OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Johnstone, James (d.1798)

​JOHNSTONE, JAMES (d. 1798), Scandinavian antiquary, was a master of arts, though of what university is not stated, and a clergyman of the established church. For several years he was chaplain to the English envoy extraordinary in Denmark. Afterwards he became rector of Magheracross, cos. Tyrone and Fermanagh, Ireland, and seems to have been appointed prebendary of Clogher in 1794 (Cotton, Fasti Eccl. Hib. iii. 101). He died in 1798, and his library was sold by auction in 1810.
His works are: 1. ‘Anecdotes of Olave the Black, King of Man, and the Hebridian Princes of the Somerled Family. To which are added Eighteen Eulogies on Haco, King of Norway; by Snorro Sturlson, poet to that Monarch: now first published in the original Islandic, from the Flateyan and other Manuscripts; with a literal Version and Notes,’ [Copenhagen], 1780, 8vo. 2. ‘Lodbrokar-Quida; or, the Death-Song of Lodbrok: now first correctly printed from various Manuscripts, with a free English Translation: to which are added the various Readings, a literal Latin Version, an Islando-Latino Glossary, and Explanatory Notes,’ London, 1782, 16mo; Copenhagen, 1813, 16mo. 3. ‘The Norwegian Account of Haco's Expedition against Scotland in 1263. In the original Islandic, from the Flateyan and Frisian MS.; with a literal English Version and Notes,’ Copenhagen, 1782, 4to; reprinted, Edinburgh, 1882, 8vo. 4. ‘Antiquitates Celto-Scandicæ, sive Series Rerum Gestarum inter Nationes Britannicarum Insularum et Gentes Septentrionales,’ 1784, 4to. 5. ‘The Robbing of the Nunnery, or the Abbess outwitted. A Danish Ballad, translated into English in the style of the Sixteenth Century,’ Copenhagen, 1786, 24mo: printed as a compliment to Louisa Augusta, daughter of Frederick VI of Denmark, on her marriage with the Duke of Holstein-Augustenberg. 6. ‘Antiquitates Celto-Normannicæ; containing the Chronicle of Man and the Isles, abridged by Camden, and now first published complete from the original MS. in the British Museum; with an English Translation and Notes,’ Copenhagen, 1786, 4to. This work was attacked by Richard Gough in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for December 1786, p. 1061, and defended in the same periodical for July 1787, p. 565.
[Cat. of Five Hundred Living Authors; Literary Memoirs, i. 321; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), p. 1223; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. vi. 504, vii. 157, 751; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. iii. 107; Pinkerton's Literary Correspondence, i. 118; Reuss's Register of Authors, 1791; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rattee, James

​RATTEE, JAMES (1820–1855), wood-carver, was born at Funden Hall, Norfolk, in 1820, and apprenticed to a carpenter and joiner of Norwich, named Ollett. In his leisure he frequented the cathedral and other churches in the city and its neighbourhood, and grew interested in ecclesiastical art. At his request his master taught him carving, and he rapidly showed unusual skill and ability. In 1842 he left Norwich and commenced business as a wood-carver in Sidney Street, Cambridge. The Cambridge Camden Society soon discovered his talent, and took him into their service. From Archdeacon Thorp, Dr. Mill, F. A. Paley, and other members of the society, he received much assistance and patronage, and soon erected extensive workshops, plant, and steam power, on the Hills Road, Cambridge. He was associated with Augustus Welby Pugin [q. v.] in restoring the choir of Jesus College chapel; the designs were made principally by Rattee, and submitted to Pugin before execution. In the choir of Ely Cathedral he carried out the designs of George (afterwards Sir George) Gilbert Scott [q. v.], and the oak screen, stalls, organ-case, and restored tomb of Bishop William de Luda or Louth (d. 1298) were exquisitely wrought. In 1852, when he travelled abroad for his health, he studied the works of Quentin Matsys and other artists. On his return the dean and chapter of Ely entrusted him with the construction of the reredos. This was composed of choice stone and alabaster, enriched with carving and inlaid with gold and gems; it is one of the finest specimens of ecclesiastical art executed in England since the Reformation.
Rattee's work is found in upwards of a thousand churches in all quarters of the world. The most attractive examples of it are in Newfoundland Cathedral; Westminster Abbey; Perth Cathedral; Merton College chapel, Oxford; St. Michael's and St. Sepulchre's, Cambridge; Eton College chapel; Magdalene College chapel, Cambridge; Trumpington church; Newton church; Westley Waterless and Comberton churches; Yeling church, Huntingdonshire; and Sundridge church, Kent. He died at his residence, Hills Road, Cambridge, on 29 March 1855, and was buried in the cemetery in Mill Road.
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Raven, John Samuel

