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

​VICKRIS, RICHARD (d. 1700), quaker writer, the son of Robert Vickris, sheriff of Bristol in 1656, was born probably in that city about the middle of the seventeenth century. His grandfather, Richard Vickris, a native of Bewdley in Worcestershire, settled in Bristol, where he was sheriff in 1636, mayor in 1646, and master of the merchant venturers in 1648. Richard the elder was a convinced puritan and roundhead, subscribed to the maintenance of Sir William Waller's army, signed the order for the demolition of Bristol Castle (1655), and persecuted the quakers according to his lights. At the Restoration, however, he waited on Charles with the other Bristol deputies, bearing an address and a purse (500l.) of gold. He died in 1668, and his son Robert followed closely in his father's footsteps, being master of the venturers in 1669, and a city politician and persecutor of quakers.
Richard Vickris as a youth fell under the influence of the quakers, who were at the time rapidly multiplying in Bristol, and his father, to rid him of the contagion, sent him to France. There, however, his tendencies were only developed by the metaphysics which he learned from or in the school of Malebranche, the hierophant of the modified Cartesianism of Louis XIV. Malebranche's ‘Recherche de la Verité’ determined him to join the Society of Friends, and, having returned to England, he married a young quakeress named Bishop, and regularly attended meeting. In 1680 he was excommunicated, tried under the recusancy act of 35 Elizabeth, and, refusing either to retract or to conform, was sentenced to death. He was, however, reprieved through the energy of his wife and, it is probable, a word from Penn, a friend of the family, to the Duke of York, and he received a free pardon at the hands of Jeffreys in 1684. His father now received him with affection, and bequeathed him (his death took place a few days after his son's release) his estate and house at Chew Magna, Somerset. There Richard Vickris wrote several works in defence of the Friends, remarkable among the polemics ​of the day for their modesty and moderation of tone. He died in February 1700 at the Manor House, Chew Magna, where are still preserved portraits of his father and grandfather. His most important work was a small quarto, entitled ‘A Just Reprehension to J. Norris of Newton St. Loe for his unjust Reflection on the Quakers, in his Book entituled Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life …’ (London, 1691, Brit. Mus.)
John Norris (‘of Bemerton’), who was the chief representative of Malebranche's views in England at this or indeed at any time, replied to the ‘Learned Quaker’ in the first of his ‘Two Treatises concerning the Divine Light’ (1692). Three other tracts by Vickris are enumerated in the ‘Catalogue of Friends' Books’ (ii. 842–3), but are not in the British Museum Library.
T. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Andrew

​LEWIS, ANDREW (1720?–1781), soldier, born in Donegal about 1720, was son of John Lewis by Margaret Lynn. The father, who is said to have been of Huguenot descent, killed his landlord soon after his son's birth and fled to America, where he settled in Bellefont, Augusta county, Virginia, and founded the town of Staunton. Andrew Lewis early became notable for his bravery in the frontier wars with the Indians, and served as a volunteer in the Ohio expedition of 1754. He was major in Washington's Virginia regiment at the surrender of Fort Necessity and at the defeat, on 9 July 1755, of Major-general Edward Braddock [q. v.] In 1756 he commanded the Sandy Creek expedition against the Shawnesse Indians. In 1758 he served with Major James Grant's expedition to Fort Duquesne, was in the defeat on 14 Sept., and was taken prisoner and detained at Montreal. He was one of the commissioners who concluded a treaty with the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix, New York, in 1768. In 1774 he was appointed brigadier-general on the western frontiers of Virginia, and commanded the colonists at the battle of Point Pleasant, 10 Oct. 1774, an important engagement, in which his brother Charles was killed. In March and June 1775 he was a delegate to the Virginia conventions. Lewis took the popular side in the war of independence, and from 1 March 1776 to 5 April 1777 was brigadier-general of the continental army, and on 9 July 1776 dislodged Lord Dunmore from Gwynn's Island. He resigned his command on the ground of ill-health, and died at Colonel Talbot's house in Bedford county, Virginia, while on his way to his home on the Roanoke River, on 26 Sept. 1781. He was married and a son, Charles, predeceased him. His statue, by Crawfurd, stands on one of the pedestals of the Washington monument at Richmond, Virginia, which was unveiled in 1858. Lewis's orderly book was edited, with notes, by C. C. Campbell, Richmond, 1860. Besides Charles, his brothers Thomas (1718–1790) and William Lewis (1724–1811) were distinguished Virginian colonists, the one as a member of the Virginian assemblies, the other as a soldier.
[Appleton's Cycl. of Amer. Biog.; Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, ii. 151–6; Virginia Historical Collections, vols. iii. and iv. new ser. (Dinwiddie Papers), passim; Campbell's Hist. of Virginia, p. 588; Winsor's Hist. of America, vi. 168, vii. 580.]
W. A. J. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Charles (1753-1795)

