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# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Evans, Abel

​EVANS, ABEL, D.D. (1679–1737), divine and poet, son of Abel Evans of London, gent. (Oxf. Mat. Reg.), was born in February 1679, and entered Merchant Taylors' School in the spring of 1685. He was elected probationary fellow of St. John's College, Oxford (1692), proceeded regularly to the degrees of B.A. (1696), M.A. (1699), B.D. (1705), D.D. (1711). These higher degrees were probably taken in mere obedience to the college statutes. Such reputation as Evans acquired was due rather to his powers as a satirist than to his abilities as a divine. He entered holy orders in 1700, and held successively the incumbencies of Kirtlington, St. Giles, Oxford, and Great Stoughton, Huntingdonshire. For a short time also he was chaplain to his college, but was ejected, says Hearne, because, in a speech made publicly in the hall of St. John's, he reflected upon Dr. Delaune, the president, and most of the members of the society. However, the Duchess of Marlborough espoused his cause, and, ‘though he was a loose, ranting gentleman, he was mightily caressed,’ and reinstated in his office. He then reformed his course of life, and turned upon his former friends, publishing (1710) a poem entitled ‘The Apparition; a dialogue betwixt the Devil and a Doctor concerning the rights of the Christian Church,’ in which Tindal and Kennett were roughly handled. Dr. T. Smith (Hearne's correspondent) speaks of the satire as displaying ‘great wit, good sense, and wonderful honesty,’ but it is of small literary worth or general interest. In 1713 Evans published a poetical epistle to Jacob Bobart [q. v.], entitled ‘Vertumnus,’ which was republished in Nichols's ‘Select Collection of Poems,’ vol. v.
Evans was presented by his college in 1725 to the rectory of Cheam, Surrey, a benefice which had been held by no less than six bishops, and died there 18 Oct. 1737. Political prejudice distorted Hearne's estimate of Evans's character, which there is no reason to suppose was other than honourable, even before he ceased to be a whig and a low churchman. He was a good preacher; his thanksgiving sermon preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, in 1705 was commended by Bishop Lloyd. As an epigrammatist he had considerable reputation, and was by no means the least among the nine Oxford wits whose names are preserved in the distich—
Alma novem genuit celebres Rhedycina poetas, Bubb, Stubb, Gobb, Crabb, Trapp, Young, Carey,
 Tickell, Evans.
He was personally acquainted with the leading literary men of his time, and corresponded with Pope, who gave him a place beside Young and Swift in the second book of the ‘Dunciad:’ —
To seize his papers, Curll, was next thy care; His papers, light, fly diverse, tost in air;
Songs, sonnets, epigrams, the winds uplift.
And whisk 'em back to Evans, Young, and Swift.
His best known epigram, the originality of which has been questioned, is that on Vanbrugh:—
Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he Laid many a heavy load on thee.
C. J. R.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Evans, Caleb

​EVANS, CALEB (1831–1886), geologist, born on 25 July 1831, was educated under Professor Key at University College School. The death of his father compelled him to leave school at an early age, and in 1846 he began work in a solicitor's office. In 1852 Evans was appointed a clerk in the chancery pay office, a post which he held until 1882, when his health enforced his retirement. He never married; his residence was at Hampstead, where he lived with his brother and sisters.
Evans commenced the study of geology by attending lectures delivered in 1855 by Professor Owen and Dr. Melville. In 1858 he began to collect fossils from the tertiary formations of the south of England, and formed during the next twenty-five years very complete sets illustrating the strata of the London district. He also investigated the strata of the Isle of Wight, Lyme Regis, Weymouth, Swanage, and Portsmouth.
In 1857 Evans took part in founding the Geologists' Association of London, of which he was for many years one of the most active members, and in 1867 he was elected a fellow of the Geological Society.
Evans was fortunate in being able to take advantage of the operations in connection with the main drainage works in the south of London, which afforded opportunities for collecting fossils never likely to recur. He secured suites of specimens of fossil shells of great interest and rarity. Evans also did excellent work in studying the chalk. He made large collections of its fossils, and his paper ‘On some Sections of Chalk between Croydon and Oxted,’ read to the Geologists' Association in January 1870, marks the first English attempt to divide this immensely ​thick mass of pure white limestone into several zones, and to correlate these zones with those which had already been established by continental geologists.
Altogether Evans was the author of eleven papers on geological subjects, eight of which appeared in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Geologists' Association, of which, in addition to the paper on the chalk mentioned above, we may specially name that on the ‘Geology of the neighbourhood of Portsmouth and Ryde’ as giving evidence of detailed and careful work. Of other work we may mention a sketch of the geology of Faringdon in the ‘Geologist’ for August 1866, and ‘Mill Hill in former Ages,’ written for the ‘Mill Hill Magazine.’ Many of Evans's papers were also published separately. Evans constructed several excellent geological models or relief maps, his method being to paste layer upon layer of cartridge paper so as to secure the necessary elevations, and then to colour the whole according to the outcrop of the rocks. His models of the valley of the Thames near London, of a part of the same on a larger scale, and one of the whole of England, are now in the possession of Mr. H. J. Lister of Eldon Road, Hampstead; a fine map or model of the country round Hastings is in the possession of the corporation of that town; he also constructed a model of the neighbourhood of Sidmouth. Evans's extensive collections of fossils were purchased by Mr. Ernest Westlake of Fordingbridge. Evans died 16 Sept. 1886.
W. J. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Evans, Charles Smart

