 he was made chief editor, and under him the paper first became prosperous. Hunt died of typhus fever 18 Nov. 1854. He is described as an amiable, sanguine, impulsive man, disposed to busy himself with too many projects, and to diffuse his energies over too wide a field, but possessed of sound literary judgment, as well as of extraordinary energy and power of work. He was the author of a book on the Rhine, published in 1845, and of other ephemeral publications, but his literary reputation rests entirely on 'The Fourth Estate: Contributions towards a History of Newspapers and of the Liberty of the Press,' 1850, which will in some respects never be superseded. It is far from being a complete history of the English press, but contains a great number of interesting particulars respecting its development, especially of the various legislative impediments with which it has had to contend; and the chapters on the economy of newspaper offices in the writer's own day, though now entirely out of date, are most interesting and valuable for that very reason.
[Athenæum, 25 Nov. 1854; Daily News, 20 Nov.]
R. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hunt, John (1806-1842)

​HUNT, JOHN (1806–1842), organist and composer, born on 30 Dec. 1806 at Marnhull in Dorsetshire, entered the choir of Salisbury ​Cathedral at the age of seven, Arthur Thomas Corfe [q. v.] being then organist. Subsequently he was educated at the Salisbury grammar school, where he remained till 1827. During the last five years of this period he was articled to Corfe [q. v.], and received from him valuable instruction in music. When he left the grammar school, his fine voice gained him an appointment as lay vicar in the Lichfield cathedral choir, which he held till the autumn of 1835, resigning it on 10 Nov. of the same year, when he was elected to succeed Samuel Wesley (1766-1837)[q.v.] as organist to Hereford Cathedral. He remained at Hereford until his death in 1842. A collection of his songs was published in 1843.
R. F. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hunt, Arabella

​HUNT, ARABELLA (d. 1705), vocalist and lutenist, was celebrated for her beauty and talents. The Princess Anne had lessons from her, and Queen Mary found her some employment in the royal household in order to enjoy her singing. Hawkins tells with great detail (History, iii. 564) how the queen, after listening to some of Purcell's music performed by Mrs. Hunt, Gostling, and the composer, abruptly asked the lady to sing an old Scottish ditty. Mrs. Hunt's voice was said by a contemporary to be like the pipe of a bullfinch; she also was credited with an `exquisite hand on the lute.' She was admired and respected by the best wits of the time; Blow and Purcell wrote difficult music for her; John Hughes [q.v.], the poet, was her friend; Congreve wrote a long irregular ode on `Mrs. Arabella Hunt singing,' and after her death penned an epigram under a portrait of her sitting on a bank singing. The painting was by Kneller. There are mezzotints by Smith (1706) and Grignion; and Hawkins gives a vignette in his 'History' (iii. 761). Mrs. Hunt died 26 Dec. 1705. In her will, proved 6 Feb. 1706, she is described as of the parish of St. Martin-inthe-Fields. She left her property to her 'dear mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Hunt.'
[Noble's Continuation of Granger, i. 351; Registers P. C. C. Edes, f.40; authorities cited.]
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hunt, George Ward