​LEWIS, CHARLES (1753–1795), painter, was born at Gloucester in 1753. He was apprenticed to a manufacturer at Birmingham, where he obtained some reputation for his skill in the decoration of japanned tea-trays. In 1776 he went to Dublin, but not meeting with success in his profession he took to the stage, obtaining an engagement as a singer from Michael Arne [q. v.] at the Crow Street Theatre, Dublin. Meeting with no better success in that line, he next tried painting. In 1781 he visited Holland, and on his return to England settled in London, where he acquired great repute as a painter of still-life. Lewis exhibited nine pictures of fruit, dead game, &c., at the exhibition of the Society of Artists in 1772, and three pictures at the Royal Academy in 1786. He exhibited for the last time in 1791, sending a fruit piece to the Royal Academy. On the invitation of Lord Gardenstone Lewis went to Edinburgh, but on the death of his patron his fortunes languished, and he died there on 12 July 1795. ​Lewis married a daughter of Mr. Pinto, a well-known violinist.
[Pasquin's Artists of Ireland; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880; Gent. Mag. 1795, lxv. 704; Catalogues of the Royal Academy and Soc. of Artists.]
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewgar, John

​LEWGAR, JOHN (1602–1665), Roman catholic controversialist, born in London ‘of genteel parents’ in 1602, was admitted a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, and matriculated 13 Dec. 1616 (Register of Oxford Univ. ed. Clark, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 357). He was admitted B.A. 25 Nov. 1619, commenced M.A. in 1622, was incorporated at Cambridge in 1625, and took the degree of B.D. 6 July 1632 (ib. vol. ii. pt. iii. p. 378). He was rector of Laverton, Somerset, 1627–35. Having been induced by Chillingworth to abjure protestantism, he went to Maryland on the invitation of Cecil Calvert, second lord Baltimore, who had been his intimate friend at college. After the death of his wife Lewgar returned to England, some years before the Restoration, in company with Father Andrew White, a jesuit, who had been engaged in missionary work among the aborigines of Maryland. Subsequently he resided in Lord Baltimore's house in Wild Street, London; and he died of the plague, in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, in 1665.
His works are: 1. ‘Erastus Junior: a solid Demonstration by Principles, Forms of Ordination, Common Laws, Acts of Parliament, that no Bishop, Minister, nor Presbyter, hath any Authority to Preach, &c., from Christ, but from the Parliament,’ London, 1659–60. 2. ‘Erastus Senior, scholastically demonstrating this Conclusion, That (admitting their Lambeth Records for true) those called Bishops here in England are no Bishops either in order or jurisdiction, or so much as legal’ (anon.) [London?], 1662, 12mo, in answer to Mason, Heylyn, and Bramhall. It elicited from R[alph?] C[udworth?] a reply, entitled ‘A Scholasticall Discourse … wherein is answered all which is alleged by Erastus Senior against the order and jurisdiction of the Bishops of the Church of England,’ London, 1663, 4to. Lewgar's treatise has been erroneously ascribed to Peter Talbot in reprints which appeared at Sydney in 1848 and New York in 1850, and in ‘The English Catholic Library,’ vol. ii. London, 1844, 8vo. Talbot wrote a book on the same topic, entitled ‘The Nullity of the Protestant Church of England and its Clergy,’ Brussels, ​1658, 8vo (Ware, Writers of Ireland, ed. Harris, p. 193). 3. ‘A Conference between John Lewgar and Mr. Chillingworth, whether the Roman Church be the Catholic Church, and all out of her Communion Heretics or Schismatics,’ London, 1687, 4to.
[Catholic Miscellany, 1826, v. 107; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 264; Estcourt's Question of Anglican Ordinations discussed, p. 159; Jones's Popery Tracts, pp. 213, 242, 483; Lee's Validity of the Holy Orders of the Church of England maintained, p. 193; Prideaux's Validity of the Orders of the Church of England, 1688, p. 22; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 696; Foster's Alumni, 1500–1714.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewin, William (d.1795)