​EVANS, CHARLES SMART (1778–1849), vocalist and composer, was a chorister under Dr. Ayrton, and in 1808 a gentleman of the Chapel Royal. His name appears among the alto singers in the chorus of the ‘Ancient Concerts’ of 1798, and he took part with Braham and others in the music performed at Weber's funeral in 1826. Four of Evans's part-songs gained prizes from the Glee and Catch Clubs, namely: ‘Beauties, have you seen a toy?’ 1811; ‘Fill all the glasses,’ 1812; ‘Ode to the Memory of Samuel Webbe,’ 1817; and ‘Great Bacchus,’ 1821. Subsequently he became a catholic and a member of the choir of the chapel of the Portuguese embassy. Evans wrote a ‘Magnificat,’ and some motetts, contained in books iv. and v. of Novello's ‘Collection of Motetts.’ He was also the composer of many songs. He died 4 Jan. 1849.
L. M. M.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mohun, John (1592?-1640)

​MOHUN, JOHN, Baron Mohun (1592?–1640), royalist politician, was the only son of Sir Reginald Mohun, bart., who died 26 Dec. 1639, by his second wife, Philippa, daughter of John Heale. He matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford, on 15 Nov. 1605, aged 13, graduated B.A. on 7 July 1608, and in 1610 was entered as a student at the Middle Temple. In the parliaments of 1623–4 and 1625 he sat for the borough ​of Grampound, Cornwall, and was among the supporters of the Duke of Buckingham, through whose favour he was recommended in 1620 for the office of vice- warden of the Stannaries. During 1626 and 1627 he was a member of several commissions in the west of England, including one of inquiry into the acts of Sir John Eliot as vice-admiral of Devon. At the general election in 1627-8 Mohun was put forward by the court party for the county of Cornwall in opposition to Eliot and Coryton, but lost the election. Sir James Bagg, the duke's chief agent in the west, thereupon pressed for Mohun's elevation to the peerage, and on 15 April 1628 he was created Baron Mohun of Okehampton, Devonshire. The circumstances of this election came before a special committee, and Eliot obtained the appointment of a committee of the House of Commons to investigate Mohun's conduct as vice-warden of the Stannaries. A formal charge was brought against him, and a conference of the lords and commons followed, but in consequence of the death of Eliot's wife the matter was allowed to drop. In 1634 he charged Bagg with having ' cozened the king of 20,000l.,' and the case came on in the Star-chamber. The king sent a guarded letter to the lords of the council, and after the inquiry had lasted some years, Mohun seems to have been fined 500l.' for undue inquiries into his majesty's debts.' A man of turbulent disposition, he quarrelled with another peer at the christening in 1633 of James, duke of York (Stafford, Letters and Despatches, i. 166).
Mohun died on 28 May 1640 (Vivian, Visitations of Cornwall, p. 324). His wife was Cordelia, daughter of Sir John Stanhope, and relict of Sir Roger Aston, who was buried at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Middlesex, 2 Oct. 1639. She was sister to Anne Cokayne, mother of Sir Aston Cokayne [q. v.], who in his 'Small Poems of divers sorts,' 1658, included (pp. 80-2) a poetical letter to 'John, lord Mohun, my uncle-in-law,' and some lines (pp. 156-7) on his visit to Mohun's house in Cornwall. Letter xlii. of book i. sect. 5 of James Howell's 'Letters,' dated 30 Aug. 1632, and descriptive of the inquisition, is addressed to Mohun, and Massinger, to whom Sir Aston Cokayne introduced him, dedicated to him, as his 'especial good lord,' the play of the 'Emperor of the East.'
[Foster's Alumni Oxon. (1500-1714); Maxwell-Lyte's Dunster and its Lords, p. 37; State Papers, 1625 et seq.; Forster's Sir John Eliot, passim; Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ, ed. Jacobs, i. 290-292; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. i. 364, iii. 1285.]
W. P. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mogford, Thomas

