OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Basset, Ralph (d.1127?)

​BASSET, RALPH (d. 1127?), justiciar, is mentioned by Orderic (Hist. Eccles. lib. xi. cap. 3) as one of those ‘de ignobili stirpe’ whom Henry I, early in his reign, selected for the members of his administration. He appears, from the signatures to Henry's charters, to have been in constant attendance on the court. The chronicle of Abingdon speaks of him as ‘in omni Angliæ regno justitiæ habens dignitatem,’ and Henry of Huntingdon describes his son and himself as ‘viros clarissimos … justitiarios totius Angliæ.’ His exact post is, however, somewhat doubtful. In 1106 he was one of the five arbitrators between the archbishop of York and the abbot of Ripon. He is mentioned by Orderic as presiding at ‘Bricstan's’ trial in 1115–6, and by the English chronicle as condemning forty-four men to be hanged for robbery in a ‘géwitenemot’ at Huncote in 1124. His name occurs in the Pipe Roll of 1129–30 as a justice of the forests and an itinerant justice in six counties, but he was dead at the time. He had died, probably some two years before, at Northampton, entering on his death-bed the fraternity of Abingdon, and leaving several sons from whom descended the great house of Basset.
J. H. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Basset, John

​BASSET, JOHN (1791–1843), writer on subjects connected with mining, was son of the Rev. John Basset, rector of Illogan and Camborne, and Mary Wingfield of Durham, his wife, and was born 17 Nov. 1791. He was M.P. for Helston (1840) for a short time, and deeply interested himself in Cornish mining and the welfare of the miner. In 1837 he was sheriff of Cornwall. In 1836 he published some treatises on the mining courts of the duchy, and in the same year ‘Thoughts on the New Stannary Bill.’ In 1839 appeared his ‘Origin and History of the Bounding Act,’ and in 1842 his ‘Observations on Cornish Mining.’ But perhaps his most valuable contribution towards Cornish mining literature was a treatise, published in 1840, entitled ‘Observations on the Machinery used for Raising Miners in the Hartz,’ in the ‘Report of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society’ for that year (p. 59), which had for its result the substitution of a man-engine for the nearly vertical ladders used by the miners as they ascended or descended the mine. John Basset died at Boppart-on-the-Rhine, 4 July 1843.
W. H. T.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cavendish, Charles

​CAVENDISH, CHARLES (1620–1643), royalist general, second son of William, second earl of Devonshire [q. v.], was born on 30 May, 1620, and named after Prince Charles, his godfather. In 1638 he was sent abroad to travel with a governor; succeeded in reaching Cairo and saw a large part of Turkey. He returned to England in May 1641, and then served for a campaign under the Prince of Orange. On the outbreak of the war he entered the king's troop of guards as a volunteer under the command of Lord Bernard Stuart. At Edgehill he so distinguished himself by his valour that he was given the command of the Duke of York's troop left vacant by the death of Lord Aubigny. In consequence of a disagreement with an inferior officer, he sought an independent command, and obtained from the king a commission to raise a regiment of horse in the north. Up then established himself at Newark, and so distinguished himself by his activity against the parliamentarians, that, on the petition of the king's commissioners for Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces of those two counties, with the rank of colonel-general. On 23 March 1643 he took Grantham. and on 11 April defeated young Hotham at Ancaster, and threatened an irruption into the eastern association. He received the queen at Newark, and escorted her part of her way to Oxford, taking Burton-on-Trent by assault during the march, 2 July 1643 (Rushworth, v. 274). But attempting to prevent the raising of the siege of Gainsborough, he was defeated by Cromwell, and fell by the hand of James Berry, Cromwell's captain-lieutenant (28 July 1643). He was buried at Newark, but thirty years later his body was removed to Derby, to be interred with his mother.
C. H. F.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cavendish, Christiana