​RAVEN, JOHN SAMUEL (1829–1877), landscape-painter, born on 21 Aug. 1829 at Preston, Lancashire, was a son of Thomas Raven, minister of Holy Trinity Church in that town, and himself a clever watercolour painter, examples of whose skill are in the South Kensington Museum. The son received no professional training, but formed his first style by studying the works of Crome and Constable, and from 1849 was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy and British Institution, chiefly of views in the vicinity of St. Leonards, where he resided until 1856. The ‘pre-Raphaelite’ movement strongly influenced Raven, producing a complete change in his aim and method, and his later works are characterised by great elaboration of detail, an original and striking scheme of colour, and strong poetic feeling. His best pictures of this class are ‘Midsummer, Moonlight, Dew Rising,’ 1866; ‘Lago Maggiore from Stresa,’ 1871; ‘Fresh fallen Snow on the Matterhorn,’ 1872; ‘The lesser Light to rule the Night,’ 1873; ‘Twilight in the Wood’ (engraved by C. Cousen for the ‘Art Journal,’ 1874); ‘The Heavens declare the Glory of God,’ 1875; and his last exhibited work, ‘Barff—Lord's Seat from the Slopes of Skiddaw,’ 1877. He was drowned while bathing at Harlech in North Wales, being seized with paralysis of the heart, on 13 June 1877. Raven worked chiefly in oils, but occasionally also in water-colours, and executed many fine studies in black and white. He married, in 1869, Margaret Sinclair Dunbar, now Mrs. William B. Morris. An exhibition of Raven's collected works was held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1878.
F. M. O'D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Raulston, John

​RAULSTON, JOHN (d. 1452), bishop of Dunkeld. [See Ralston.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ravenet, Simon François

​RAVENET, SIMON FRANÇOIS (1721?–1774), engraver, born in Paris about 1721 (or, according to other accounts, in 1706), studied engraving in the excellent school of Jacques-Philippe Le Bas, and engraved numerous pictures of importance after Titian, Paolo Veronese, D. Feti, Charles Coypel, A. Watteau, and others. Ravenet came to London about 1750, and was associated with F. Vivares, V. M. Picot, and other French engravers in founding an important school of line-engraving in London. In these engravings the ground outline was strongly etched, and then finished with the engraver. Ravenet was largely employed by Alderman John Boydell, for whom he engraved important plates after C. Cignani, Luca Giordano, Guido Reni, N. Poussin, Salvator Rosa, and others. He was associated with J. M. Delâtre in engraving Hogarth's ‘Good Samaritan,’ and with Picot in Hogarth's ‘Pool of Bethesda,’ both of which engravings were published in 1772. Ravenet was also largely employed in making designs for the porcelain manufactory at Chelsea. He engraved several portraits, including Lord Camden after Sir Joshua Reynolds, George II after D. Morier, and others. Ravenet died in London on 2 April 1774. A portrait of him, by Zoffany, was engraved by himself in 1763. He left a son, Simon François Ravenet the younger, born in London about 1755, who learnt engraving under his father, but returned to Paris, where he engraved many plates after Boucher, Correggio, and others.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rauzzini, Venanzio

Contains subarticle Matteo Rauzzini (1754–1791)
​RAUZZINI, VENANZIO (1747–1810), singer, musical composer, and teacher, was born in 1747 at Rome, where he studied music under a member of the papal choir. At the age of eighteen he made his operatic début at the Teatro della Valle in Rome, in a female part, women being at that time prohibited from acting on the Roman stage. In 1767 he appeared in Vienna, and subsequently was engaged for the elector of Bavaria's Italian opera at Munich, where he remained seven years, and produced four operas. He left owing to the discovery of an intrigue with a lady of the court (Kelly, Reminiscences, i. 10). Coming to England, he appeared in November 1774 in Corri's opera, ‘Alessandro nell' Indie.’ After three years' highly successful operatic career, Rauzzini retired in order to devote himself to teaching. In 1787 he produced his opera, ‘La Vestale,’ at the King's Theatre, London, but its total failure led him to quit London and settle in Bath, where he passed the remainder of his days, teaching and conducting concerts. He died in Bath, 8 April 1810, and was buried in the abbey church, Braham being a chief mourner. In 1811 Selina Storace and Braham erected a tablet to his memory in Bath Abbey.
Burney declares Rauzzini to have been an excellent musician, both as singer and ​composer. His voice (tenor) was sweet, clear, flexible, and extensive; he played the harpsichord neatly. His ‘taste, fancy, and delicacy, together with his beautiful person and spirited and intelligent manner of acting, gained him general approbation’ (cf. Burney, History, iv. 501, 527). Among his pupils were Braham and Incledon.
Rauzzini's operas were: ‘Piramo e Tisbe’ (1769), in which he took Piramo, ‘L'Ali d'Amore’ (1770), ‘L'Eroe cinese’ (1770), ‘Astarto’ (1772), all played at Munich; ‘La Regina di Golconda’ (1775), ‘Armida’ (1778), ‘Creusa in Delfo’ (1782), ‘La Vestale’ (1787), produced in London. Besides he wrote a pianoforte quartett, op. 1 (Offenbach, n.d.); string quartetts opp. 2, 5, 7 (London); sonatas for violin and pianoforte; a requiem mass; and Italian and English songs, arias, exercises, and solfeggi.
Matteo Rauzzini (1754–1791), brother of the foregoing, was also a singer. He was born in Rome in 1754, and came to England with Venanzio. He settled in Dublin as a professor of singing, and produced there an opera, ‘Il Re pastore,’ in 1784. He died in Dublin, 1791.
R. H. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rattray, Sylvester

