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

​NEVOY, Sir DAVID, Lord Reidie, afterwards Lord Nevoy (d. 1683), of Reidie, Scottish judge, was a regent at St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews, but was deposed in 1649 (Lamont, Diary, Maitland Club, p. 4). He was admitted an advocate 27 Nov. 1649, and acted as sheriff-depute of Forfarshire (Angus) under Cromwell. On 25 June 1661 he was appointed an ordinary lord of session and was knighted, assuming as his title at first that of Lord Reidie, but afterwards that of Lord Nevoy. He died late in 1683, having married, on 21 April 1653, Margaret Hay, fourth daughter of the laird of Pitfours. Several of his letters to Charles II and Lauderdale are among the Brit. Mus. Add. MSS.
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Neville, William (fl.1518)

​NEVILLE, WILLIAM (fl. 1518), poet, was second son of Sir Richard Neville, second baron Latimer [q. v.], and Anne, daughter of Sir Humphrey Stafford, his wife. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Giles Greville, and resided at Penwyn (now Pinvin), Worcestershire, where he left issue, which became extinct in 1631. He was the author of a poem entitled ‘The Castell of Pleasure; the conveyaunce of a dreme how Desyre went to the Castell of Pleasure, wherein was the garden of affeccyon, inhabyted by Beaute, to whome he amerously expressed his love, upon the whiche supplycacion rose grete stryfe, dysputacion, and argument betweene Pyte and Dysdayne.’ On the back of the title-page are stanzas to the author by the printer, Robert Copland, who also writes L'Envoy in French at the end of the poem, from which it appears that William Nevyl ‘tres honoré fils du Seigneur Latimer’ is the author. This is followed by an English stanza, asking pardon if ‘without your licence I did them impresse,’ and the notice, ‘Here endeth the Castell of Pleasure, emprynted in Powle's churchyarde, at the sygne of the Trynyte, by me, Hary Pepwell, in the yere of our lorde, 1518.’ A copy, in 4to, is in the British Museum Library. Another, with a different cut on the title, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, is described in Dibdin's ‘Typographical Antiquities’ (ii. 371).
[Edmundson's Baronag. Geneal. ed. Segar, iv. 350–1; Nash's Worcestershire, ii. 250, Suppl. p. 59; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), 1780; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. s.v. Nevil.]
R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nevynson, Christopher

​NEVYNSON, CHRISTOPHER (d. 1551), lawyer, was eldest son of Rowland Nevynson of Briggend, in the parish of Wetheral, Cumberland, and first-cousin of Stephen Nevynson [q. v.] (Berry's County Genealogies, p. 390; Nicolson and Burn, Westmorland and Cumberland, i. 451; Addit. MSS. 5520 f. 156, 5528 f. 45; Philipot, ‘Visitation of Kent,’ 1619–21, with additions by Hasted, in Addit. MS. 5507, f. 333). It is possible that he at first contemplated a religious life. He is probably identical with the Christopher Nevynson who in 1533 was sub-prior of the convent of Hulm Cultrum, in the parish of Wetheral, and there was a likelihood of his becoming abbot there (see State Papers, Henry VIII, 16 Aug. 1533 and 11 Aug. 1536). On the suppression of the monasteries he seems to have turned to law. He graduated LL.B. at Cambridge in 1535, and LL.D. in 1539, and on 1 July of that year was admitted to the College of Advocates.
As a lawyer Nevynson acquired a reputation for great learning and professional skill. At the accession of Edward VI (3 Sept. 1547) he was appointed a commissioner for the visitation of the dioceses of Westminster, London, Norwich, and Ely (Strype, Eccles. Mem. ii. 74; Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 9). In 1549 he was a commissioner for the trial, ‘for errors of scripture,’ of Anne, countess of Sussex (Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, iii. 240). He was also present as one of the king's visitors at Peter Martyr's disputation at Oxford, 28 May–June 1549 (Strype, Cranmer, p. 286; Foxe, Acts and Mon. vi. 298), and as one of the judges and commissioners of the process against George von Parre, an anabaptist follower of Joan Bocher [q. v.] of Kent (Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 39–45; Strype, Eccles. Mem. ii. i. 385; Burnet, Hist. of the Reformation, v. 249). Nevynson's will, dated 15 March 1550–1, was proved at Canterbury on 12 Sept. 1551. He is described as of Adisham, Kent, and mention is made of his wife, his daughter Jane, and son Thomas, and numerous cousins. He left the leases of not less than six manors to his son (Nicholas, Test. Vetusta). A sepulchral brass to the son and the son's wife in the church at Eastry was dated 1590 (cf. Addit. MS. 32490, f. 36).
W. A. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Herbert, William (d.1333?)

