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

1904 Errata appended.
​CALVERT, LEONARD (d. 1647), governor of Maryland, America, was the second son of George Calvert, first lord Baltimore ​[q. v.], and the brother of Cecil Calvert, second lord Baltimore, who received a charter for the colony from Charles I on 20 June 1632. At the request of his brother, Leonard Calvert set sail with the expedition from Cowes on 22 Nov. 1633 in the two ships the Ark of Avalon and the Dove. The emigrants consisted of two hundred persons of good families and of the Roman catholic persuasion; but although the colony was designed to be a refuge for English catholics, religious toleration was from the beginning proclaimed for all christians. The name Maryland was bestowed on the colony by Charles I in honour of his queen, Henrietta Maria. They arrived at Port Comfort, Virginia, on 27 Feb. 1634, and on 27 March took possession of an abandoned Indian village, which they named St. Mary's. Soon after his arrival Calvert had an interview with Captain Clayborne, who had established a trading station on Kent Island, Chesapeake Bay, and intimated to him that the settlement would be considered part of the Maryland colony. He also met an Englishman, Captain Henry Fleet, who had spent several years among the Indians, and through whose influence the chief was induced to go on board the governor's vessel, and to forego all objections to the settlement of the colony. For the first ten years of the existence of the colony there is an hiatus in the information, the records having been seized in 1646 by one of Clayborne's men and carried to England. Clayborne in 1635 resorted to force, but was defeated and fled to Virginia. For some years Calvert was in England, but returned to Maryland in August or September 1644 with a new commission from the lord proprietary. Meanwhile Clayborne had possessed himself of Kent Island, and Richard Ingle, who held a commission from the parliament, drove Calvert to Virginia; but in 1646 Calvert returned and routed the rebels. He then proceeded to reduce Kent Island, and after its submission, 16 April 1647, pardon was granted to all offenders. He died on 9 June in the same year. It is not know whether he was married or had any children.
T. F. H.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.49 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 274 | i | 16 | Calvert, Leonard : for Port Comfort, Virginia, on 24 Feb. read Point Comfort, Virginia, on 27 Feb. |
| | | 18 | after Indian village insert in Maryland |
| | | 26 f.e. | after Virginia insert In April 1637 Calvert was constituted lieutenant-general, admiral, commander, chancellor, and chief justice of Maryland. He stood by the authority of the king during the Civil War, and was viewed with hostility by the parliamentary party. |
| | | 21-20 f.e. | for and finally drove Calvert to Virginia read Richard Ingle, who held a commission from the parliament against malignants in Chesapeake Bay, finally drove Calvert to Virginia |
| | | 11 f.e. | for Frank White read Father Andrew White, S.J. |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Edward

​CALVERT, EDWARD (1799–1883), artist, was a native of Appledore in Devonshire, where he was born on 20 Sept. 1799. The first years of his life were passed near Starcross. His father, Roland Calvert, who had been in the army, died when Edward was twelve years old. He early entered the navy and served as midshipman under Sir Charles Penrose. While on board he saw his dearest shipmate killed at his side during an action. He soon after left service to devote himself to the arts. He studied under James Ball and A. B. Johns, the latter a landscape-painter of repute at Plymouth. After his ​marriage with Miss Bennell of Brixton he removed to London and attended the Royal Academy schools. Before long he made the acquaintance of William Blake, and joined a little band of artists who reverenced Blake as their chief, including Samuel Palmer, Linnell the elder, and George Richmond. Blake's designs exercised considerable influence over Calvert. He was one of the few friends who attended Blake's interment in 1827. His first exhibited picture was at the Royal Academy in 1825. It was called ‘Nymphs,’ and excited much warm admiration. At the same gallery he exhibited in 1827 his picture ‘A Shepherdess.’ In 1829 he sent ‘Morning’ to the exhibition of the Society of British Artists, Suffolk Street. Another poetic landscape with the same title was exhibited by him at the Royal Academy in 1832, and a third in 1835. His last contribution to the Academy exhibition was in 1836, when his picture illustrated Milton's ‘Eve.’ Calvert produced many woodcuts and plates of singular beauty, which were privately printed by himself at his successive residences in Brixton and Paddington. He was extremely fastidious, and, though incessantly at work, was always dissatisfied with the result and destroyed some of his blocks and plates. Of his woodcuts the ‘Christian Ploughing the last Furrow of Life’ and the ‘Cider Press’ are described as very like Blake's. Calvert was a thorough student of anatomy, and also spent some time in St. Thomas's Hospital during the cholera of 1830. He was an enthusiast for Greek art, and once visited Greece, returning with many sketches. Among his intimate friends were Derwent Coleridge and Francis Oliver Finch, the landscape-painter. In honour of the latter he wrote an éloge, which is printed in the ‘Memorials’ of that artist published in 1865.
Calvert died at Hackney on 14 July 1883, in his eighty-fourth year, and was buried at Abney Park cemetery.
[Athenæum, 18 and 25 Aug. 1883, the latter notice by George Richmond, R.A.; Gilchrist's Life of W. Blake, 1880, i. 343, 407; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880; Royal Academy Catalogues; private information through Mr. John Richmond.]
C. W. S.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Frederick (1731-1771)