​HUNT, GEORGE WARD (1825–1877), politician, eldest son of the Rev. George Hunt of Winkfield, Berkshire, and Wadenhoe, Northamptonshire, by Emma, youngest daughter of Samuel Gardiner of Coombe Lodge, Oxfordshire, was born at Buckhurst, Berkshire, on 30 July 1825, and educated at Eton from 1841 to 1844. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 31 May 1844, was a student from 1846 to 1857, graduated B.A. in 1848, and M.A. in 1851, and was created D.C.L. on 21 June 1870. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple ​on 21 Nov. 1851, and went the Oxford circuit. On 23 May 1873 he was made a bencher of his inn. Preferring politics to legal studies, he unsuccessfully contested Northampton in 1852 and in 1857 as a conservative, and at last entered parliament on 16 Dec. 1857 as one of the members for the northern division of Northamptonshire, which he represented for twenty years continuously. He acted as financial secretary to the treasury under Lord Derby from July 1866 to February 1868, and when Mr. Disraeli became premier, 29 Feb., he succeeded to the office of chancellor of the exchequer, but he retired with his party in December. He was elected chairman of quarter sessions for Northamptonshire in April 1866, chairman of the Northampton chamber of agriculture 18 Jan. 1873, and was sworn a privy councillor 29 Feb. 1868. On the return of the conservatives to power he was appointed first lord of the admiralty, 21 Feb. 1874. He had some knowledge of naval administration, but was better versed in subjects relating to county management and agriculture. In 1866 he introduced a bill dealing with the cattle plague, and in 1875 helped to conduct the Agricultural Holdings Bill through the House of Commons. In the session of 1877, although very ill, he was in his place to take part in the discussion on the navy votes, and one of the most spirited speeches that he made was in answer to Mr. Charles Seely and other critics on 6 March. At Whitsuntide, under medical advice, he went to Homburg, where he died of gout on 29 July 1877, and was buried privately in the English cemetery there on the following morning. As chancellor of the exchequer he showed financial aptitude, but his administration of the admiralty was signalised by a melancholy series of disasters. It is probable that the misfortunes connected with his department hastened his death. He married, 5 Dec. 1857, Alice, third daughter of Robert Eden [q.v.], bishop of Moray and Ross, by whom he had a family.
[Cornelius Brown's Life of Earl of Beaconsfield, 1882, ii. 93; Times, 30 July 1877, p. 9, cols. 1 and 6, 31 July p. 3, 1 Aug. p. 9; Law Times, 4 Aug. 1877, p. 254; Illustrated London News, 21 March 1868, p. 280, with portrait, 18 April 1874, pp. 365-6, with portrait, 4 Aug. 1877, p. 119, and 11 Aug. p. 140, with portrait; Graphic, 4 Aug. 1877, pp. 99*, 113, with portrait.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hunt, John (1550?-1615)

​HUNT, Sir JOHN (1550?–1615), politician, was second son of John Hunt, esq., of Lyndon in Rutlandshire, and of the ancient family of the Le Hunts (Wright, Rutland, pp. 82-3). His mother was Amy, daughter of Sir Thomas Cave of Stanford, Northamptonshire. He was born at Morcott in Rutlandshire, whence he was sent to Eton, and afterwards to King's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted a scholar 27 Aug. 1565, but left the university without taking a degree. In the parliament which met 2 April 1571 he took his seat as member for Sudbury. He settled during the latter part of his life at Newton in Leicestershire. Although a man of some ability and attainments, he appears to have led a somewhat profligate life, and in July 1611 the Countess of Oxford caused articles to be drawn up against him on account of the evil influence that he exercised over her son, Henry de Vere, eighteenth earl, a youth of eighteen, the companion of Prince Henry. She entreated the interference of the Earls of Salisbury and Northampton. The charge does not seem to have lost him the royal favour, for in the same year (10 Nov.) he was knighted at Whitehall by James. A nephew, William Le Hunt of Gray's Inn, was called to the degree of Serjeant of law in Trinity term 1688. Sir John was author of:
* Latin epigrams in collection presented by the scholars of Eton to Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, 1563.
* Latin verses in commendation of Anne, countess of Oxford, 1588, Lansdowne MS. civ. art. 78.
[State Papers, James I, vol. lxv. No. 49; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 349; Nichols's Progresses, James I, ii. 432; Wright's Rutland, pp. 82-3.]
J. B. M.
# Under Two Skies/End matter

