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

​TWISS, FRANCIS (1760–1827), compiler, born in 1760, the son of an English merchant residing in Holland, was descended ​from Richard Twiss, a younger son of the family of Twiss resident about 1660 at Killintierna, co. Kerry (Burke, Landed Gentry). Richard Twiss [q. v.] was his brother. He is said to have been contemporary at Pembroke College, Cambridge, with William Pitt as a student under Tomline, but his name does not appear in the printed list of graduates of that university. ‘A hopeless passion for Mrs. Siddons’ is believed to have been once nourished by him, but he married on 1 May 1786 her sister, Frances (1759–1822), usually called Fanny, Kemble, second daughter of Roger Kemble [q. v.] Upon her marriage she retired from the stage, where her efforts as an actress had not been crowned with success. George Steevens [q. v.], the Shakespearean commentator, had championed her acting in the press, and wished to marry her, but the family deprecated the alliance (Fitzgerald, The Kembles, i. 227–32).
Mrs. Twiss, a lovely woman, of great sweetness of character, from 1807 kept a fashionable girls' school at 24 Camden Place, Bath, and was assisted in the management by her husband and their three daughters. He is described by Mrs. F. A. Kemble as a ‘grim-visaged, gaunt-figured, kind-hearted gentleman and profound scholar.’ A lively picture of husband and wife is given by George Hardinge (Nichols, Illustrations of Lit. iii. 37–8). ‘She was big as a house,’ affected in manner and with measured voice, but very good-natured. He was very thin, stooping, and ghastly pale; takes ‘absolute clouds of snuff,’ quaint in his phrases, ‘very dogmatical and spoilt as an original.’
Twiss died at Cheltenham on 28 April 1827, aged 68. His wife had predeceased him, at Bath, on 1 Oct. 1822. Their eldest son was Horace Twiss [q. v.]; another son, John Twiss, became a major-general in the army on 5 Jan. 1864, and was governor of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.
Twiss published in two volumes in 1805, ‘A complete verbal Index to the Plays of Shakspeare, adapted to all the editions,’ with a dedication to John Philip Kemble. It was a work of immense labour, but as it gives the word only and not the passage in which it occurs, his labours have been superseded by later concordances. Seven hundred and fifty copies were printed of it, and 542 of them were destroyed by fire in 1807.
A famous portrait of Mrs. Twiss, a half-length, was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1783, and exhibited at Burlington House in 1890. It was sold by Christie & Manson among the pictures belonging to the Right Hon. G. A. F. Cavendish-Bentinck in July 1891 for 2,640 guineas. It was engraved by J. Jones (Roberts, Christie's, ii. 170). Another admirable oil portrait of her, the work of Opie, but ‘showing the influence of Sir Thomas Lawrence,’ belongs to Mr. Quintin Twiss, who also possesses miniatures of Francis Twiss and his wife.
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Smith, John Stafford

​SMITH, JOHN STAFFORD (1750–1836), composer and musical antiquary, son of Martin Smith, organist of Gloucester Cathedral, was born at Gloucester in 1750. He received his earliest musical instruction from his father, and subsequently became a pupil of Dr. Boyce and a chorister of the Chapel Royal under James Nares [q. v.] In 1784 he was appointed a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and in 1785 a lay vicar of Westminster Abbey. In 1802 he succeeded Dr. Arnold as one of the organists of the Chapel Royal, and from 1805 to 1817 held the office of master of the children. He published five collections of glees, many of which have enjoyed well-deserved popularity. ‘Let happy lovers fly,’ ‘Blest pair of syrens,’ ‘While fools their time,’ and ‘Return, blest days,’ all gained prizes between 1773 and 1777; other familiar compositions by Smith are ‘What shall he have that killed the deer?’ ‘Hark, the hollow woods resounding,’ and the madrigal, ‘Flora now calleth forth each flower.’ In 1779 he published a collection of English songs composed about 1500, taken from manuscripts of that date. In 1793 appeared a volume of anthems, and in 1812 his most important work, ‘Musica Antiqua,’ a collection of old music from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. Sir John Hawkins, in the preface to his ‘History of Music,’ acknowledges the valuable assistance which Smith gave him in the preparation of the work. He died on 20 Sept. 1836. In 1844 his interesting library was dispersed at an obscure auction-room in Gray's Inn Road, and—no connoisseurs being present—many valuable manuscripts were lost to the musical world.
R. N.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Smith, John William