​MOGFORD, THOMAS (1809–1868), painter, born at Exeter on 1 May 1809, was son of a veterinary surgeon at Northlew, Devonshire. He showed an early talent for drawing, as well as mechanics and chemistry, but eventually decided on painting in preference to engineering. He studied in Exeter under John Gendall [q. v.], and was articled for some years to him and to Mr. Cole. At the end of his appenticeship he married Cole's eldest daughter, and settled in Northernhay Place, Exeter. He sent three pictures to the Royal Academy in 1838, and three in 1839, including a full-length portrait of Sir Thomas Lethbridge, bart., with his horse and dog. About 1843 he removed to London, and subsequently exhibited at the Royal Academy portraits of E. H. Baily, R.A. (now in the possession of the Royal Academy), Samuel ​ Cousins, the engraver, Professor J. O. Adams, the astronomer, for Cambridge University (engraved by S. Cousins), Colonel Napier, the historian, and others. He also painted and exhibited 'The Sacrifice of Noah' and 'The Loves of the Angels' (Royal Academy 1846), the latter a very original work. Subsequently he removed to Guernsey, and practised almost entirely as a landscape painter, occasionally revisiting England and Exeter to paint portraits. Though for some years crippled by palsy through the effects of lead poisoning, he continued to paint up to the day of his death, which took place at Guernsey in 1868. He founded a school of painting in Guernsey.
L. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mohun, John de (1270?-1330)

​MOHUN, JOHN de (1270?–1330), baron, lord of Dunster in Somerset, son of John de Mohun, the grandson of Reginald de Mohun [q.v.] and Eleanor Fitzpiers, was about nine years old at his father's death in 1279, and was a ward of Edward I (Lyte, p. 16). He received many summonses to perform military service as in 1297 to serve in Flanders, in 1299 to join the muster at Carlisle, which was afterwards put off and held at York on 12 Nov., and again in 1300 to serve against the Scots. At the parliament held at Lincoln in January 1301 he joined in the letter of the barons to the pope, and is therein described as 'dominus de Dunsterre' (Fœdera, i. ii. 926). He was summoned to the muster at Berwick on 24 June, and again to the muster to be held at Berwick on 25 May 1303. He was at Perth early in 1304, for he dined there with the Prince of Wales on Candlemas day. He was a conservator of the peace for the county of Somerset in 1307, and in 1308 and 1309 was summoned to do service against the Scots. In 1311 he held a commission as one of the king's justices. He joined the party of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, and was concerned in the execution of Gaveston, for which he received a pardon in 1313 (ib. ii. i. 231). Summonses were sent to him to serve against the Scots in 1315, 1316, and ​1319. In 1321 he was warned to abstain from the parliament that the Earl of Lancaster designed to hold at Doncaster (ib. pp. 442, 459). He gave charters to the priories of Dunster and Bruton, and to the townsmen of Dunster (Lyte). Certain lands in Ireland [see under Mohun, Reginald de] he exchanged with the king for the manor of Long Compton in Warwickshire (ib.; Fœdera, i. ii. 949). He died in 1330.
He married first Ada, daughter of Robert, or Payn, Tiptoft, by whom he had seven sons and a daughter, and secondly a wife named Sybilla (Lyte). From Sir Reginald, his fifth son, descended the Mohuns of Cornwall, of which house were the Mohuns, barons of Okehampton (ib. p. 37). His eldest son, John, was a knight-banneret, was present at the battle of Boroughbridge, and, dying in Scotland perhaps in 1322, was, it is said, buried in the church of the Grey Friars at York (ib.; Parliamentary Writs, ii. iii. 1177); he married Christian, daughter of Sir John Segrave, by whom he had a son, John (1320–1376) [q. v.], who succeeded his grandfather (Lyte).
[Lyte's Dunster and its Lords, privately printed, and largely from papers in the Archaeological Journal, contains full information, with references, concerning John and the house of Mohun generally; Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 498; Cal. of Docs., Scotland, ii. No. 1516 (Rolls Ser.); Prynne's Parliamentary Writs, i. 740, ii. iii. 1176, 1177; Rymer's Fœdera, i. ii. ii. i. passim.]
W. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Heath, John (1736-1816)