1904 Errata appended.
​CAVENDISH, CHRISTIANA, Countess of Devonshire (d. 1675), was the daughter of Edward Bruce of Kinloss (1540?-1611) [q. v.] In token of her father's services she, on her marriage to William Cavendish, second earl of Devonshire [q. v.], received from the king a grant of 10,000l. After the death of her husband in 1628 she had the wardship of the young lord and the care of the estates, the value of which she greatly increased by her prudent management. At the rebellion she was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the cause of the king. and her devotion to it was increased by the death of her second son, Charles [q, v.], who was slain at Gainsborough on 28 July 1043. She took charge of the king's effects after the battle of Worcester, and during the protectorate was accustomed to entertain the friends of the cause at her house at Roehampton. and also kept up a correspondence with the principal royalists on the continent. General Monck, it is said, sent her a private signal to make her aware of his intention to restore the king. After the Restoration Charles II frequently resorted to her house at Roehampton, and the queen mother lived on terms of unusual intimacy with her till her death, She is described by her biographer as 'of that affability and sweet address, with so great wit and judgment, as captivated all who conversed with her.' After the Restoration she was accustomed frequently to entertain the wits and men of letters, one of her favourite friends being Edmund Waller. who had been a sufferer in the royal cause. Waller dedicated to her his 'Epistles,' which ​conclude with an 'Epistle to the Duchess,' and he also wrote an epitaph on her son. William, earl of Pembroke, wrote a volume of poems in praise of her and Lady Rich, which was published with a dedication to her by Donne. A portrait of the duchess by Theodore Russell was in the Duke of Bedford's collection at Woburn. She died on 16 Jan. 1674-5.
[Life of the Right Honourable and Religious Lady, Christian, late Countess Dowager of Devonshire, London, 1685; Sir William Temple's Works, ii. 135; Kennet s Memoirs of the Family of Cavendish, pp. 12-20; Collins's Peerage, ed. 1812, i. 325-33; Lysons's Environs of London, i. 430-2.]
T. F. H.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.58 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 344 | i | 6 | Cavendish, Christiana, Countess of Devonshire: for duchess read countess |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cavendish, Frederick (1729-1803)

1904 Errata appended.
​CAVENDISH, Lord FREDERICK (1729–1803), field-marshal, third son of William, third duke of Devonshire, K.G., was born in August 1729. He entered the army as an ensign in the 2nd or Coldstream guards in 1750, and was promoted lieutenant and ​ captain on 17 March 1752, captain and lieutenant-colonel on 3 May 1756, and colonel on 7 May 1758. He was elected M.P. for Derbyshire on 27 June 1751, in the room of his elder brother, the Marquis of Hartington, who was summoned to the House of Lords as Lord Cavendish of Hardwick, in his father's barony, and for Derby in 1754, a seat which he held without intermission till 1780. He was a most enthusiastic soldier, and with three other young officers, Wolfe, Monckton, and Keppel, made a compact on the outbreak of the seven years' war not to marry until France was conquered. Family influence secured his rapid promotion, and in April 1757 he proceeded to Germany as aide-de-camp to the Duke of Cumberland, and served the campaign of that year there. In September 1758 he accompanied the Duke of Marlborough in his ludicrous expedition against St. Malo as aide-de-camp, and was taken prisoner at the affair of St. Cas. He at first refused to go on parole, on the ground that his duty as a member of parliament would make it necessary for him to vote the supplies for further war against France; but the Duc d'Aiguillon overruled his objections, and said, ‘Let not that prevent you, for we should no more object to your voting in parliament than to your begetting children lest they should one day fight against France.’ In 1760, after his exchange had been arranged, he went to Germany again as brigadier-general, and held command of a brigade of infantry in the army of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick till the conclusion of the war in 1763. In 1759–60 he was colonel 67th regiment. On 30 Oct. 1760 he was made colonel of the 34th regiment, a command which he held for thirty-seven years, and on 7 March 1761 he was promoted major-general. He succeeded to the beautiful estate of Twickenham Park under the will of the Countess of Mountrath in 1766, and was promoted lieutenant-general on 30 April 1770. His political principles prevented him from applying for a command in the American war of independence, but he was promoted general on 20 Nov. 1782, and made a field-marshal on 30 July 1796. He died at Twickenham, unmarried, on 21 Oct. 1803, at the age of seventy-four, leaving the bulk of his immense property to his favourite nephew, Lord George Cavendish, M.P., afterwards first earl of Burlington.
H. M. S.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.58 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 345 | i | 38 | Cavendish, Lord Frederick: after 1763 insert Ho was colonel of the 67th regiment 1759-60 |
| | | 41 | for four years read seven years |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Austin, William (fl.1662)