​LEWIN, WILLIAM (d. 1795), naturalist, was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society 20 Dec. 1791, and was residing at Darenth, Kent, in 1792, and at Hoxton in 1794. He probably died at the end of 1795. His name does not appear in the list of fellows of the Linnean Society for 1796, and he is described as ‘the late William Lewin’ in the ‘Transactions’ of 1797. Lewin published after more than twenty years of study ‘The Birds of Great Britain accurately figured’ (in 7 vols. 1789–1795), engraved and coloured by Lewin himself. Plates of eggs were added from the Duchess of Portland's collection. In the descriptions of birds Lewin was helped by his sons, and the work was dedicated to John Latham (1740–1837) [q. v.], from whom, as well as from Parkinson and Pennant, Lewin had received material assistance. The second edition of the ‘Birds’ was published in 8 vols. 1795–1801, 4to, with descriptions in French as well as in English. The drawings, numbering twenty thousand, and including 267 plates, were executed by Lewin. They are spirited, and show considerable artistic taste, but the colouring is crude and the birds at times badly proportioned. As for the descriptions, Lewin speaks of the black woodpecker as having been found in England, but being exceedingly scarce, and of the great auk as appearing in the northern parts of the kingdom, without a word of its excessive rarity, so that Professor Newton is amply justified in describing Lewin's ‘British Birds’ as a very worthless book (art. ‘Ornithology,’ Encycl. Britt.) Lewin also contributed a paper in 1793 on some rare British insects to the ‘Linnean Society's Transactions’ (iii. 1–4), and published a first volume only of ‘The Insects of Great Britain systematically arranged, accurately engraved, and painted from Nature,’ London, 1795, 4to, with forty-six coloured plates. The plates in this work were engraved by Lewin himself, and the descriptions written in both French and English, but the value of the work is much lessened by the painting (done under Lewin's ‘immediate direction’), which is in several instances very bad.
A brother, John William Lewin (fl. 1805), settled in Paramatta, New South Wales, and spent nine years in making collections of the birds and insects of the country. He published ‘The Birds of New Holland, with their natural history, collected, engraved and faithfully painted after nature,’ London, 1808–22, consisting of twenty-six carefully coloured plates, with short descriptions (a new edition is dated 1838); and ‘Prodromus (sic) Entomology,’ eighteen coloured plates and descriptions of moths and their food-plants, London, 1805, 4to, forming a history of the lepidopterous insects of New South Wales. His brother Thomas assisted him in these works, to the former of which he wrote a preface.
[Agassiz's Catalogue of Writings on Zoology, ed. Strickland, iii. 465; Lowndes's Bibl. Man., ed. Bohn; Lewin's works in British Museum, Library; information kindly supplied by J. L. Harting, esq., of the Linnean Soc.]
M. G. W.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewins, Edward John

​LEWINS or LEWENS, EDWARD (1756–1828), United Irishman, was born in Dublin in 1756. Intended originally for the priesthood, he received his education in a French seminary, and retained his Roman catholic faith, but he became a Dublin attorney. He joined the society of United Irishmen, and owing to his knowledge of the French language he was, in April 1797, sent to Hamburg as the accredited envoy of the Dublin committee in order to renew those negotiations with the French government begun in the preceding year by Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor [q. v.] for an immediate invasion of Ireland, and also, if possible, to obtain a loan of 500,000l. and a supply of arms from Spain. Having presented his credentials to Reinhard the French plenipotentiary at Hamburg, he had shortly afterwards, in company with Wolfe Tone, an interview with Hoche at some place on the Rhine. From Hoche he learnt of the intended expedition under General Daendels and Admiral de Winter, and accompanied Hoche and Tone to the Hague to assist in organising it. In July he proceeded to Paris, where he afterwards constantly resided in the capacity of confidential agent of the United Irishmen. Several attempts, notably by Samuel Turner [q. v.] the spy, in conjunction with Napper Tandy, were made to ​undermine his authority, but without success, and Lewins, or Thompson as he called himself in his secret despatches, seems fully to have deserved the confidence reposed in him. In June 1798, subsequent to the outbreak of the Irish rebellion, he again appealed to the Directory for assistance. He was greatly disappointed by the failure of the rebellion, and by the bitter religious spirit imparted to it. When the union was mooted he addressed a strong memorial to the French government, representing the necessity of counteracting a scheme so likely, in his opinion, to add to the power of Great Britain. He was one of those banished by act of parliament.
During the reign of Charles X Lewins exercised much influence in France through his intimate friend the Abbé de Fraysinous, bishop of Hermopolis, who was minister of public instruction and grand master of the university of Paris. He became inspector of studies at the university of Paris, and was always ready to further the interests of the Irish exiles. On his death, 11 Feb. 1828, M. de Fraysinous, with the members of the university of Paris and all the Irish exiles in France, attended his funeral at Père-Lachaise. Of his two sons, Laurence de Lewens (as he was called in France) was in the bureau of public instruction, and a knight of the legion of honour, while Hippolite was a priest.
[Memoirs of Miles Byrne, iii. 15 sq.; Lecky's Hist. vii. 381, viii. 203, 429; Wolfe Tone's Journal; Castlereagh's Correspondence, i. 270, 306; Cornwallis Correspondence, ii. 342; E. Guillon's La France et l'Irlande, pp. 359–61; Fitzpatrick's Secret Service under Pitt; Madden's United Irishmen, 1st ser. i. 158.]
R. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewis, Charles (1786-1836)