1904 Errata appended.
​RATTRAY, SYLVESTER (fl. 1650–1666), medical writer, a native of Angus, was descended from Sir Sylvester Rattray, of Rattray Castle, Perthshire, who was in 1463 one of the ambassadors sent to London to treat with Edward IV, and exerted great influence at the Scottish court.
Sylvester may have been son of a later Sylvester Rattray who had two sons, David and Sylvester. The latter is said to have been ‘bred to the church.’ On the title-page of the second book mentioned below he is, however, credited with a theological degree as well as with that of M.D.
He was author of ‘Aditus novus ad occultas Sympathiæ et Antipathiæ causas inveniendas, per principia philosophiæ naturalis, ex fermentorum artificiosa anatomia hausta, patefactus’ (Glasgow, 1658), dedicated to Johannes Scotus. The ‘Aditus novus’ was reprinted in ‘Theatrum Sympatheticum variorum Authorum de Pulvere Sympathetico’ (Nuremberg, 1662). Rattray's second book, ‘Prognosis medica ad usum Praxeos facili methodo digesta,’ was dedicated to Dr. John Wedderburn (Glasgow, 1666).
In May 1652 Rattray married at Cupar, Fifeshire, ‘Ingells, King-gask's daughter’ (Lamont, Diary, 1810, p. 51).
He had a son Sylvester, a student of medicine at Glasgow in 1680.
G. Le G. N.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.231 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 312 | ii | 19 | Rattray, Sylvester: for But the latter read The latter |
| | | 20-23 | omit whereas the Sylvester . . . . in Glasgow. |
| | | 18 f.e. | after p. 51). insert He had a son, Sylvester, a student of medicine at Glasgow in 1680. |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rolt, John

​ROLT, Sir JOHN (1804–1871), judge, second son of James Rolt, merchant, of Calcutta, by Anne Braine, daughter of Richard Hiorns, yeoman, of Fairford, Gloucestershire, and widow of Samuel Brunsdon, of the baptist mission at Serampore, was born at Calcutta on 5 Oct. 1804. Brought to England by his mother about ​1810, he was educated at dissenting private schools at Chipping Norton and Islington. His father died in 1813, and his mother in the following year; and about Christmas 1818 Rolt was apprenticed to a London firm of woollendrapers. Though his hours were long, he managed, by early rising and reading as he walked, to repair in a measure the defects of his education. On the expiration of his indentures in 1822–1823, he found employment in a Manchester warehouse in Newgate Street, which he exchanged in 1827 for a clerkship in a proctor's office at Doctors' Common. His next step was to obtain two secretaryships—one to a school for orphans, the other to the protestant dissenters' school at Mill Hill. Meanwhile he pursued his studies, and entered in 1833 the Inner Temple, where he was called to the bar on 9 June 1837. Confining himself to the court of chancery, he rapidly acquired an extensive practice, and took silk in Trinity vacation 1846. After some unsuccessful attempts to enter parliament, he was returned in the conservative interest for the western division of Gloucestershire, 31 March 1857, and for ten years continued to represent the same constituency. In 1862 he carried through the House of Commons the measure commonly known as Rolt's Act (25 and 26 Vict. c. 42), by which an important step was taken towards the fusion of law and equity. In 1866 he succeeded Sir Hugh Cairns as attorney-general, 29 Oct., and was knighted on 10 Nov.
In parliament Rolt made no great figure, but he voted steadily with his party, and did the drudgery connected with the carriage of the Reform Bill of 1867. On 18 July of that year he succeeded Sir George James Turner [q. v.] as lord justice of appeal, and on 3 Aug. was sworn of the privy council. Incipient paralysis, due to long-continued overwork, compelled his resignation in February 1868, and on 6 June 1871 he died at his seat, Ozleworth Park, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire. His remains were interred on 12 June in Ozleworth churchyard.
Rolt was neither a profound lawyer nor a great advocate; but he was thoroughly versed in chancery practice, had sound judgment, and quickness of apprehension.
In early life Rolt abandoned dissent for the church of England, to which he became strongly attached.
Rolt married twice: first, in 1826, Sarah (d. 1850), daughter of Thomas Bosworth of Bosworth, Leicestershire; secondly, in 1857, Elizabeth (d. 1867), daughter of Stephen Godson of Croydon. By his first wife he had issue, with four daughters, a son John, who succeeded to his estate; he had also a son by his second wife.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Romaine, William Govett