​HERBERT, WILLLAM (d. 1333?), Franciscan, is said to have entered the Minorite order at Hereford. Thence he was sent by his convent to the university of Oxford, and in 1290, the only date of any certainty in his life, he was at Paris (Lanercost Chronicle, p. 135). Later he returned to Oxford, where he won great renown as a preacher and philosopher, and became the forty-third reader in divinity to the Franciscans. Before his death—the date of which is arbitrarily placed by Pits in 1333, and by Stevens in 1337 (Cent. to Dugdale's Monasticon)—he returned to Hereford, where hewas buried. According to Leland, he wrote quodlibets and commentaries on Deuteronomy and the Apocalypse.
[Monumenta Franciscana, vol. i. app. ii.; Lanercost Chronicle; Leland, De Scriptoribus Britann.]
A. G. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Herbert, William (1771-1851)

​HERBERT, WILLIAM (1771–1851), antiquary, was born in 1771. He appears to have lived in London, where he became intimately acquainted with Edward Wedlake Brayley the elder [q. v.], a young man of his own age, whose ardent interest in topographical and antiquarian studies he warmly shared. With Brayley he produced in 1803 a volume of tales and poems, entitled 'Syr Reginalde, or the Black Tower; a romance of the Twelfth Century' (London, 8vo), and in 1806 a history of Lambeth Palace, which he dates from Globe Place, Lambeth. Another edition of the latter work was published for the illustrators in the same year. He was also associated with Robert Wilkinson in producing 'Londina Illustrata,' a sumptuously illustrated account of ancient buildings in London and Westminster (London, 1819-25, 2 vols. 4to). According to the plates of this work he lived at Marsh Gate, Lambeth, in 1808-9.
In 1828 he was elected librarian of the Guildhall Library, which had been recently re-established by the corporation of London. He prepared a second edition of the catalogue in 1840, and retired in 1845. He died, aged 80, on 18 Nov. 1851, at 40 Brunswick Street, Haggerston; he was survived by Eliza Herbert, probably his daughter (certificate of death, registrar-general's office).
Herbert is best known by his 'History of the Twelve great Livery Companies of London,' 1836-7, 2 vols. 8vo, a work of great labour and research, which still remains the principal authority upon the subject. All Herbert's works are lavishly illustrated, and he took great pains to secure accuracy in this respect. Besides the works already mentioned he published: 1. ‘Antiquities of the Inns of Court and Chancery … with a concise history of the English law,’ 1804, 8vo; illustrated. 2. ‘Select views of London and its environs … from original paintings and drawings, accompanied by copious letterpress descriptions’ (by William Herbert), 1804-5, 2 vols. 4to. 3. ‘London before the Great Fire,’ parts 1-2, 1817, folio. In the Guildhall Library is preserved a unique copy of part 3, which contains a manuscript note on the fly-leaf by the author (dated 22 Aug. 1831), stating that it consists of proof-sheets of the letterpress and proof impressions of the plates. 4. ‘Illustrations of the site and Neighbourhood of the new Post Office … with an account of the antient Mourning Bush tavern, &c., Aldersgate, and various London taverns,’ 1830. 8vo. 5. ‘The history and antiquities of the parish and church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, London; with historical sketches of the Boar's Head tavern, Eastcheap,’ 1831, 8vo; illustrated. This work was published by subscription, and was intended to be finished in six parts, of which only two appeared. 6. ‘School elocution, or the young academical orator,’ 1853, 8vo; published posthumously. 7. Collections, chiefly manuscript, for the history of various London livery companies and of London chantries and monasteries, now preserved in the Guildhall Library.
C. W-h.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Herbert Losinga

​HERBERT LOSINGA (d. 1119), bishop of Thetford and Norwich. [See Losinga.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gunn, William