​LEWIS, CHARLES (1786–1836), bookbinder, born in London in 1786, was fourth son of Johann Ludwig, a political refugee from Hanover, and brother of Frederick Christian Lewis [q. v.] and of George Robert Lewis [q. v.] In 1800 he was apprenticed by his own desire to the eminent bookbinder H. Walther. After he had spent five years in the forwarding department, Walther refused his request to enter the finishing shop. Lewis thereupon laboured at the fine work after the day was over until two or three o'clock in the morning. On leaving Walther he entered as a journeyman several other shops, finally commencing business on his own account in Scotland Yard. He subsequently removed to more commodious premises in Denmark Court, and latterly to Duke Street, St. James's. With C. Kalthoeber he was largely employed by William Beckford on the Fonthill library. T. F. Dibdin was a great admirer of his work and of his ‘good nature and civility,’ and recommended him to Heber and Lord Spencer. Unremitting attention to business predisposed him to apoplexy, of which he died on 8 Jan. 1836. He was succeeded by his eldest son.
Lewis's bindings are characterised by elegant and classic taste. According to Dibdin ‘he united the taste of Roger Payne [q. v.] with a freedom of forwarding and squareness of finish very peculiar to himself.’ He excelled in the mechanical parts of his craft, and ‘his books appear to move on silken hinges.’ He was also very successful in book restoration. His chief colours were buff or subdued orange for russia bindings, and French grey for morocco. Francis Bedford lived with Lewis for some time, and carried on later Lewis's tradition and style as opposed to the more ornate school of Rivière. Lewis's head is engraved in Dibdin's ‘Bibliographical Decameron.’
[Gent. Mag. 1836 pt. ii. pp. 439, 450; Bookbinder, ii. 171, iii. 187; Cundall on Bookbindings, p. 106; Dibdin's Decameron, ii. 521 sq.; Cat. of Exhibition of Bookbindings at Burlington Fine Arts Club (1891); Quaritch's Facsimiles from Examples of Bookbinding, p. 35.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lewicke, Edward

​LEWICKE, EDWARD (fl. 1562), poet, was the author of ‘The most wonderfull and pleasaunt History of Titus and Gisippus, whereby is fully declared the figure of Perfect Friendship: drawn into English Metre,’ London, 1562. The tale was originally taken from Boccaccio by Sir Thomas Eliot, who introduces a prose version into his ‘Governor.’ Lewicke's poem is, as Mr. Collier has shown, little more than a rhymed paraphrase of Eliot's rendering. Goldsmith's ‘Tale of Alcander and Septimius’ was probably taken from Lewicke.
[Lowndes's Bibl. Manual, p. 1351; Watt's Bibl. Brit. p. 1824; Warton's Hist. of English Poetry; Payne Collier's Poetical Decameron, ii. 80.]
G. B. D.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pryor, Alfred Reginald

​PRYOR, ALFRED REGINALD (1839–1881), botanist, eldest son of Alfred Pryor of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, was born there on 24 April 1839, and received his early education at Tunbridge school, whence he went to University College, Oxford, graduating B.A. 26 June 1862. He soon grew interested in botany, and projected a new flora of his native county, which formed the main occupation of the remainder of his life [see Coleman, William Higgins]. He was compelled by bad health to winter abroad, 1879-1880, and he died unmarried at Baldock on 18 Feb. 1881. He left his herbarium, books and manuscript flora to the Hertfordshire ​Natural History Society, with a small sum of money to enable that society to print the manuscript. His detached papers, showing great critical knowledge of plants, for the most part came out in the ‘Journal of Botany,’ 1873–81. His ‘Flora of Hertfordshire, edited . . . by B. Daydon Jackson, with an Introduction . . . by John Hopkinson and the Editor,’ was issued in 1887, London, 8vo.
[Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886 iii. 1160 Journ. Bot. 1881, pp. 276–8; Pryor's Flora, pp. xliv–xlvi; Proc. Linn. Soc. 1880–2, p. 19.]
B. D. J.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pryse, Carbery