​HEATH, JOHN (1736–1816), judge, was son of Thomas Heath, alderman of Exeter, author of an ‘Essay on Job’ (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ii. 276), and nephew of Benjamin Heath [q. v.] He was educated at Westminster School, and in 1754, at the age of eighteen, he matriculated at Christ Church, and took the degrees of B.A. in 1758 and M.A. in 1762. For a time he filled the office of town-clerk of Exeter. He was admitted a member of the Inner Temple in May 1759, and was called to the bar in June 1762. In 1775 he became a serjeant-at-law and recorder of Exeter; and, being an intimate friend of Thurlow, he was appointed, though he had no great practice at the bar, to succeed Sir William Blackstone in the court of common pleas, 19 July 1780. Here he sat for thirty-six years. He refused to be knighted on his elevation, saying that he preferred to remain ‘plain John Heath,’ but, although chargeable with great judicial severity (see Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, iv. 33 n., vi. 154), his learning, which was much esteemed by Lord Eldon, and his fairness made him a good judge. He tried the Bishop of Bangor and others for riot, when Erskine procured their acquittal in spite of an adverse summing-up. After being long infirm, on 16 Jan. 1816 he died of an apoplexy, but whether at Hayes or at 36 Bedford Square is uncertain (see ‘Reminiscences’ by R. W. Blencowe in Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. i. 276). He was buried at Hayes in Middlesex, where he had a farm and country house. His tombstone there states his age as eighty-five, but the parish register, with probably greater authority, gives it as eighty. He was not married.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; State Trials, xxvi. 523; Gent. Mag. 1816, p. 186; Polson's Law and Lawyers, ii. 214; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. ii. 11; Woolrych's Eminent Serjeants, p. 691; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Heath, Henry

​HEATH, HENRY (1599–1643), Franciscan, son of John Heath, was baptised at St. John's Church, Peterborough, on 16 Dec. 1599 (Tablet, 22 Jan. 1887, p. 152). His parents were protestants, who sent him in 1617 to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1621 (Masters, List of Members of C. C. C. C. p. 26). He resided in the university for about five years, and was appointed librarian of his college. The perusal of controversial works inclined him to Roman catholicism, and coming to London he obtained an introduction to George Muscott, a priest, who received him into the Roman communion. Muscott sent him to the English College at Douay, where Dr. Kellison, the president, admitted him as a convictor. Afterwards entering the Franciscan convent of St. Bonaventure at Douay, he received the habit of St. Francis in 1623, when he assumed the name of Paul of St. Magdalen, and at the end of that year he became a professed member of the order. He was an inmate of the convent for nearly nineteen years, leading a life of exceptional austerity. He was appointed vicar or vice-president of his house in December 1630; its guardian in October 1632, and again on 15 June 1634 for three years longer; custos custodum, with the office of commissary of his English brethren and sisters in Belgium in 1637, and on 19 April 1640, guardian and also lector of scholastic theology (Oliver, Catholic Religion in Cornwall, p. 554). He next obtained leave to come on the English mission, and after landing at Dover proceeded to London on foot. Being penniless he lay down to rest at the door of a citizen, who suspected that he was a shoplifter, and handed him over to the custody of a constable. The discovery of some catholic writings concealed in his cap revealed his character. He was convicted under the statute of 27 Eliz. as a returned priest, and was executed at Tyburn on 17 April 1643.
He was the author of: 1. ‘Soliloquia seu Documenta Christianæ Perfectionis,’ Douay, 1651, 12mo; translated into English ‘out of the sixth and last Latin edition,’ Douay, 1674, 24mo, reprinted, London, 1844, 12mo. 2. Thirty treatises on various religious subjects, said to have been preserved in 1743 in St. Bonaventure's convent at Douay.
An engraved portrait of him in Mason's ‘Certamen Seraphicum Provinciæ Angliæ’ is reproduced in the English translations of his ‘Soliloquies.’
His father, when a widower and nearly eighty years old, went to Douay, was reconciled to the catholic church in St. Bonaventure's convent, and became a lay brother in the community. He died on 29 Dec. 1652.
[Addit. MS. 5871, f. 173; Challoner's Missionary Priests, 1743, ii. 243; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 118; Gillow's Bibl. Dict.; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 5th ed. ii. 385; Harl. MS. 7035, p. 190; Hope's Franciscan Martyrs in England; Lamp, 1858, i. 201; Marsys, Hist. de la Persécution des Catholiques, iii. 117; Mason's Certamen Seraphicum, p. 63; Rambler, August 1857, pp. 119, 120; Stanton's Menology, p. 163; Stevens's Hist. of Abbeys, i. 106–8.]
T. C.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Heath, John (fl.1615)

