WOBO: Search for words and phrases in the texts here...

Enter either the ID of an entry, or one or more words to find. The first match in each paragraph is shown; click on the line of text to see the full paragraph.

Currently only Chalmers’ Biographical Dictionary is indexed, terms are not stemmed, and diacritical marks are retained.

, eldest son of the preceding, was educated at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, whence he went to London,

, eldest son of the preceding, was educated at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, whence he went to London, and after studying law became a barrister; but being of very different principles from his father, joined the forces of his unhappy sovereign Charles I. and was quarter-master general until the forces were disbanded at Truro. At the restoration, he was sent to reside as agent at Brussels, and on his return in 1675, Charles II. knighted and made him resident, and James II. made him his envoy. Disapproving of the revolution, he adhered to the abdicated monarch, and accompanied him to St. Germains, where he remained twenty-two years. We know not if this be meant as the period of his life, but he is said to have died aged 101, which brings him to the year 1782, contrary to all probability, or even fact, for his great age at the time of his death is mentioned in a panegyric upon him, inserted in 1715, in the ninth volume, or what is called the spurious volume of the Spectator, and if he died much before 1715, he could not have attained the vast age attributed to him, consistently with the dates of his father’s age.

, son of the preceding, was educated at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, where he lost his fellowship,

, son of the preceding, was educated at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, where he lost his fellowship, in the time of the Rump parliament, for refusing to take the engagement. He had, however, enough of the, non-conformist, to resign, after the restoration, the living of Grendon in Buckinghamshire. He applied himself early to the study of the scriptures; and the books which he published, as helps to others in the same course of study, are proofs of his industry and abilities. His “Annotations on the Bible,1690, fol. printed together with the sacred text, was the great work of his life. It is commended in very high terms by Dr. Owen and Mr. Baxter, as a laborious and judicious performance, and has been an excellent fund for some modern commentators, who have republished a great part of it, with very little alteration. He died Feb. 24, 1700-1, in his seventy-fifth year. The great grandson of the Martyrologist was Dr. Samuel Clarke, or Clark (for his posterity dropped the e), pastor of a congregation of dissenters at St. Alban’s, and author of “Scripture Promises,” a popular work, often reprinted. This Dr. Samuel Clark was father to the late rev. Samuel Clark of Birmingham, who was assistant to Dr. Doddridge in his academy, and died by a fall from his horse in 1769; and also to Mrs. Rose, wife of Dr. Rose of Chiswick, a gentleman well known in the literary world.

, an English divine and astronomer, was born about 1680, and was educated at Pembroke hall, Cambridge, of which he was A. B.

, an English divine and astronomer, was born about 1680, and was educated at Pembroke hall, Cambridge, of which he was A. B. in 1700, A.M. 1704, and S. T. P. in 1728. In 1733 he was elected master of Pembroke hall, and in 1749 Lowndes’s professor of astronomy. He is chiefly known as an author by a “Treatise on Astronomy,” in two volumes 4to; the first of which was published in 1742, and the second in 1764. He was the inventor of a curious astronomical machine, erected in a room at Pembroke hail, of which he has himself given the following description: “I have, in a room lately built in Pembroke hall, erected a sphere of 18 feet diameter, wherein above thirty persons may sit conveniently; the entrance into it is over the south pole by six steps; the frame of the sphere consists of a number of iron meridians, not complete semi-circles, the northern ends of which are screwed to a large plate of brass, with a hole in the centre of it; through this hole, from a beam in the cieling, comes the north pole, a round iron rod, about three inches long, and supports the upper parts of the sphere to its proper elvation for the latitude of Cambridge; the lower part of the sphere, so much of it as is invisible in England, is cut off; and the lower or southern ends of the meridians, or truncated semi-circles, terminate on, and are screwed down to, a strong circle of oak, of about thirteen feet diameter, which, when the sphere is put into motion, runs upon large rollers of lignum vitae, in the manner that the tops of some wind-mills are made to turn round. Upon the iron meridians is fixed a zodiac of tin painted blue, whereon the ecliptic and heliocentric orbits of the planets are drawn, and the constellations and stars traced; the great and little Bear and Draco are already painted in their places round the north pole; the rest of the constellations are proposed to follow; the whole is turned with a small winch, with as little labour as it takes to wind up a jack, though the weight of the iron, tin^ and wooden circle, is about a thousand pounds. When it is made use of, a planetarium will be placed in the middle thereof. The whole, with the floor, is well-supported by a frame of large timber.” Thus far Dr. Long, before this curious piece of mechanism was perfected. Since the above was written, the sphere has been completely finished; all the constellations and stars of the northern hemisphere, visible at Cambridge, are painted in their proper places upon plates of iron joined together, which form one concave surface.