​SMITH, JOHN WILLIAM (1809–1845), legal writer, born in Chapel Street, Belgrave Square, London, on 23 Jan. 1809, was eldest son of John Smith, who was appointed in 1830 paymaster of the forces in Ireland. His mother was a sister of George Connor, master in chancery in Ireland. After exhibiting remarkable precocity at a private school in Isleworth, he passed in 1821 to Westminster School, where he was elected queen's scholar in 1823. He entered in 1826 Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained a scholarship in 1829, and was awarded the gold medal in classics in the following year. He joined on 20 June 1827 the Inner Temple, where, after practising for some years as a special pleader, he was called to the bar on 3 May 1834. In the same year appeared his ‘Compendium of Mercantile Law,’ London, 8vo, a work distinguished equally by profound learning and luminous exposition. ‘An Elementary View of the Proceedings in an Action at Law’ followed in 1836, London, 8vo, and ‘A Selection of Leading Cases on Various Branches of the Law,’ a work of incalculable benefit to the student, in 1837–1840, London, 2 vols. 8vo. From 1837 to 1843 Smith was lecturer at the Law Institution, and in 1840 was appointed to a revising barristership. He practised for a time on the Oxford circuit and at the Hereford and Gloucester sessions, but latterly only in the metropolis, where he died of consumption induced by overwork on 17 Dec. 1845. He was buried in Kensal Green cemetery, and a tablet was placed to his memory in the Temple Church.
In Smith an ungainly person, a harsh voice, and awkward manners served as a foil to mental endowments of a high order. To a veritable genius for the discovery and exposition of legal principles he added a large erudition not only in the ancient classics, but in the masterpieces of English, Italian, and Spanish literature. He was also well read in theology and a devout Christian. Smith's ‘Mercantile Law’ reached a third edition in its author's lifetime; later editions by Dowdeswell appeared at London in 1848, 1855, 1871, and 1877, 8vo, and by Macdonell and Humphreys in 1890, London, 2 vols. 8vo. The ‘Elementary View of the Proceedings in an Action at Law’ reached a fourteenth edition by Foulkes in 1884, London, 12mo; and the ‘Leading Cases,’ a tenth edition, edited by Chitty, Williams, & Chitty, in 1896, London, 2 vols. 8vo. Other (posthumous) works by Smith are: (1) ‘The Law of Contracts: in a course of lectures delivered at the Law Institution; with notes and appendix by Jelinger C. Symons,’ London, 1847, 8vo; subsequent editions by Malcolm in 1855 and 1868, and by Thompson in 1874 and 1885, 8vo. 2. ‘The Law of Landlord and Tenant: being a Course of Lectures delivered at the Law Institution; with notes and additions by Frederic Philip Maude,’ London, 1855, 1866, 1882, 8vo.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Smith, Joseph (1682-1770)

​SMITH, JOSEPH (1682–1770), British consul at Venice, born in 1682, took up his residence at Venice at the age of eighteen, and was apparently engaged in commerce there. He made a wide reputation as a collector of books, manuscripts, pictures, coins, and gems. He patronised painters, and ​among his protégés were the Florentine Zuccarelli and the Venetian Zais. Horace Walpole sneered at him as ‘the merchant of Venice,’ who knew nothing of his books except their title-pages (Walpole, Letters, i. 239–307), but the censure seems undeserved. In 1729 Smith prepared an edition of Boccaccio's ‘Decamerone,’ which was published by Passinello (Ebert, Bibliographical Dictionary, i. 201). It is so nearly an exact reproduction of the rare edition of 1527 that only those who are acquainted with the minute differences can distinguish the copy from the original. Of Smith's edition only three hundred copies were printed, including a few on large paper; these latter are extremely rare, a fire having destroyed a portion of the edition (see Count Gio. Batista Baldelli Boni's Vita di G. Boccaccio, Firenze, 1806, p. 311). About the same time Smith issued a ‘Catalogus Librorum Rarissimorum’ (without date), which was limited to twenty-five copies. The volumes noticed were in Smith's own possession. A second edition, containing the titles of thirty-one additional books, was published in Venice in 1737. Of his general library a catalogue was printed at Venice in 1755, under the title ‘Bibliotheca Smithiana, seu Catalogus Librorum D. Josephi Smithii Angli.’
Meanwhile in 1740 Smith was appointed British consul at Venice, and was thenceforth known familiarly as Consul Smith. He retained the post till 1760. In 1765 George III began to form his library by purchasing Smith's books en bloc for 10,000l., and they now form an important part of the king's library at the British Museum. Smith continued to collect, and at his death the books which he had acquired subsequently to the sale of his library to George III were sold at public auction in London by Baker & Leigh in January and February 1773, the sale occupying thirteen days. His art treasures also were bought by George III for 20,000l. (see Ed. Edwards's Lives of the Founders of the British Museum, 1570–1870, ii. 469). A valuable portion of his manuscripts was purchased for Blenheim Palace by Lord Sunderland, who gave, according to Humphry Wanley's ‘Diary,’ 1,500l. for them (Lansdowne MS. 771, fol. 34). Smith's antique gems were described and illustrated in A. F. Gori's ‘Dactyliotheca Smithiana,’ 2 vols. folio, 1767.
Smith died at Venice on 6 Nov. 1770, aged 88. About 1758 he married a sister of John Murray, resident at Venice, and afterwards ambassador at the Porte (see Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu's Letters and Works, ed. 1893, ii. 319).
[Supplement to Dr. T. F. Dibdin's Bibliomania, ed. 1842, pp. 33–5; Scots Mag. 1770, p. 631; information from the foreign office, and from the British Consulate at Venice.]
G. W. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Smith, John Russell