​AUSTIN, WILLIAM (fl. 1662), a writer of verse and classical scholar, was the son of William Austin, the religious writer, and was a barrister of Gray's Inn. On the marriage of Charles II with Catherine of Braganza, Austin wrote two poems to celebrate the union, which were 'presented to their majesties' on their passage down the Thames from Hampton Court to Whitehall (23 Aug. 1662). The first was entitled ' A Joyous Welcome to the most Serene and most Illustrious Queen of Brides, Catherine the Royal Spouse and Consort of Charles II,' London, 1662 folio, and the second 'Triumphus Hymenæus, London's solemn Jubilee for the most auspicious Nuptials of their great Sovereign, Charles the Second,' London, 1662, folio. Both poems were elaborately printed, and are now highly prized as bibliographical rarities. They are full of bombastic eulogy, and are crowded with classical allusions, explained in voluminous and learned notes. In an address to the reader Austin not inaptly refers to his work as 'this thatcht Tugurium of Poesie.' In 1664 he produced a doggerel poem of similar calibre, bearing the title of 'Atlas under Olympus. An Heroick Poem by William Austin, of Gray's Inn, Esq. London, printed for the author, 1664,' 8vo. It was dedicated to Charles II and Monck, duke of Albemarle, and was a fulsome paneygric upon their achievements. Almost every line is based on a classical quotation, which is printed in each case at the foot of the page. Austin's most readable production is a prosaic description in verse of the plague of London. Its title runs: 'Ἐπιλοίμια ἔπη or the Anatomy of the Pestilence. A Poem in three parts, describing the deplorable condition of the city of London under its merciless dominion, 1665. What the Plague is, together with the causes of it. As also, the Prognosticks and most eftectual meanes of safety both preservative and curative. By William Austin, of Grayes Inne, Esq.' London, 1666, 8vo. In an address to the reader it is stated that the poem was written at the request of 'very worthy persons in the countrey at the time of the sickness when the mortality in London' reached 'seven or eight thousand a week with some hundreds over and above.' Although Austin here dispenses with classical allusions and annotations, he employs a number of Latin and Greek words in a slightly anglicised form. A portrait of the author is prefixed to the volume. Austin was buried in the parish church of Southwark, near the monument of his father, but the year of his death is uncertain.
S. L. L.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Austin, Robert

​AUSTIN, ROBERT, D.D., (fl. 1644), puritan divine, published in 1644 a tract, entitled 'Allegiance not impeached, viz. by the Parliament's taking up of Arms (though ​against the King's Personall Commands) for the just Defence of the Kings Person, Crown, and Dignity, the Laws of the Land, Liberties of the Subject, &c.,' 4to. In an 'address to the reader,' the author protests that he had lost much by siding with the parliament; that he had been actuated solely by motives of patriotism in publishing his views to the world; and that he looked forward to the time when the king would 'return in safety, and his throne be established in judgment and in justice.' In 1647 Austin published 'The Parliaments Rules and Directions concerning Sacramental Knowledge drawn into Questions and Answers,' a duodecimo of eight leaves.
A. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Austin, Samuel (fl.1629)

​AUSTIN, SAMUEL, the elder (fl. 1629), religious poet, was the son of Thomas Austin, Esq., of Lostwithiel, Cornwall. He entered Exeter College, Oxford, in 1623, at the age of seventeen, took the degree of B.A. in 1627, and that of M.A. in 1630, 'about which time, being numbered with the Levites,' he 'was beneficed in his own country' (Wood, Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 499). At Oxford he spent much time in composing a long poem on scriptural subjects, which was given to the world in 1629 under the title of 'Austin's Urania, or the Heavenly Muse,' 8vo. In the dedication to Dr. Prideaux, rector of Exeter College, the author describes the difficulties under which the book was written: 'If you knew but the paines i have suffer'd in travell hereof, how many precious houres and dayes I have detain'd from those sports and vanities which are common to others; yea, how much time I have stolne from my other private studies (which lay of necessitie on mee in this place), and sacred them only to this...in briefe, what heavy and hard conflicts, and what a tedious travell I have had (as God knowes) in the producing of it, I dare promise my selfe it would make your yielding heart e'en bleed to thinke on't....But now (thankes bee to my God) I have at length finished it.' Such prefatory words as these do not tempt the reader to proceed; but on the next page is a most interesting address in verse to 'my ever honoured friends, those most refined wits and favourers of most exquisite learning, Mr. M. Drayton, Mr. Will, Browne, and my most ingenious kinsman, Mr. Andrew Pollexfen.' It is pleasant to see with what affection and respect this devout young aspirant to poetic honours addresses the authors of the 'Polyolbion' and of 'Britannia's Pastorals,' and implores them to neglect the rural Pan and sing the praises of Divine Providence. Was it in answer to this appeal that Michael Drayton, in 1630, when publisliing his 'Muses' Elysium,' appended to the dainty pastorals, as leaden weights to drag them down, his 'Noah's Floud' and 'David and Goliath'? The 'Urania' itself is not so poor as one would have supposed from the author's admissions in the dedication. Book i. describes the Fall of Man, and book ii. deals with the Redemption. The verse runs fluently, and is not disfigured by harsh grammatical constructions. Evidently the writer had given a close study to 'Britannia's Pastorals;' but though there is little to blame, there is little to commend, and we must be content to admire the piety rather than the poetry of Austin's 'Urania.'
A. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Austin, William (1721-1820)