​ROMAINE, WILLIAM GOVETT (1815–1893), comptroller-general in Egypt, second son of Robert Govett Romaine, vicar of Staines, Middlesex, was born in 1815, and graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A. 1837, M.A. 1859). He was entered at the Inner Temple, 9 Nov. 1834, and was called to the bar 25 Jan. 1839. After practising in the courts, he was appointed in 1854, on the outbreak of the Crimean war, deputy judge-advocate of the army in the east, and there distinguished himself in many capacities. At the close of the battle of the Alma, he voluntarily undertook the humane work of attending to the Russian wounded who had been left neglected on the field of battle. Adventurous, fond of travel, a keen observer, high-spirited, and zealous in all he undertook, Romaine often proved himself exceedingly useful to Lord Raglan. The latter called him ‘the eye of the army,’ in reference to the long sight with which he was gifted, and it was owing to his wise counsel that the Crimean army fund was set on foot. In appreciation of his services he was made a companion of the Bath in 1857. At the general election of March 1857 he unsuccessfully contested the representation in parliament of Chatham. Next month he was made second secretary to the admiralty. In June 1869 he became judge-advocate-general in India, where he remained until 1873. In 1876 the foreign office recommended Romaine to Ismail Pacha as member of the Egyptian Conseil du Trésor. Of that body he afterwards became president, and eventually under the Joint Control he acted as English comptroller-general of finances until he retired from public life in 1879. Romaine died at Old Windsor, 5 May 1893, at the age of seventy-six. He married, in 1861, Frances, daughter of Henry Tennant of Cadoxton Lodge, Glamorganshire.
[Foster's Men at the Bar; Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea; McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book; Annual Register; Obituary Notices in the Times and Guardian.]
W. R. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Merriman, Brian

​MERRIMAN, BRIAN (1757–1808), Irish poet, was born in the parish of Clondagad, barony of Clonderlaw, co. Clare, where his father was a farmer. He became a schoolmaster at Kilclerin in the parish of Feakle, co. Clare, a region so wild that up to 1823 it had no road practicable for any kind of wheeled vehicle. He occasionally acted as resident tutor in the houses of the neighbouring gentry. In 1780 he wrote a poem of two thousand lines, entitled, ‘Cuirt an mheadhoin oidhche’ (‘The Midnight Court’), of which numerous copies exist. That in the British Museum (Egerton 111) is an abridged version of 1024 lines. The poet is walking by the Graney river and falls asleep. A young woman appears as a witness, and denounces the men of Ireland, their carelessness of beauty, and love of wealth. Brian is convicted as their representative, and is about to be flogged when he awakes. The description of the river and its banks show great appreciation of natural beauty, the dialogue contains many witty passages, and the versification is smooth. The poem at once became popular, and very many copies circulated in manuscript in Clare and Limerick. He was a good fiddler, and wrote several songs. He died in Limerick in 1808. He is sometimes called MacGillameidhre in manuscripts, but those who spoke Irish only called him Merriman, and his patronymic is probably purely English.
[Egerton MS. 111, art. 149, in Brit. Mus., S. H. O'Grady's Cat. of Irish MSS. in Brit. Mus. p. 493; E. O'Reilly in Transactions of Iberno-Celtic Society, Dublin, 1820; J. O. Daly's Pious Miscellany, Dublin, 1868; Poets and Poetry of Munster, 2nd ser. Dublin, 1860.]
N. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Merriman, Nathaniel James