1904 Errata appended.
​CALVERT, FREDERICK, seventh Lord Baltimore (1731–1771), eldest son of Charles, sixth lord, by Mary, youngest daughter of Sir Theodore Janssen, was born in 1731. In 1753 he married Diana Egerton, youngest daughter of the Duke of Bridgewater. In 1768 he was tried at Kingston on a charge of rape, but acquitted (Report of trial in Gent. Mag. xxxviii. 180–8). He died at Naples on 14 Sept. 1771, without legitimate children. His remains were brought to England in order to be interred in the family vault at Epsom, and for some time lay in state in Exeter Exchange, Strand. The moment his body was removed the populace plundered the room where it had lain (ib. xlii. 44). The title became extinct on his death, and by his will he bequeathed the province of Maryland, in America, to Henry Harford, a child, and the remainder of his estates in fee to his younger sister. Carlyle, in his ‘Life of Frederick the Great,’ refers to Baltimore in 1739 as ‘something of a fool, to judge by the face of him in portraits, and by some of his doings in the world,’ and Winckelmann characterises him as ‘one of those worn-out beings, a hipped Englishman, who had lost all moral and physical taste.’ He was the author of a ‘Tour in the East in the years 1763 and 1764, with Remarks on the City of Constantinople and the Turks. Also Select Pieces of Oriental Wit, Poetry, and Wisdom,’ regarding which Lord Orford declared it ‘no more deserved to be published than his bills on the road for post-horses.’ In 1769 he printed at Augsburg ten copies of a book entitled ‘Gaudia Poetica Latina, Anglica, et Gallica Lingua composita.’ It forms a volume of 120 pages, beautifully printed, and richly decorated with head and tail pieces. It consists of a Latin poem translated into English and French, with some smaller pieces, and several letters which had passed between him and Linnæus, to whom he had dedicated the volume. Linnæus had been so much flattered by the dedication that he refers to the book in extraordinary terms of eulogy, and designates it an ‘immortal work.’ Baltimore also published ‘Cælestes et Inferi,’ Venice, 1771, 4to.
[Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors (Park), v. 278–82; Morris's The Lords Baltimore, 52–61.]
T. F. H.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.49 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 268 | ii | 9 f.e. | Calvert, Frederick, 7th Lord Baltimore: for seventh read sixth |
| | | 7 f.e. | for sixth read fifth |
| | | 12-16 | note that Carlyle refers not to the subject of this article, but to his father, under date 1739 |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Calvert, Frederick Baltimore