​SMITH, JOHN RUSSELL (1810–1894), bookseller and bibliographer, was born at Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1810, and was apprenticed to John Bryant of Wardour Street, London. He took a shop at 4 Old Compton Street, Soho, devoted himself to English topography and philology, and issued in 1837 his useful ‘Bibliotheca Cantiana; or a Bibliographical Account of what has been published on the History, Antiquities, Customs, and Family History of the County of Kent’ (large octavo). The titles are classified with collations and notes. Smith left two copies, with manuscript annotations, to the British Museum. Among his supporters was John Sheepshanks [q. v.], the well-known collector. His ‘Bibliographical List of the Works that have been published towards illustrating the Provincial Dialects of England,’ arranged under counties, 8vo, appeared in 1839, as well as ‘Westmoreland and Cumberland Dialects: Dialogues, Poems, Songs, and Ballads by various Writers in the Westmoreland and Cumberland Dialects, now first collected, with a copious Glossary,’ 8vo.
In 1842, on the occasion of the schism in the Archæological Association, one section of the members, including Thomas Wright, Mark Anthony Lower, Halliwell-Phillipps, and Henfrey, transferred their publications to Russell Smith. Increase of business caused Russell Smith to move to 36 Soho Square. Among the books he published there were Nares's ‘Glossary’ (edited by Wright and Halliwell-Phillipps), Barnes's ‘Dialect Poems and Grammar,’ Vernon's ‘Guide to the Anglo-Saxon Tongue,’ and Bosworth's ‘Anglo-Saxon Dictionary,’ abridged. He is best remembered by his ‘Library of Old Authors,’ an interesting and valuable series of reprints, chiefly of sixteenth and seventeenth century literature. The volumes, which were neatly printed by the Chiswick Press in small octavo, were for the most part carefully edited, and were issued between 1856 and 1875.
Among the catalogues of secondhand books issued by Russell Smith may be mentioned one of topographical prints, drawings, and books printed before 1700 (1849), ‘Shakesperiana’ (1864), ‘Americana’ (1865), tracts, twenty-six thousand in number (1874), and engraved Portraits (1883). He contributed the first complete list of English writers on fishes and fishing to R. Blakey's ‘Historical Sketches of Angling Literature’ (1855). Some copies were separately issued as ‘Bibliographical Catalogue of English Writers on Angling and Ichthyology’ (1856).
Smith retired from business about 1884, when his stock and copyrights were sold. The ‘Library of Old Authors’ was disposed of to William Reeves for 1,000l. He died on 19 Oct. 1894, at Kentish Town, aged 84. His industry and literary taste are noticed by Saunders (Salad for the Social, 1856, p. 46), and his ‘integrity in the publishing way’ by W. C. Hazlitt (Four Generations of a Literary Family, 1897, ii. 367). A portrait after a photograph is prefixed to his ‘Catalogue of Engraved Portraits’ (1883).
[Athenæum, 10 Nov. 1894, p. 644; Bookseller, 6 Nov. 1894, p. 1025; Allibone's Dict. 1870, ii. 2148.]
H. R. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Smith, John Sidney