​AUSTIN, WILLIAM (1721–1820), engraver and draftsman, was born in London in 1721. He was a pupil of George Bickham; but after having engraved a few plates, chiefly landscapes of no great merit, he relinqilished the practice of the art, and devoted the remainder of his life to teaching drawing, first in London and afterwards in Brighton. Among his engravings are four plates of the 'Ruins of Ancient Rome,' after Pannini, four plates of the 'Ruins of Palmyra,' six 'Sea-pieces,' after Van Goyen, and 'The Four Times of the Day,' views in Holland after Waterloo, Ruisdael, Van Goyen, and Van der Neer. He likewise engraved with Paul Sandby, Vivares, and others, some views of 'Windsor Park' and 'Virginia Water,' and also published in 1781 ​a series of thirty plates, slightly etched from drawings by Andrea Locatelli, entitled 'A Specimen of Sketching Landscapes.' He for some time kept a print-shop, and published some political caricatures, which were mostly directed against the French, and in support of the administration of Charles James Fox. Six of these, 'French Spies attacked by British Bees,' and others, were engraved by himself in 1780. He died at Brighton 11 May 1820, at the advanced age of ninety-nine.
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Aveling, Thomas William Baxter

​AVELING, THOMAS WILLIAM BAXTER (d. 1884), independent minister, received his theological training at Highbury College, and in 1838 was appointed to the pastorate of the Kingsland Congregational Church. Here he acquired a high reputation for eloquence and learning, his popularity with his flock being evinced by the fact that his connection with them was only terminated by his death, which took place at Reedham, near Croydon, 3 July 1884. In 1876 he was appointed chairman of the Congregational Union. He was also for many years the honorary secretary of the Asylum for Fatherless Children at Reedham. Some years before his death he received from the Washington University the degree of D.D. During his half-century of ministerial labour he published a large number of sermons and other fugitive pieces, and one work of a more substantial character, viz. 'Memorials of the Clayton Family,' 8vo, 1867, which, as it contains correspondence never before published of the Countess of Huntingdon and other persons eminent in the religious world of the last century, has some pretensions to the character of an original authority.
J. M. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Austin, Samuel (d.1834)

​AUSTIN, SAMUEL (d. 1834), water-colour painter, was a native of Liverpool. He commenced life as a banker's clerk, but eventually gave up a good position in order to devote himself entirely to the art in which he had excelled as an amateur, and of which he was enthusiastically fond. He exhibited water-colour drawings at the Society of British Artists from 1824 to 1826, and from 1827 at the annual exhibitions of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, of which body he was elected an associate in the last-named year. He painted landscapes, and occasionally rustic figures: but his best works were coast scenes, introducing boats and figures, some of which were from sketches in Holland, France, and on the Rhine. An example of his work, 'Shakespeare's Cliff, Dover, with Luggers on the Beach,' is in the South Kensington Museum. A 'View of Dort' has been engraved after him by William Miller. He died at Liverpool in July 1834.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists of the English School, 1878; Society of British Artists, Exhibition Catalogues, 1824-6; Society of Painters in Water-Colours, Exhibition Catalogues, 1827-34.]
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Austin, Samuel (fl.1658)