ing of Wroxhal in Warwickshire. He died in 1667. Of his son, little seems to be known unless that he was educated at Pembroke hall, Cambridge, where he is said to have

, a poetical writer of no very honourable reputation, was the son of a nonconformist minister, of both his names, a native of Loughborough in Leicestershire, who was ejected from the living of Wroxhal in Warwickshire. He died in 1667. Of his son, little seems to be known unless that he was educated at Pembroke hall, Cambridge, where he is said to have taken his master’s degree, but we do not find him in the list of graduates of either university. Mr. Malone thinks he was beneficed at Yarmouth, from whence he dates his correspondence about 1690. We are more certain that he was instituted to the living of St. Ethelburga within Bishopsgate, London, in 1704, and long before that, in 1688, was chosen lecturer of Shoreditch. Dryden, whom he was weak enough to think he rivalled, says in the preface to his “Fables,” that Milbourne was turned out of his benefice for writing libels on his parishioners. This must have been his Yarmouth benefice, if he had one, for he retained the rectory of St. Ethelburga, and the lectureship of Shoreditch, to his death, which happened April 15, 1720. As an author he was known by a “Poetical Translation of Psalms,1698, of a volume called “Notes on Dryden’s Virgil,1698 of “Tom of Bedlam’s Answer to Hoadly,” &c. He is frequently coupled with Blackmore, by Dryden, in his poems, and by Pope in “The Art of Criticism;” and is mentioned in “The Dunciad.” He published thirtyone single “Sermons,” between 1692 and 1720; a book against the Socinians, 1692, 12mo; and “A Vindication of the Church of England,1726, 2 vols. 8vo. A whimsical copy of Latin verses, by Luke Milbourne, B, A. is in the “Lacrymse Cantabrigienses, 1670,” on the death of Henrietta duchess of Orleans. Dr. Johnson, in the Life of Dryden, speaking of that poet’s translation of Virgil, says, “Milbourne, indeed, a clergyman, attacked it (Dryden’s Virgil), but his outrages seem to be the ebullitions of a mind agitated by stronger resentment than bad poetry can excite, and previously resolved not to be pleased. His criticism extends only to the preface, pasturals, and georgtcks; and, as he professes to give this antagonist an opportunity of reprisal, he has added his own version of the first and fourth pastorals, and the first georgic.” Malone conjectures that Melbourne’s enmity to Dryden originally arose from Dryden’s having taken his work out of his hands as he once projected a translation of Virgil, and published a version of the first Æneid. As he had Dryden and his friends, and Pope and his friends against him, we cannot expect a very favourable account either of his talents or morals. Once only we find him respectfully mentioned, by Dr. Walker, who thanks him for several valuable communications relative to the sequestered divines.

es Enyon, of Flower, in Northamptonshire, bart. By this lady he had a son of both his own names, who was educated at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, and, when very young (Aubrey

Mr. Stanley died at his lodgings, in Suffolk-street, in the parish of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, April 12, 167S, and was buried in the church there. He married Dorothy daughter and co-heir of sir James Enyon, of Flower, in Northamptonshire, bart. By this lady he had a son of both his own names, who was educated at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, and, when very young (Aubrey says at fourteen), translated Ælian’s “Various Histories,” which he dedicated to his aunt, the lady Newton, wife of sir Henry Puckering Newton, knt. and bart. to whom his father had dedicated his jÆschylus.