​GUNN, WILLIAM (1750–1841), miscellaneous writer, born on 7 April 1750 at Guildford, Surrey, was the son of Alexander Gunn of Irstead, Norfolk. He attended Fletcher's private school at Kingston-upon-Thames for six years. In 1784 he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, as a sizar (College Admission Register). He took holy orders, in 1784 became rector of Sloley, Norfolk, and in 1786 obtained the consolidated livings of Barton Turf and Irstead. The latter he resigned in 1829 in favour of John Gunn upon receiving the vicarage of Gorleston, Suffolk. In 1795 he obtained the degree of B.D. as a 'ten-year man.' During a residence in Rome he obtained permission to search the Vatican and other libraries for manuscripts relating to the history of England, and published anonymously, as the result of his research, in 1803, a collection of 'Extracts' from state papers of the sixteenth century, describing the ancient manner of placing the kingdom in military array, the various modes of defence adopted for its safety in periods of danger, and the evidence of foreigners as to the national character and personal bravery of the English. In the Vatican he discovered a tenth-century manuscript of the 'Historia Britonum,' commonly ascribed to Nennius, which he printed in 1819 with an English version, facsimile of the original, notes, and illustrations (another edition of the translation only, with a few additions, was published by J. A. Giles in 1841). His 'Inquiry into the Origin and Influence of Gothic Architecture,' 8vo, London, appeared in 1819. Gunn's most important work was 'Cartonensia; or, an Historical and Critical Account of the Tapestries in the Palace of the Vatican; copied from the designs of Raphael, etc. To which are subjoined Remarks on the Causes which retard the Progress of the higher Departments of the Art of Painting in this Country,' 8vo, London, 1831 (2nd edit, 1832). He died at Smallburgh, Norfolk, on 11 April 1841.
[Gunn's Works; Gent. Mag. 1841, pt. ii. 548-549.]
G. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gunning, Maria

​GUNNING, Miss MARIA, afterwards Countess of Coventry (1733–1760). [See Coventry.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gunning, Elizabeth (1769-1823)

​GUNNING, ELIZABETH, afterwards Mrs. Plunkett (1769–1823). [See under Gunning, Susannah.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parry, William (fl.1825)

​PARRY, WILLIAM (fl. 1825), major of Lord Byron's brigade in Greece, was originally ‘a firemaster in the navy,’ in which he served with credit, and subsequently a clerk in the civil department of the ordnance at Woolwich. While Lord Byron was endeavouring to assist the Greeks, Thomas Gordon [q. v.], of Cairness in Aberdeenshire, an enthusiastic supporter of the Greek cause, employed Parry in 1823 to prepare a plan for supplying artillery. The result was an estimate that for 10,500l. an efficient corps could be organised in Greece. Gordon supported the plan, and offered personally to bear one-third of the cost; but the Greek committee in London decided to send out a corps on a much smaller scale. Parry was accordingly sent out with a few men, some of whom were skilled artisans capable of making the carriages in Greece, and stores. On 5 Feb. 1824 Byron wrote to Charles Hancock at Missolonghi: ‘Amongst other firebrands, our firemaster Parry has just landed.’ According to Trelawny, Parry was a ‘rough burly fellow, never quite sober.’ He prepared a plan for placing Missolonghi and the harbour in a state of efficient defence at a cost of a thousand dollars (Stanhope, App. p. 295), but actually did very little, probably because he had neither the money nor the men, his artisans having returned to England within three weeks of their arrival.
Parry kept Byron's accounts, and is said to have been his favourite butt at Missolonghi; he appears, however, to have repaid familiarity with devotion, and to have faithfully nursed the poet in his last illness, which terminated in 1824. In 1825 he published in London ‘The Last Days of Lord Byron,’ in which he highly praises Byron, and condemns the conduct of Colonel Stanhope, ‘who had brought with him Nabob airs from Hindostan.’ An absurd description of Jeremy Bentham is included. Trelawny thus sums up Parry's subsequent career: ‘After three months' service in Greece, he returned to England, talked the Greek committee out of 400l., and drank himself into a madhouse.’
W. B-t.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parsell, Thomas