​AUSTIN, SAMUEL, the younger (fl. 1658), poetical writer, inherited little of his father's humility, and seems, indeed, to have been an arrant coxcomb. He became a commoner of Wadham College, Oxford, in 1652, took his B.A. degree in 1656, and afterwards migrated to Cambridge. At Oxford he made a laughing-stock of himself by his inordinate self-conceit. Wood is very severe on him: 'Such was the vanity of this person that he, being extremely conceited of his own worth, and overvaluing his poetical fancy more than that of Cleveland, who was then accounted the "hectoring prince of poets," fell into the hands of the satyrical wits of this university, who, having got some of his prose and poetry, served him as the wits did Tho. Coryat in his time.' These pieces of verse and prose, rendered more ridiculous by grotesque alterations and additions, were published in 1658 'by express order from the Writs,' under the title of 'Naps upon Parnassus; a sleepy Muse nipt and pincht, though not awakened.' A number of satirical commendatory verses is prefixed, among the contributors to which were Thomas Flatman, fellow of New College; Thomas Sprat, of Wadham College, afterwards bishop of Rochester; George Castle, of All Souls'; Alexander Amidci, a Jew and teacher of Hebrew at Oxford; Sylvanus Taylour, of All Souls', and others. At the restoration of Charles II, Austin came before the public with a fulsome 'Panegyrick' (1661). Luckily this awkward attempt in the Pindaric measure fell stillborn from the press. In a prefatory note to the 'Panegyrick' he threatens that 'the author, according as these find acceptance, intends a larger book of poems.' Then he enumerates the subjects ​that he intends to take in hand, among which are 'Christ's Love to his Church, shadowed out in Joseph and Potiphar's Daughter in a familiar Dialogue betwixt them,' 'Two Lovers in one Heart,' 'The Young Man's speech to a silent Woman,' &c. What became of him after the publication of the 'Panegyrick' is not known.
[Wood, Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 499, iii. 675; Corser's Collectanea, i. 90-93; Boase and Courtney, Biblioth. Cornub. i. 8.]
A. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bradshaw, John (fl.1679)

​BRADSHAW, JOHN (fl. 1679), political writer, son of Alban Bradshaw, an attorney, of Maidstone, Kent, was born in that town in 1659. He was admitted a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1674, and was expelled from that society in 1677 for robbing and attempting to murder one of the senior fellows. He was tried and condemned to death, but after a year's imprisonment was released. Wood says that Bradshaw, 'who was a perfect atheist and a debauchee ad omnia, retir'd afterwards to his own country, taught a petty school, turn'd quaker, was a preacher among them, and wrote and published "The Jesuits Countermin'd; or, an Account of a new Plot, &c.," London, 1679, 4to.' When James II came to the throne, Bradshaw 'turned papist.'
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 619.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bradock, Thomas

1904 Errata appended.
​BRADOCK, THOMAS (fl. 1576–1604), translator, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, proceeded B.A. 1576, and was elected fellow of his college in 1578. In 1579 his name appears in a protest against the ​action of Dr. Hawford, the master, in withholding his fellowship from Hugh Broughton. In 1580 he proceeded M.A., and was incorporated M.A. at Oxford in 1584. In 1588 he was elected head-master of the grammar school at Reading, and in 1591 was presented to the vicarage of Stanstead Abbots in Hertfordshire, which he resigned in 1593. The advowson of Great Munden in Hertfordshire was granted 11 July 1604 to a certain Thomas Nicholson upon trust to present it to Bradock. Bradock never obtained the presentation, which did not fall vacant till 1616; he probably died before that date. Bradock translated into Latin Bishop Jewell's confutation, in six parts, of the attack of Thomas Harding on Jewell's 'Apologia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ.' The translation, taking up 637 folio pages, was published at Geneva in 1600, and was undertaken that foreign scholars and divines might be able to follow the controversy which the ' Apologia ' had occasioned. It is dedicated to John Whitgift, archbishop of Canterbury.
[Cooper's Athenæ Cantab, ii. 395; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 394; Fasti i. 228; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire iii. 247; Coate's Reading, 335; Strype's Annals, ii. App. 136, iii. 490, App. 201; Cal. State Papers (Dom. 1603-10).]
R. B.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.35 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 174 | i | 4 | Bradock, Thomas: after 1584 insert He was proctor in the same year |