THE
WAVERLEY NOVELS. AUTHOR'S EDITIONS.
COMPLETE SETS.
4. Price £2 : 10s. Two Shilling Edition, printed from the plates of the Centenary Edition, Illustrated with Frontispieces and Vignettes. 25 vols., crown 8vo, cloth.
7. Price £6. Roxburghe Edition, Illustrated with 1600 Woodcuts and 96 Steel Plates, in 48 vols. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, paper label ; or in half French morocco, price £8 : 8s.
ADAM & CHARLES BLACK, LONDON AND EDINBURGH
THE COLLECTED WRITINGS
OF
THOMAS DE QUINCEY,
“THE ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER.” {NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION}
Edited by DAVID MASSON, M.A., LL.D.,
PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
With Portraits and other Illustrations.
“Professor Masson's edition is the model of what an edition should be.”—Athenæum.
THE
COMPLETE WORKS
OF
EDGAR ALLAN POE,
Edited by JOHN H. INGRAM.
With Memoir, Portrait,and other Illustrations.
In Four Volumes, Crown 8vo, Cloth, price 14s. Or in separate Volumes, price 3s. 6d. each.
| Vol. I. | Tales Grotesque. |
| II. | Tales Arabesque. |
| III. | Poems And Essays. |
| IV. | Autography And Criticisms. |
ADAM & CHARLES BLACK, LONDON AND EDINBURGH.
# United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/5th Congress/3rd Session/Chapter 47

Chap. XLVII.—An Act authorizing the President of the United States to fill certain vacancies in the Army and Navy.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States shall be, and he is hereby authorized to make appointments to fill any vacancies in the army and navy which may have happened during the present session of the Senate.
Approved, March 3, 1799.
# United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/5th Congress/3rd Session/Chapter 9

Chap. Ⅸ.—An Act appropriating a certain sum of money to defray the expense of holding a Treaty or Treaties with the Indians.
Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a sum not exceeding twenty-five thousand dollars, be appropriated to defray the expense of such treaty or treaties as the President of the United States shall deem expedient to hold with the Indians: Provided, nothing in this act contained shall be construed to admit an obligation on the part of the United States to extinguish, for the benefit of any state or individual citizen, Indian claims to any lands lying within the limits of the United States; and that the compensation to be allowed to any of the commissioners appointed, or who may be appointed for negotiating such treaty or treaties, shall not exceed, exclusive of travelling expenses, the rate of eight dollars per day, during the time of actual service of such commissioner.
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the sum aforesaid shall be paid out of any monies in the treasury of the United States, not otherwise appropriated.
Approved, February 19, 1799.
# United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/5th Congress/3rd Session/Chapter 6

Chap. Ⅵ.—An Act to authorize the reimbursement of monies expended in rendering aid to sick and destitute American Seamen, in foreign countries.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of State be, and hereby is authorized, under the direction of the President of the United States, to reimburse such reasonable advances of money, as have been made, or, during the present year, may be made, by the consuls of the United States, in affording relief to sick and destitute American seamen, in foreign countries, or in aiding them to return to their homes, beyond the sum allowed by law for that purpose.
Approved, February 19, 1799.
# United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/5th Congress/3rd Session/Chapter 45

Chap. XLV.—An Act vesting the power of retaliation, in certain cases, in the President of the United States.
Act of March 3, 1813, chap. 61.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That on information being given to the President of the United States, proving satisfactorily to him that any citizen of the United States, who shall have been or may be found on board any vessel of war of either of the powers at war with the French Republic, and who shall have been impressed or forced by violence or threats to enter on board such vessel, hath suffered death, or hath received other corporal punishment, or shall be imprisoned with unusual severity by order of the Executive Directory of the French Republic, or of any officer or agent acting under their authority in pursuance of any decree of the said Directory, or law of the French Republic; it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, and he is hereby empowered and required to cause the most rigorous retaliation to be executed on any such citizens of the French Republic, as have been or hereafter may be captured in pursuance of any of the laws of the United States.
Approved, March 3, 1799.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Littleton, Edward (d.1733)