​CALVERT, FREDERICK BALTIMORE (1793–1877), actor and lecturer on elocution, son of Charles Calvert, steward of the Duke of Norfolk, at Glossop Hall, Derbyshire [see under Calvert, Charles], was baptised on 11 April 1793, and entered Manchester school on 12 Jan. 1804. Thence he was sent to the Roman catholic college at Old Hall Green, Hertfordshire, with a view to receiving holy orders; but he took to the stage, and in the course of his career alternated leading parts with the elder Kean, Macready, and the elder Vandenhoff. In 1824 he published ‘A Defence of the Drama,’ which had an extensive circulation, and was read by John Fawcett to the members of the ​Theatrical Fund at their annual dinner in that year. In 1829 he became elocutionary lecturer of King's College, Aberdeen, and gave lectures on oratory, poetry, and other literary subjects in the large towns of England. He afterwards proceeded to America, where he lectured on the English poets, and on returning to England gave evening discourses at the leading athenæums on what he had seen during his visit to the western hemisphere. About 1846 he was appointed master of the English language and literature in the Edinburgh Academy. In the winter of 1847–8 he gave readings of the English poets in connection with the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. Some years after he became lecturer on elocution to the free church colleges of Edinburgh and Glasgow. He died at his residence, 2 West Newington, Edinburgh, 21 April 1877. He was a man of great literary refinement, and had an extensive acquaintance with the literature of Greece and Rome, as well as with that of England and France. He married, in 1818, Miss Percy of Whitby, by whom he had a numerous family; his youngest son, Michael Talbot Calvert, made a reputation as a tragic actor, under the stage name of Henry Talbot. Calvert was the author of: 1. ‘A Defence of the Acted Drama,’ in a letter to T. Best, Hull, 1822. 2. ‘Principles of Elocution,’ by T. Ewing, thoroughly revised and greatly improved by F. B. Calvert, 1852; another edition, 1870. 3. A Letter to the Very Rev. Dean Ramsay, Edinburgh, on ‘The Art of Reading and Preaching distinctly,’ 1869. 4. ‘The De Oratore of Cicero,’ translated by F. B. Calvert, M.A., 1870. 5. ‘An Ode to Shakespeare.’
G. C. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Belchiam, Thomas

​BELCHIAM, THOMAS (1508–1537), a Franciscan friar of the convent at Greenwich, was imprisoned, with others of his brethren, for refusing to take the oath of the royal supremacy, and declaring the king (Henry VIII) to be a heretic. He wrote a sermon on the text, 'Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses' (Matt. xi. 8), in which he lashed the vices of the court and the avarice and inconstancy of the clergy. At the intercession of Thomas Wriothesley ​afterwards lord chancellor and earl of Southampton), some of the friars were released, but Belchiam was excepted. He died in Newgate of starvation on 3 Aug. 1537. A copy of his sermon, which was found in the prison after his death, was brought to Henry VIII, who was at first affected by it, but afterwards had it burnt. Another copy was preserved by the friars, and Thomas Bourchier, writing in 1583, expresses a hope that it may be published, which, as far as we know, was never done.
[Bourchier's Historia Ecclesiastica de Martyrio Fratrum Ordinis Minorum; Sanders's Historia Schismatis Anglicani, p. 127; Wadding's Annales Minorum, xvi. 418; Scriptores Minorum; Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica, pt. i. 240; Angelus a S. Francisco (N. Mason), Certamen Seraphicum Provinciæ Angliæe.]
C. T. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Belasyse, Thomas

1904 Errata appended.
​BELASYSE, THOMAS, Earl Fauconberg (1627–1700), son of Henry Belasyse, and grandson of Thomas, first Viscount Fauconberg, succeeded his grandfather in the viscounty of Fauconberg in 1652. Unlike his father and grandfather, he passed over to the side of the parliament, and subsequently became a strong adherent of Cromwell, whose third daughter, Mary, he married in 1667. He again became a royalist at the restoration, and was appointed a member of the privy council of Charles II, captain of the guard (in which office he succeeded his uncle), and ambassador in Italy. He was one of the noblemen who joined in inviting William to England, and was by that king raised in 1689 to the rank of earl. He died in 1700.
[Forster's County Families of Yorkshire; Collins's Peerage.]
C. F. K.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.21 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| | | 13 f.e. | Belasyse, Thomas, Earl Fauconberg: for 1667 read 1657 |
| | | 9 f.e. | after Italy insert He was lord-lieutenant of the North Riding (1660-1692) |
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bekynton, Thomas

​BEKYNTON, THOMAS, bishop of Bath and Wells. [See Beckington.]
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Belchier, Daubridgcourt