1904 Errata appended.
​SMITH, JOHN SIDNEY (1804–1871), legal writer, son of John Spry Smith of 9 Woburn Square, London, was born in 1804, and held a situation in the six clerks' office in the court of chancery until 23 Oct. 1842, when the establishment was abolished. He soon after entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. 1847 and M.A. ​1850. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple on 7 Nov. 1845, and practised in the court of chancery. He died at Sidney Lodge, Wimbledon, Surrey, on 14 Jan. 1871. In 1834–5 he published, in two volumes, ‘A Treatise on the Practice of the Court of Chancery,’ a very useful work, the seventh edition of which he brought out in conjunction with Alfred Smith in 1862; there was also an American edition (Philadelphia, 1839). Smith likewise wrote ‘A Handbook of the Practice of the Court of Chancery,’ 1848 (2nd edit. 1855), and ‘A Treatise on the Principles of Equity,’ 1856.
G. C. B.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.254 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 88 | ii | 7 f.e. | Smith, John Sidney: for John Sidney read John Spry |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parsons, James (1762-1847)

​PARSONS, JAMES (1762–1847), divine, born in 1762, was son of the Rev. James Parsons of Cirencester, Gloucestershire. He entered Trinity College, Oxford, but subsequently migrated to Wadham College, from which he matriculated on 16 Dec. 1777 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886, iii. 1075). He graduated B.A. in 1781, and M.A. in 1786. In 1800 the corporation of Gloucester presented him to the perpetual curacy of Newnham with Little Dean, Gloucestershire. He proceeded B.D. in 1815 from St. Alban Hall, Oxford, of which he was for some years vice-principal. He died on 6 April 1847. His eldest daughter, Sophia, married, on 28 May 1823, Alexander Nicoll [q. v.] His library was sold in June 1847.
Parsons was a good classical and oriental scholar. Shortly after 1805 he returned to Oxford, at the invitation of the delegates of the Clarendon Press, to undertake the continuation of the ‘Oxford Septuagint,’ which had been interrupted by the death of its projector, Robert Holmes (1748–1805) [q. v.] He completed it in 1827. He published a learned volume of ‘Sermons, partly Critical and Explanatory,’ 8vo, London, 1835, with valuable notes, and edited the ‘Sermons’ of his son-in-law, Alexander Nicoll, regius professor of Hebrew at Oxford, 8vo, Oxford, 1830, with a memoir of his life.
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parsons, James (1799-1877)

​PARSONS, JAMES (1799–1877), preacher, second son of Edward Parsons (1762–1833) [q. v.], was born in Leeds on 10 April 1799. After attending the school of the Rev. William Foster of Little Woodhouse, Leeds, he was articled, in 1814, to the firm of Tottie, Richardson, & Gaunt, solicitors, in Leeds. In 1818 he accompanied one of the partners to London, where he studied literature and practised oratory at debating societies. In January 1820, on the death of his mother, he abandoned the law, and, resolving to become a minister, entered in the autumn the academy at Idle (afterwards Airedale College, and in 1886 combined with Rotherham Academy to form the United College, Bradford). During his course of study, which, in his case, was limited to two years on account of his proficiency in literature and classics, he preached not only in the neighbouring villages, but also at the Finsbury Tabernacle and Tottenham Court Chapel in London. In 1822 he accepted a call to Lendal Chapel, York. His sermons attracted large congregations. Since no further enlargements were possible to Lendal Chapel, the new Salem Chapel was erected and was opened on 25 July 1839. In 1870, when his eyesight began to fail him, he retired from Salem Chapel and settled at Harrogate, where he took occasional pulpit duties. In 1873 he was elected the first president of the Yorkshire Congregational Union and Home Missionary Society. He died on 20 Oct. 1877, and was buried at York on the 26th. He married, in 1828, Mary Mullis, daughter of John Wilks (attorney in London, and for many years M.P. for Boston in Lincolnshire) and granddaughter to Matthew Wilks [q. v.] By her he had one son, who died young, and four daughters, who survived him. Portraits of him are in vol. xxv. of the ‘Pulpit,’ and in Evans and Hurndall's ‘Pulpit Memorials,’ p. 343.
‘James Parsons of York’ was the most remarkable pulpit orator of his time. Trained for the law, he spoke like a special pleader, and addressed his congregation as an eloquent barrister would a jury. His power of holding his hearers enthralled was rarely equalled. His sermons, always most carefully prepared, were perfect in method and arrangement, and manifested minute acquaintance with the Scriptures. But the most tender pleadings and solemn warnings invariably found place in his oratory. His sermons have been repeatedly appropriated by other preachers (cf. the Pulpit for 1839, p. 161, with that for 1869, p. 249).
His published works include: 1. ‘Excitements to Exertion in the Cause of God,’ York, 1827, 3rd edit. 2. ‘Sermons, Critical and Explanatory,’ London, 1830; 1837, 4th edit. Many of his sermons, chiefly preached at the Tabernacle, Tottenham Court Chapel, and Surrey Chapel, were published in the ‘Pulpit’ between 1824 and 1864. Selections from them were reprinted in 1849 and 1867.
B. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parsons, John Meeson