​LITTLETON, EDWARD, LL.D. (d. 1733), divine and poet, was educated upon the royal foundation at Eton under Dr. Snape. In 1716 he was elected to a scholarship at King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1720, M.A. in 1724, and LL.D. comitiis regiis in 1728 (Graduati Cantabr. 1823, p. 295). While an undergraduate he composed a humorous poem entitled ‘A Letter from Cambridge to Master Henry Archer, a young gentleman at Eton School.’ This and his more celebrated poem ‘On a Spider’ are correctly printed in Dodsley's ‘Collection of Poems,’ edited by Isaac Reed (1782, vi. 316, 324). He also wrote a pastoral elegy on the death of Ralph Banks, a scholar of King's College, but only a few fragments have been preserved. In 1720 Littleton was appointed an assistant-master at Eton. In 1726 he was elected a fellow of the college, and presented to the vicarage of Mapledurham, Oxfordshire. On 30 Jan. 1730 he preached a sermon before the House of Commons at St. Margaret's, Westminster, and on 9 June 1730 was appointed one of the king's chaplains. He died on 16 Nov. 1733, and was buried in his church at Mapledurhan. He married Frances, daughter of Barnham Goode, under-master of Eton. Her second husband was Dr. John Burton (1696–1771) [q. v.], Littleton's successor in the living at Mapledurham.
Two volumes of his ‘Sermons upon several Practical Subjects,’ dedicated to the Queen Caroline, were published by subscription in 1735, 8vo, for the benefit of his widow and his three children. A third edition, with a memoir of the author by Dr. Thomas Morell [q. v.], appeared in 1749, 12mo.
[Memoir by Dr. Thomas Morell; Harwood's Alumni Eton. pp. 86, 296; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. vii. 424, xx. 328, xxii. 386; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iv. 602, 730, v. 711; Darling's Cycl. Bibliographica.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Littleton, Edward (fl.1694)

​LITTLETON, EDWARD (fl. 1694), agent for the island of Barbadoes, born in 1626, was son of Sir Adam Littleton, bart., of Stoke St. Milborough, Shropshire, by Ethelreda, daughter and coheiress of Thomas Poyntz of North Ockendon, Essex. After attending Westminster School he became a commoner of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, in 1641, graduated B.A. in 1644, and in 1647 was elected fellow of All Souls. Having submitted to the authority of the parliamentary ​visitors, he proceeded M.A. in 1648, and in 1656 was chosen senior proctor of the university (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 70, 108, 192). He incorporated at Cambridge in 1657. About 1664 he left Oxford, on being called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. In 1666 he went to Barbadoes as secretary to William, lord Willoughby of Parham, and the king's attorney for that island. Three years later he married a wealthy lady there, and by 1673 owned six hundred acres (Cal. State Papers, America, 1669–74, p. 497). In November 1672 he was placed on a committee to consider and report on the acts of the country (ib. p. 433), and in 1674 was twice elected to a seat in the assembly for St. James's parish (ib. pp. 546, 626). He acted as judge in the island from 1670 till 1683, and returned to London, where he filled the office of agent for Barbadoes.
Littleton wrote: 1. ‘De Juventute oratio,’ 4to, London, 1664 (another edit. 1689), delivered when he was rhetoric reader of the university. 2. ‘The Groans of the Plantations; or a true Account of their … Sufferings by the heavy Impositions upon Sugar and other Hardships,’ &c., 4to, London, 1689. 3. ‘Observations upon the Warre of Hungary,’ 4to, London, 1689. 4. ‘The Management of the Present War against France consider'd,’ 4to, London, 1690. 5. ‘The true Causes of the Scarcity of Money, with the proper Remedies for it,’ 4to, London, 1690 (reprinted in 1692). 6. ‘A Project of a Descent upon France,’ 4to, London, 1691. 7. ‘A Proposal of some ways for raising of Money,’ 4to, London, 1691. 8. ‘A Proposal for Maintaining and Repairing the Highways,’ 4to, London, 1692. 9. ‘The Descent upon France further recommended,’ 4to, London, 1694. Several of his tracts were published anonymously.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 574–5; Reg. of Visitors of Univ. of Oxf. (Camd. Soc.)]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Littleton, Henry