​PARSELL, THOMAS (1674–1720), head-master of Merchant Taylors' School, son of Thomas Parsell, was born on 23 Aug. 1674. He was admitted into Merchant Taylors' School on 11 Sept. 1684. In June 1693 he was elected to a scholarship at St. John's College, Oxford, whence he graduated B.A. 1697, M.A. 1701, B.D. and D.D. 1706. In 1701 he was appointed first under-master of his old school, and in 1707 head-master, being then described as ‘an eminent grammarian.’ He died in July 1720, and was buried at St. Mary Abchurch in the city of London.
Parsell's chief literary work was a translation of the Book of Common Prayer into Latin. The first edition, in 1706, 12mo, bears the title of ‘Litvrgia, seu Liber Precum Communium in Ecclesia Anglicana receptus.’ The Psalms, Epistles, and Gospels are described as being taken from Castellio's version, the rendering of the rest being Parsell's own. The work is dedicated to John [Williams], bishop of Chester, and the author is described in it as fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. A second edition appeared in 1713, a third in 1720, and by 1759 it had reached its seventh edition.
Parsell also edited, for school use, the ‘Panegyricus’ of the younger Pliny, 1716, 8vo, chiefly from the Delphin edition; and, according to Greenwood (English Grammar, 1722, p. 228), he wrote ‘An Explanation of the Syntax in our Common Grammar,’ printed for Bonwick in St. Paul's Churchyard, which is possibly identical with the anonymous ‘Enchiridion Syntaxis Lilianæ constrictius,’ London, 1705, 12mo.
J. H. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pars, Henry

​PARS, HENRY (1734–1806), draughtsman and chaser, born in 1734, was the son of a chaser and elder brother of William Pars ​[q. v.] He was brought up to his father's craft, but from about 1763 to his death he kept a drawing academy at 10 Strand (on the site now occupied by Simpson's restaurant and cigar divan), which had been founded by William Shipley, the main originator of the Society of Arts. Thither students went to be prepared for the academy in St. Martin's Lane, and it was long known by the name of Pars's school. He died on 7 May 1806, and was buried in the churchyard of Pentonville Chapel, Islington.
His brother, Albert Pars, was a successful modeller in wax.
C. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parsons, Abraham

​PARSONS, ABRAHAM (d. 1785), traveller and consul, was bred to the sea, his father being a merchant captain. In early life he visited many countries in command of merchant vessels. He then set up in business as a merchant at Bristol, but was not successful. In 1767 the Turkey Company appointed him their consul and marine factor at Scanderoon in Asia Minor, a post he held for six years, and resigned on account of the unhealthiness of the climate. He then began travelling for commercial purposes, making several journeys in Asia Minor, and travelling from Scanderoon, through the mountains to Aleppo, crossing the desert from Aleppo to Baghdad, ascending the Euphrates to Heylah, and then descending the stream to Bussorah, where he was during the siege of that place by a Persian army in 1775. He next visited Bombay, made a lengthy voyage along the whole west coast of India, visiting all parts as far as Goa. He returned by way of the Red Sea and Egypt, visiting Mocha, Suez, Cairo, and Rosetta. He got as far westward as Leghorn, where he died in 1785.
Parsons bequeathed a manuscript narrative of his travels to his brother-in-law, the Rev. John Berjew, by whose son (the Rev. John Paine Berjew of Bristol) it was edited and published in 1808, under the title of ‘Account of Travels in Asia and Africa,’ London, 4to. A ​paper by Parsons on ‘A Phenomenon at Bussorah’ appeared in ‘Nicholson's Journal’ (London) in the same year.
H. M. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parry, William (fl.1601)

​PARRY, WILLIAM (fl. 1601), traveller, is the author of ‘A New and Large Discourse of the Travels of Anthony Sherley, Kt.,’ in Turkey, Persia, and Russia (1601). He accompanied Shirley [see Shirley, Sir Anthony] in all his wanderings in the track of John Newberie [q. v.], Ralph Fitch [q. v.], and Anthony Jenkinson [q. v.], and his account is amusing and observant. He describes the outward route by Flushing, the Hague, Cologne, Frankfort, the Alps, and Venice to Aleppo. The Englishmen were arrested by the Turks in Cyprus on the slanderous information of Italians; released on payment of backsheesh, they had to make their way to Tripoli in Syria in a small boat. The Syrians, according to Parry, ‘sit all day drinking a liquor they call coffee, made of a seed like mustard.’ Embarking on the Euphrates at Birrah, after visiting Antioch and Aleppo, Shirley and Parry sailed down the river for twenty-three days, and so reached Babylon, where their merchandise was seized, and only half its value given back. Informed against by a ‘drunken Dutchman,’ they hurried on from Babylon, where Parry describes the ‘old tower of Babel, about the height of Paul's,’ into Persia. They were lucky enough to escape the Turkish frontier guards, who threatened ‘to cut them into gobbets,’ and, passing through the country of the Kurds, ‘altogether addicted to thieving, not much unlike the wild Irish,’ they received a warm welcome at Casben from the shah. Parry gives a short account of the Persian court, and the manners and religion of the people, and condemns them as ‘ignorant in all kinds of liberal or learned sciences, except in … horses' furniture, carpettings, and silk works.’ Persian coppers, he says, are like ‘our Bristow tokens.’ After very honourable treatment the Englishmen took their leave for Russia. They were two months crossing the Caspian in stormy weather; from Astrakhan to Moscow was a journey of ten weeks more, seven of them up the ‘mighty river of Volga.’ At the Russian capital the English travellers, though at first entertained by a ‘crew of aqua vitæ bellied fellows,’ soon fell under suspicion, were put in confinement, and vexed with ‘frivolous particularities,’ as if spies. The English merchants in Moscow went bail for them; and the visitors were allowed to go on their way, after witnessing a great church and state procession, in which a monstrous bell of twenty tons weight was dragged by 3,500 men, as Parry relates, ‘after the manner of our western bargemen in England.’
From Russia Parry returned home with some reputation for travel. John Davies (1565?–1618) [q. v.] of Hereford addressed to him a sonnet in praise of his daring. Parry's ‘Discourse’ was partly reprinted in Purchas's ​‘Pilgrimes,’ and was reprinted by J. Payne Collier in his ‘Illustrations of Early English Popular Literature,’ 1864. On it was based ‘The Travailes of the three English Brothers,’ Thomas, Anthony, and Robert Shirley, a play, by John Day, William Rowley, and George Wilkins, 1607.
C. R. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pars, William