​PARSONS, JOHN MEESON (1798–1870), picture collector, youngest son of Thomas Parsons of Newport, Shropshire, was born at Newport on 27 Oct. 1798, and educated by the Rev. Richard Thurstfield of Pattingham, then by the Rev. Francis Blick of Tamworth, and afterwards privately at Oxford; but hard reading brought on inflamation of the eyes, which obliged him to give up all study. He then settled in the city of London, and became a member of the Stock Exchange. Early in his London career he took an interest in railways, was elected an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 5 Feb. 1839, and on 9 Feb. 1843 became a director of the London and Brighton Railway Company, of which he was appointed chairman on 19 June 1843. In this office he was succeeded by Pascoe Grenfell on 11 April 1844, and ceased to be a director on 21 Aug. 1848. He was also a director of the Shropshire Union Railway from 1845 to 1849.
For many years he resided at 6 Raymond Buildings, Gray's Inn, and spent much of his time in collecting pictures and works of art. He had amassed at the time of his death a valuable gallery of pictures, principally of the German and Dutch schools, and of water-colour drawings by English artists. By his will he left to the trustees of the National Gallery, London, such of his oil-paintings, not exceeding one hundred, as they might choose to select, and in case of their declining to accept the gift wholly or in part, then the same right of selection to the department of science and art at South Kensington. He also bequeathed to South Kensington any of his water-colours, sepia or charcoal drawings which they might be pleased to select, not exceeding one hundred. The trustees of the National Gallery selected only three, 'Fishing Boats in a Breeze off the West,' by J. M. W. Turner, and two paintings by P. J. Clays of Brussels. The department of science and art in June 1870 selected ninety-two oil and forty-seven water-colour paintings. A number of fine engravings were also left to the British Museum.
Parsons removed from 6 Raymond Buildings in November 1869 to 45 Russell Square, Bloomsbury, and died there on 26 March 1870. He married a daughter of John Mayhew, but was soon left a widower with one daughter, Ellen, who, on 16 May 1860, married Sir Charles William Atholl Oakeley, bart., of Frittenden House, Staplehurst, Kent.
[Minutes of Proceedings of Institution of Civil Engineers, 1871, xxxi. 252-3; List of Bequests to South Kensington Museum, 1889, p. 15; Redgrave's Catalogue of Water-colour Paintings at South Kensington, 1877, pp. 82 sq.; Eighteenth Report of Science and Art Department in Parliamentary Papers, 1871, pp. xxx, 44, 387, 404, 415, and Nineteenth Report, Appendix, pp. 444-5.]
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parsons, John (d.1623)

​PARSONS, JOHN (d. 1623), organist and composer, is said to be the son of Robert Parsons (d. 1570) [q. v.], musician. In 1616, upon the recommendation of the dean of Westminster, he was elected one of the parish clerks and organist of St. Margaret's, Westminster. On 7 Dec. 1621 he was appointed organist and master of the choristers at Westminster Abbey, receiving 16l. yearly, besides 36l. 13s. 4d. for the charge of the children. Parsons died in 1623, and was buried on 3 Aug. in the Abbey cloisters. He was survived by his wife Jane, and his children—William, Dorothy, and Thomasine. The following lines by Camden refer to John Parsons:
Death, passing by and hearing Parsons play,  Stood much amazed at his depth of skill,  And said, ‘This artist must with me away’  (For death bereaves us of the better still),  But let the quire, while he keeps time, sing on,  For Parsons rests, his service being done.
A burial service by Parsons is preserved among the Barnard MSS. in the Royal College of Music.
L. M. M.