​LITTLETON, HENRY (1823–1888), music publisher, a direct descendant of the Littletons who settled in Cornwall in the fourteenth century, was the son of James and Elizabeth Littleton, and was born in London on 7 Jan. 1823. In 1841 he entered the music-publishing house of Novello in a subordinate position, in 1846 became manager, in 1861 a partner, and in 1866 sole proprietor. He had great business capacity, and many of the transactions which gained the firm a name for enterprise were due to him. The development of the English taste for choral music during the last forty years may be said to have been created by the cheap publications of the house of Novello, the idea of which, though due to J. Alfred Novello, was entirely carried out by the energy of Littleton. He brought forward many well-known composers, and in some cases bore the cost of their education. It was partly on his invitation that Liszt came to England, after an absence of nearly fifty years, in 1886, when Liszt was his guest at Westwood House, Sydenham (Musical Times, May 1886). When he retired in 1887, Littleton left the largest business of the kind in the world. He died 11 May 1888, and was buried at Lee, Kent. His portrait is published in ‘A Short History of Cheap Music,’ 1887, in which his business career is sketched.
[Short History of Cheap Music, as above; Musical Times, June 1884; private information from Alfred H. Littleton, esq.]
J. C. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ley, Hugh

​LEY, HUGH, M.D. (1790–1837), physician, was born in 1790 at Abingdon, Berkshire, where his father, Hugh Ley (1762–1826), was for a time a medical practitioner, afterwards settling at St. Ives, Cornwall. ​Hugh was educated at Dr. Lempriere's [q. v.] school in his native town; subsequently became a student of the then united medical schools of St. Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals in Southwark, and took the diploma of the College of Surgeons. He then studied at Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. 24 June 1813. His graduation thesis was on the pathology of phthisis. On 30 Sept. 1818 he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London, and began practice in London as a man midwife. He was elected physician to the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, and soon afterwards became lecturer on midwifery at the Middlesex Hospital. On 20 April 1835 he accepted the unanimous invitation of the staff of St. Bartholomew's Hospital to deliver the lectures on midwifery in their school. His course was the first delivered in the summer, it having before been the general custom of the medical schools of London to have no regular classes except in the winter. In 1836 he published ‘An Essay on Laryngismus Stridulus, or Crouplike Inspiration of Infants,’ a volume of 480 pages. The first accurate clinical description of the disease in England is contained in the ‘Commentaries on the Diseases of Children’ (1815) of Dr. John Clarke (pt. i. p. 86), but Ley's is the first book containing a full pathological discussion of the malady. He endeavours to prove that the spasm of the larynx, which is its characteristic symptom, is caused by the pressure of enlarged lymphatic glands on the recurrent laryngeal nerve. Subsequent experience has shown that in many cases no enlarged glands are present, and the fact that the book records numerous deaths from the disease shows that its author had confused cases of tubercular meningitis with those of laryngismus stridulus, a disorder now known to be rarely, if ever, fatal. The book shows much industry, but is too long and not clear. His thesis, printed at Edinburgh in 1813, is his only other publication. He lived in Half-Moon Street, London, but died, from heart disease, at Stilton, Huntingdonshire, 24 Jan. 1837.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 192; private manuscript memorandum-book belonging to the medical officers of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, September 1834; Lancet, January 1837; J. Earle's Address to Medico-Chirurgical Society, 28 Feb. 1837; Ley's Works.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Leybourn, Thomas

​LEYBOURN, THOMAS (1770–1840), mathematician, born 9 April 1770, edited the ‘Mathematical Repository’ from 1799 to 1835. In 1802 he published ‘A Synopsis of Data for the Construction of Triangles,’ and in 1817 ‘A Collection of Solutions of the Mathematical Questions proposed in the “Ladies' Diary” from its commencement to 1816.’ He was appointed in 1802 a teacher of mathematics in the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and retired on a pension from the office of senior professor of mathematics in December 1839, after nearly forty years' service. He died at Sandhurst on 1 March 1840.
[Gent. Mag. 1840, pt. i. p. 442; Registers of Royal Military College.]
C. P.