​MERRIMAN, NATHANIEL JAMES (1810–1882), bishop of Grahamstown, South Africa, born in 1810, was third son of Thomas Merriman of Marlborough, Wiltshire. His family was of Lancashire origin. Educated at Winchester and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was Hulme exhibitioner, and graduating B.A. with second-class honours in literis humanioribus in 1831 (M.A. 1834), he was ordained deacon in 1832, priest 1833, and became perpetual curate of Over Darwen in Lancashire. In 1841 he moved to the vicarage of Street in Somerset.
In 1848 Merriman accepted an offer of the archdeaconry of Grahamstown made him by Robert Gray [q. v.], bishop of Capetown. At the end of the year he was in Africa; at the beginning of 1849 he had started on his first visitation, often walking long distances on foot. ‘He is a very remarkable man,’ wrote the bishop in this year; ‘his self-denial and energy both of body and mind are greater than in any other man I have ever met with … the record of his life for the past year would astonish any one.’ In 1850 he offered to undertake a mission to the Kaffirs, in whom he took great interest; and the success of mission work among the natives was largely due to his exertions.
In 1863, at the trial of Bishop Colenso [q. v.], Merriman, as proxy for his clergy, was one of the accusers. When the see of Grahamstown was established out of Capetown (1853), he had declined the bishopric, but on 5 Dec. 1871 he was consecrated the ​third bishop of the diocese. He was also dean of Capetown. In 1880 he excommunicated Dean Williams of Grahamstown on account of views in sympathy with those of Colenso; yet in the same year he highly praised the latter for his championship of the Zulus (Letter to Aborigines' Protection Society).
His death, on 16 Aug. 1882, was the result of a carriage accident. He married in 1836 Miss Potter, and left a large family; three of his sons were in the service of the Cape government at the time of his death.
He was the author of some lectures on Shakespeare (Grahamstown, 1857–8) and of ‘The Kafir, the Hottentot, and the Frontier Farmer,’ London, 1854, and ‘The Bishop's Ride through Independent Kaffraria to Natal and back,’ 1872.
[Cape Argus, 18 Aug. 1882; Crockford's Clerical Directory; Gray's Life of Bishop Gray, passim; Times, 18 Aug. 1882.]
C. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Merritt, Henry

​MERRITT, HENRY (1822–1877), picture-cleaner and art-critic, the son of Joseph Merritt, a tailor, was born at Oxford on 8 June 1822. He was educated at a charity school, and his early years were passed in considerable poverty, his employment being at one time to collect old-standing debts from members of the university. While filling humble and precarious situations, he found time, however, to copy pictures in the Bodleian and to learn the rudiments of art from Alfred William Delamotte. In 1846 he made his way to London on foot, and in 1847 became acquainted with Mr. G. J. Holyoake. With Mr. Holyoake he lived at Dymoke Lodge and 1 Woburn Buildings for many years, but their relations do not seem to have been invariably harmonious. He wrote in the ‘Reasoner,’ under the pseudonym ‘Christopher,’ and soon afterwards contributed to the ‘Leader’ some papers, which in 1854 were republished in the ‘Cabinet of Reason,’ with a preface by Holyoake, under the title ‘Dirt and Pictures separated in the Works of the Old Masters.’ About the same time Merritt was entrusted by Dean Stanley with the task of cleaning the portrait of Richard II belonging to the chapterhouse of Westminster Abbey. He restored it successfully, and was afterwards employed on the portrait of Henry VII in the National Portrait Gallery, on various pictures at Hampton Court, and the battle scenes on the staircases of Marlborough House. His honesty and ability as a judge of old paintings led to his being constantly consulted by the authorities of the National Gallery and Royal Academy, to an acquaintance with Mr. Gladstone and other distinguished persons, and to a friendship with Mr. Ruskin, with whom he was in frequent correspondence. In 1865 Merritt published ‘Robert Dalby and his World of Troubles,’ an account, in the form of a romance, of his own early life, and the next year he became art-critic to the ‘Standard.’ Soon afterwards he commenced a story, called ‘The Oxford Professor,’ which was never completed. He died in July 1877, after considerable suffering, and was buried in the West Brompton cemetery. He married a few weeks before his death.
The above-mentioned works, with selections from Merritt's occasional writings and a memoir by his wife, were edited by Basil Champneys, and were published in London in 1879, 2 vols.
[Works in Brit. Mus.; Memoir by his wife, Anna Lea Merritt, 1879; Holyoake's Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, ii. 332–47; Notes and Queries, vi. i. 471; Times, 14 July 1877.]
A. F. P.