​HEATH, JOHN (fl. 1615), epigrammatist, was born at Stalls, Somersetshire, and entered at Winchester School in 1600 at the age of thirteen (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, p. 159). He matriculated at New College, Oxford, on 11 Oct. 1605, when his age is given as twenty, was admitted perpetual fellow in 1609, and proceeded B.A. 2 May 1609, and M.A. 16 Jan. 1613 (Reg. Univ. Oxon. ii. pt. i. 271, iii. 286, Oxf. Hist. Soc.). He resigned his fellowship in 1616. In 1610 he published ‘Two Centuries of Epigrammes,’ inscribed to Thomas Bilson, the bishop of Winchester's son, and claims that his work is free from ‘filthy and obscene jests.’ Many epigrams are addressed to well-known literary men of the day. He contributed verses to the volume issued on the death of Sir T. Bodley, and to other collections of the kind. He translated Peter du Moulin's ‘Accomplishment of the Prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation,’ in defence of King James against Bellarmine, 1613, and Wood says he translated some works out of Spanish. He was possibly the author of ‘The House of Correction, or certayne Satyrical Epigrams written by J. H., Gent.,’ London, 1619, which was republished with a different title-page in 1621, but it is very doubtful whether he is the ‘I. H.’ who wrote ‘The Divell of the Vault or the Unmasking of Murther’ (1606). John Davies of Hereford has an epigram to Heath in the ‘Scourge of Folly,’ p. 252, and Ben Jonson in his ‘Discoveries’ (lxx) says contemptuously, ‘Heath's epigrams and the skuller's (i.e. John Taylor's) poems have their applause.’
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 168; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. 1859, ii. 1029; Brit. Mus. Cat. of Books before 1640; Hazlitt's Collections, 2nd ser. 1882, p. 274; notes supplied by Mr. A. H. Bullen.]
N. D. F. P.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Heath, Richard

​HEATH, RICHARD (d. 1702), judge, son of Roger Heath, was admitted as a member of the Inner Temple in July 1652, and called to the bar in November 1659. He may be the Mr. Heath mentioned by Pepys (Diary, i. 350) as attorney to the duchy of Lancaster in 1662. He became a bencher of his inn in October 1677, a serjeant-at-law in 1683, and when Sir Edward Atkyns became chief baron, he succeeded to the vacancy in the court of exchequer, 21 April 1686. He concurred with his colleagues in expressing an opinion in favour of the king's dispensing power, but did not altogether approve of the royal policy, as appears from Sancroft's statement on 6 Nov. 1688, that Heath alleged himself to have had instructions from the court to pronounce the bishop's petition a factious libel. James II superseded him in December, but he was excepted out of the Bill of Indemnity after the revolution, went into retirement, and died in July 1702. He married Katherine, daughter of Henry Weston of Ockham and Sende, sheriff of Surrey and Sussex.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; 2 Shower's Reports, p. 459; State Trials, xii. 503; Statutes of the Realm, vi. 178; Parl. Hist. v. 334; Luttrell's Diary, i. 482, v. 198; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1501.]
J. A. H.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Heath, Robert (fl.1650)

​HEATH, ROBERT (fl. 1650), poet, was not improbably the Robert Heath (born in London) who entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1634, and has Latin verses before Gabriel Dugres's ‘Grammaticæ Gallicæ Compendium,’ 1636. He may also be the ‘R. H.’ who published in 1659 ‘Paradoxical Assertions and Philosophical Problems.’ His chief work, ‘Clarastella; together with Poems occasionall, Elegies, Epigrams, Satyrs,’ 8vo, was issued by Humphrey Moseley in 1650. From Moseley's address to the reader it appears that the book was published without Heath's knowledge. The first part consists of a series of love-poems to ‘Clarastella;’ among the ‘occasional poems’ are some verses headed ‘To a friend wishing peace,’ describing the inconveniences of civil war, and earnestly pleading for the establishment of peace; the third part includes elegies on Sir Bevil Grenvil, William Lawes, the musician, and other friends who had fallen in the wars; the fourth part is a collection of epigrams; and the volume concludes with a batch of satires. Some of the poems addressed to ‘Clarastella’ are hardly inferior to Carew's best love-verses.
[Cole's Athenæ; Retrospective Review, ii. 227.]
A. H. B.
# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Guerin, Thomas

​GUERIN, THOMAS. [See Geeran.]