​PRYSE, Sir CARBERY (d. 1695), mine-owner, was the son of Carbery Pryse, by his wife Hester, daughter of Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke, and grandson of Sir Richard Pryse of Gogerddan, Cardiganshire. He succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his uncle, Sir Thomas Pryse, in 1682. About 1690 mines were discovered on his estate at Bwlchyr Escairhir, Cardiganshire, the reputed value of which was so great, that they were called the ‘Welsh Potosi.’ Pryse formed a company, consisting of himself and twenty-four shareholders, but they were opposed by the Society of Royal Mines, and several lawsuits followed. Hampered by the difficulty of obtaining sufficient capital to work the mines, and by heavy legal expenses, Pryse and his partners made little progress. In 1693 they obtained ‘an act to prevent disputes and controversies ​concerning royal mines' (5 Will. & Mary, c. 6), empowering all subjects, of the crown to work their own mines in England and Wales, but securing to the crown the right of pre-emption. Pryse is said to have conveyed the news of the passing of this act to Escairhir within forty-eight hours. He and his partners now subdivided their twenty-four shares into 4,008 shares, for the term of twenty-two years and a half, and obtained considerable support for the new company. He died in 1695, leaving the company greatly in debt. He was unmarried, and the baronetcy expired with him. After his death, Sir Humphry Mackworth [q. v.] purchased his shares, and formed the famous Company of Mine-Adventurers.
[Burke's Extinct Baronetcies, p. 431; Meyrick's History of Cardiganshire; Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, ii. 647; A True Copy of Several Affidavits … of the Mines late of Sir Carbery Pryse, 1698; Waller's Essay on the Value of the Mines late of Sir Carbery Pryse; numerous tracts and broadsides relating to the Mine-Adventurers' Company.]
W. A. S. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Prévost, Louis Augustin

​PRÉVOST, LOUIS AUGUSTIN (1796–1858), linguist, was born at Troyes in Champagne on 6 June 1796, and educated at a college in Versailles. Coming to England in 1823, he was at first tutor in the family of William Young Ottley [q. v.], afterwards keeper of the prints in the British Museum. For some years, 1823–43, he was a teacher of languages in London, and numbered Charles Dickens among his pupils. His leisure was spent in the reading-room of the British Museum in studying languages. He gradually acquired most of the languages of Europe, many of Asia, including Chinese, and even some of Polynesia. He was, finally, acquainted more or less perfectly with upwards of forty languages. Like Mezzofanti, who was credited with knowing sixty, he was chiefly interested in their structures. From 1843 to 1855 he was engaged by the trustees of the British Museum in cataloguing the Chinese books. He died at Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London, on 25 April 1858, and was buried in Highgate cemetery on 30 April. In 1825 he married an English wife, and on 25 Oct. 1854 he lost his only son, fighting under the assumed name of Melrose, in the charge of the light brigade at Balaklava.
[Cowtan's Memories of the British Museum, 1872, pp. 358–62; Gent. Mag. 1858, pt. ii. p. 87.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Prydydd Bychan, y

Gwilym ap Phylip Brydydd in the ODNB.
​PRYDYDD BYCHAN, Y (i.e. 'The Little Poet') (1200–1270?), Welsh bard, was of Deheubarth, i.e. South Wales. The title under which his poems have been handed down is a bardic nickname, and his real name and parentage are unknown. Twenty ​one of his compositions are printed in the 'Myvyrian Archaiology' (2nd edit. pp. 259-266), among them being verses to Rhys Ieuanc ap Gruffydd (d. 1220), to Rhys Gryg (d. 1234), to Morgan ap Rhys (d. 1251), and to Maredudd ab Owain (d. 1205), all members of the princely family of South Wales. He also sang to Owain Goch, brother of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth and prince of part of North Wales from 1246 to 1255. The most marked characteristic of the 'Little Poet's' verse is his fondness for assonance.
[Myvyrian Archaiology; Stephens's Literature of the Kymry.]
J. E. L.