​BELCHIER, DAUBRIDGCOURT, or DAWBRIDGE-COURT (1580?–1621), dramatist, the son of William Belchier, Esq., of Gillesborough, in Northamptonshire, was admitted, in company with his brother John, a fellow-commoner of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 2 March 1597. He afterwards removed to Christ Church, where, on 9 Feb. 1600, he took the degree of B.A. A few years later he settled in the Low Countries, and in 1617, when he was residing in Utrecht, he translated from the Dutch – but it cannot now be traced from what original – a piece which he published in London in 1618, 'Hans Beer Pot, his Invisible Comedy of See me and See me not,' which was stated to have been 'acted in the Low Countries by an honest company of Health Drinkers,' This play was anonymous, and was attributed to Thomas Nash by Phillips and Winstanley. The author admits that it is neither tragedy nor comedy, but a plain conference of three persons, divided into three acts. Belchier was the author of various other poems and translations, but none of them appear to have been printed. He presented to Corpus Christi College a silver cup with the family arms upon it, 'Paly of 6 or, and gul, a chief vaire.' He died at Utrecht in 1621.
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i. 158; Masters's History of Corpus Christi College (1753), p. 230.]
E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bekinsau, John

​BEKINSAU, JOHN (1496?–1559), scholar and divine, was born at Broadchalke, in Wiltshire, about 1496. His father, John Bekinsau, of Hartley Wespell, Hampshire, is supposed to have belonged to the Lancashire family of Becconsall (Tanner); but Hoare (Hist. of Wilts, iv. 153) argues that there was a family of the name native in Wiltshire.
Bekinsau was educated at Winchester School, and proceeded to New College, Oxford; he was made fellow of that society in 1520, and took the degree of M.A. in 1526. At Oxford he was, according to Wood, esteemed ‘an admirable Grecian;’ and on proceeding to Paris he read the Greek lecture in the university, probably soon after 1530, the year in which Francis I founded the royal professorships and revived the study of Greek at Paris. Having returned to England, Bekinsau married, and so vacated his fellowship, in 1538.
His only extant work is a treatise ‘De supremo et absoluto Regis imperio’ (London, 1546), republished in Goldast's ‘Monarchia’ in 1611; this work is dedicated to Henry VIII, ‘the head of the church immediately after Christ,’ and affirms the full supremacy of the king against that of the pope. The argument proceeds mainly by quotations from the fathers, of whom Chrysostom seems the favourite. He was a friend of John Leland, who addresses a poem to a forthcoming work of Bekinsau, and refers to the learning and Parisian studies of its author (Leland, Encomia, p. 9). Bale gives a bad account of Bekinsau, alleging that his work on the supremacy was only written for the sake of lucre. The same biographer adds that he returned to the Roman church in 1554, ‘like a dog to his vomit.’ On the accession of Elizabeth, Bekinsau retired to Sherburne, a village in Hampshire, where he died, and was buried on 20 Dec. 1559.
[Wood's Athenæ, i. 129; Tanner's Bibliotheca; Bale; Hoare's Wiltshire.]
A. G-n.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Belchier, John

​BELCHIER, JOHN (1706–1785), surgeon, was born at Kingston, Surrey, and educated at Eton. On leaving school he was apprenticed to Cheselden, head surgeon at St. Thomas's Hospital. By perseverance Belchier became eminent in his profession, and in 1736 he was appointed surgeon to Guy's Hospital. In 1732 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and his name appears on the list of the council from 1769 to 1772. He contributed some papers to the society's 'Philosophical Transactions.' On Belchier's retirement from the office of surgeon of Guy's Hospital he was elected one of its governors, and also a governor of St. Thomas's Hospital. He had an exaggerated reverence for the name of Guy, saying 'that no other man would have sacrificed 150,000l. for the benefit of his fellow creatures.' In the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1743 is the following story: 'One Stephen Wright, who, as a patient, came to Mr. Belchier, a surgeon, in Sun Court, being alone with him in the room clapt a pistol to his breast, demanding his money. Mr. Belchier offered him two guineas, which he refused; but, accepting of six guineas and a gold watch, as he was putting them in his pocket Mr. Belchier took the opportunity to seize upon him, and, after a struggle, secured him.' Belchier died suddenly in Sun Court, Threadneedle Street, and was buried in the founder's vault in the chapel attached to Guy's Hospital.
[Philosophical Transactions of the London Royal Society, abridged; Gent. Mag. 1785.]
P. B. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barclay, Thomas (fl.1620)