​PARS, WILLIAM (1742–1782), portrait-painter and draughtsman, born in London on 28 Feb. 1742, was the son of a chaser. He studied at the St. Martin's Lane academy, and also in the Duke of Richmond's Gallery. In 1761 he exhibited a portrait and miniatures at the Incorporated Society of Artists, and became a member of the Free Society of Artists in 1763. In 1764 he obtained the Society of Arts' medal for an historical painting, and in June of the same year he was selected by the Dilettanti Society to accompany, as draughtsman, Dr. Chandler and Mr. Revett to Greece. The result was published in ‘Ionian Antiquities,’ which was illustrated from Pars's drawings [see Chandler, Richard, 1738–1810]. He returned on 2 Dec. 1766, and soon after accompanied Henry Temple, second viscount Palmerston [q. v.], to the continent, making drawings in Switzerland, the Tyrol, and Rome. In 1769 he contributed seven views from Greece to the first exhibition of the Royal Academy. He was elected an associate in 1770, and in the following year he sent eight European views, chiefly of Switzerland and the Tyrol, together with one portrait. He contributed regularly (chiefly portraits) to the academy exhibitions till 1776. In the summer of the previous year he had started for Rome on the students' pension of the Dilettanti Society, and he remained there till the autumn of 1782, when he died of fever.
A selection of his Greek drawings was engraved by William Byrne for the Dilettanti Society; five of his Swiss drawings, including the ‘Mer de Glace,’ were engraved by Woollett; and several others of his drawings were aquatinted by Paul Sandby.
Many of his drawings made for the Dilettanti Society are in the British Museum, and others are to be found at the South Kensington Museum, the Whitworth Museum at Manchester, and in other collections of the English School of Water-colours, of which he may be regarded as one of the founders.
C. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parsley, Osbert

​PARSLEY or PERSLEY, OSBERT (1511–1585), musical composer, born in 1511, and for fifty years singing master at Norwich Cathedral, was quoted by Morley in 1597 with qualified approval for his ingenuity in composing a canon upon a subject in plain song. His treatment of the hymn ‘Salvator Mundi’ is the example especially noted (Plain Introduction to Practicall Musick, pp. 96–8). William Jackson has commented upon this pas​sage: ‘A canon upon a plain song is the most difficult part of composition. … This of Parsley's has many faults which nothing can excuse but its being a canon upon a plain song’ (ib. ed. 1608, with manuscript notes, in Brit. Mus.).
Among manuscript music by Parsley preserved in the principal libraries are: (1) ‘Conserva me,’ (2) ‘Benedicam Dominum,’ and (3) ‘Domine quid multiplicati,’ in lute notation (Brit Mus. Addit. MS. 29246, ff. 8, 12 b). 4. Te Deum, a 4. 5. Benedictus, a 4. 6. ‘Perslis’ or ‘Pslyes Clock,’ a 5 (ib. 30480–4, ff. in Cantus 4, 11, 70 b). 7. Spes nostra a 5 (ib. 31390, f. 11 b). 8. In Nomine (ib. 32377, f. 20 b).
L. M. M.