​BARCLAY, THOMAS (fl. 1620), professor at Toulouse and Poitiers, was one of the numerous Scotch scholars who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, studied in foreign universities, where they, in many cases, ultimately became professors. He was a native of Aberdeen, but as a young man studied humane letters and philosophy at Bordeaux. Here, we are told, his success was such as to merit the special praise of ‘that Phœnix of Greek and Latin learning,’ Robert Balfour [q. v.], the Aristotelian scholar, whose edition of ‘Cleomedes’ has remained the standard work on that author to almost our own days. The reputation acquired by Barclay at Bordeaux led to his being called to preside over the ‘Squillanean’ school at Toulouse, where the Scotch historian Dempster tells us he served his first literary campaign under his fellow-countryman's guidance. This fact supplies us with an approximate date, for it was about 1596 that Dempster left Paris, intending to work his way to Toulouse (Irving, Lives of Scottish Writers, i. 350). At this town, the birthplace of Cujas, the great founder of the systematic study of ancient and modern law, Barclay's attention was directed to this subject; and finding himself unable to pursue this branch of learning in its native place, he accepted the offer of a regius professorship at ​Poitiers. His fame and his eloquence while holding this office soon procured his recall to Toulouse, where he was still living when Dempster drew up his ‘Historia Ecclesiastica’ about 1620. Dempster tells us that his lectures on civil law were largely attended. There seems to be no record of the precise date of his birth or his death. In some biographical works they are given as 1582–1619; but this is almost certainly due to a confusion of Thomas Barclay with his namesake, John Barclay, the author of the ‘Argenis.’ For in this case he would be holding his first, if not his second, professorship at about the age of fourteen, and would at the same time, though a younger man, be the instructor of such a prodigy of learning as Dempster.
Barclay's chief works are said to have been commentaries on Aristotle, and dissertations on certain titles of the Pandects. The last probably implies a confusion with William Barclay [q. v.]
T. A. A.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barclay, William (1797-1859)

​BARCLAY, WILLIAM (1797–1859), miniature painter, was born in London in 1797. He practised his art both in London and in Paris, and whilst in the latter city he was much occupied in making copies from the works of the great Italian masters in the Louvre. He exhibited portraits and some copies in water-colours at the Salon between the years 1831 and 1859, as well as at the Royal Academy between 1832 and 1856. He died in 1859.
R. E. G.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barcroft, George

​BARCROFT, GEORGE (d. 1610), musician, matriculated as a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge, on 12 Dec. 1574, and took the degree of B.A. in 1577–8. He was appointed a minor canon of Ely and organist of that cathedral in 1579, and it is supposed that he died about 1610. Two anthems composed by him are extant, and to him has been ascribed a service in G. It appears, however, that this service was composed in 1632, probably by Thomas Barcroft, who is said to have been organist of Ely about 1535.
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bardelby, Robert de

1904 Errata appended.
​BARDELBY, ROBERT de (fl. 1323), judge, acted in a subordinate capacity as one of the keepers of the great seal between 1302 and 1321. In 1315 he was appointed keeper of the hospital of St. Thomas Martyr of Acon in London, during the temporary absence of Richard of Southampton. In 1315 he was assigned as one of the commissioners to hear petitions to parliament (then sitting at Lincoln), and was entrusted with the business of answering petitions in the parliament of 1320 at Westminster. In 1323 we find him described as canon of Chichester in a writ appointing him one of a commission of justices directed to try certain commissioners of array accused of acts of malversation and oppression, and in 1325 as ‘clericus cancellarius’ in a memorandum of the appointment of Henry de Clyf as keeper of the rolls.
J. M. R.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.15 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 175 | ii | 19 f.e. | Bardelby, Robert de: after 1821 insert He was a prebendary of York in 1305 |