BAKER, DAVID. 



BAKER, THOMAS. 



of Madras, he applied for leave of absence, which being granted, he 

 relinquished hia command and returned to Europe. 



In 1805 General Baird commanded an expedition directed against 

 the Dutch settlements at the Cape of Good Hope, took Cape Town, 

 and was proceeding to organise hia conquest when he was recalled for 

 having sanctioned an ill-judged expedition of Sir Home Popham 

 against one of the possessions of Spain in South America. In 1807 he 

 accompanied Lord Cathcart in the expedition of that year against 

 Denmark ; and though wounded twice during the capture of Copen- 

 hagen, he is hardly mentioned in the despatches ; while General Wel- 

 lesley, his junior, who also had a command under Lord Cathcart, is 

 made the subject of an elaborate eulogy. On his return he was sent 

 to superintend a ' camp of instruction ' in Ireland ; an employment 

 which would imply that his proficiency in the mechanical branches of 

 the military art was rated more highly, and probably with justice, by 

 his superiors than his fitness to command an army. In 1803 Baird 

 commanded a large force that was sent out to co-operate with Sir 

 John Moore, then commander-in-chiof of the British army in the 

 Peninsula. This force formed part of Sir John Moore's army in his 

 retreat to Coruha, and shared in the glory of the battle of that name , 

 which vindicated the honour of the English arms. On the death of 

 that excellent officer, General Baird, as second in command, became 

 conimander-in-chief, and the despatch relating to the battle was accord- 

 ingly written in his name. He was however too severely wounded to 

 take advantage of the accidental promotion ; for he received some 

 grape-xhot in the left arm, which so shattered the bone of tha arm and 

 shoulder, that amputation from the socket became necessary. On his 

 return he received the thanks of Parliament for his gallant conduct, was 

 gratified with the long-sought-for red ribbon, and created a baronet. 



In 1S10 Sir David Baird married Miss Campbell Preston, of Perth- 

 shire, with whom he received considerable estates in that county. In 

 1814, at the termination of the war, he applied for a peerage and 

 pension, considering the baronetcy and K.C.B. honour quite inadequate 

 to the length and importance of his services ; but he failed in his 

 application. In 1820 Baird was appointed commander-m-chicf in Irc- 

 land, but remained in oliice ouly long enough to show that though au 

 intrepid and gallant soldier, he was wholly ignorant of the principles 

 of good government. He was removed from his command. in 1821, 

 when the Marquis Wellesley became Lord-Lieutenant. From this 

 period till his death, in 1829, ho lived in retirement. 



(Life of General Sir David Baird, &e. ; Mill, British India ; Colonel 

 Mark Wilks, Historical Sketches of the South of India ; Napier, History 

 of the Peninsular War; Nota on the Campaign of 1808-9 in the North 

 of Spain, by Colonel Sorrell, Baird's Military Secretary.) 



BAKER, DAVID, an English Benedictine monk and ecclesiastical 

 historian, was born at Abergivenny, December 9th, 1575. He received 

 his early education at Christ's Hospital, London, whence, in 1590, he 

 went to Oxford, where he became a commoner of Broadgate Hall, now 

 Pembroke College. Here he is recorded by Anthony a Wood to have 

 fallen into vicious and disorderly habits. Having left the university 

 without a degree, he came to London, and joined hia brother Richard, 

 a barrister of the Middle Temple, where he studied law, and, in 

 addition to the loose courses he had followed, became a professed 

 infidel. After the death of his brother, his father, who was steward 

 to Lord Abergavenny, got him appointed to the office of recorder of 

 the town of Aliergavenny. Here, whilst returning home from holding 

 a court at a distant place, a miraculous escape from drowning recalled 

 him to a sense of religion, and led to his joining the Roman Catholic 

 Church. Taking a journey to London, he fell in with some Benedictine 

 fathers o& the Cassine congregation, with one of whom he shortly 

 after repaired to Italy, giving no further notice of his intentions to 

 his father than that he was going to travel. At Padua he was 

 admitted to the habit of religion by the Abbot of Justina, May 27, 

 1605, about which time he changed his name from David to Augustine 

 Baker. The state of his health rendering it necessary that he should 

 return to England, he arrived at home just in time to reconcile his 

 father, who was dying, to the Roman Catholic faith. After providing 

 for his mother, and disposing of his own estate, he gave himself to the 

 duties of his profession, residing partly in London and partly with 

 Roman Catholic families in the country for some years, after which 

 he retired for a time to Douay. Subsequently he became the spiritual 

 director of the convent of English Benedictine nuns at Cambray, and 

 also their confessor. With them he passed nine years, and then again 

 returned to Douay. 



About 1621 an employment was recommended to him by the 

 superiors of his order, that of searching after and transcribing the 

 records of the ancient congregation of the Black or Benedictine monks 

 in England. His collections on this subject filled six volumes in folio. 

 They are said to have been lost; but Father Clement Reyner's ' Apos- 

 tolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia,' fol., Duac. 1626, was arranged am 

 methodised from them, and they supplied many of the materials o: 

 Cressy's ' Church History,' fol., Roan, 166S. Baker's religious treatises 

 were numerous, filling nine folio volumes of manuscript : these, in 

 Wood's time, were preserved in the monastery of the English Bene 

 dictine nuns at Cambray. Among the names of the literary friends 

 of Baker, those of Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Henry Spelman, Selden 

 Ciiuiden, and Godwin, are especially recorded. He died in Gray's 

 Inn-lane, August 9th 1641, and was buried at St. Andrew's, Holboru. 



(Wood, Athena; Oxon., edit. Bliss, vol. iii. col. 7 ; Grainger, vol. ii. 

 p. 200 ; Chalmers, Biog. Diet.) 



BAKER, HENRY, whose name is familiar to those who are 

 interested in microscopic observations, was the son of William B*ker, 

 a. clerk in Chancery. He was born on the 8th of May 1698, in 

 Chancery-lane, London. In 1713 he was placed with a bookseller, 

 whom he left in 1720 to reside with Mr. John Forster, an attorney, 

 iere he first practised tuition on the deaf and dumb, an employment 

 which he afterwards followed with much success, his first pupil being 

 Jr. Forster's daughter. The names of some of the first families in 

 ;he land are to be found among his scholars. In 1724 and 1725 he 

 mblished some poems of a licentious character ; and from that time 



1737 his labours appear to have been chiefly literary. In 1729 he 

 married the daughter of the celebrated Daniel Defoe, and in 1740 was 

 elected first a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and soon after a 

 ?ellow of the Royal Society. He now gave proof of his talent for 

 accurately observing objects of natural history ; and about two years 

 after his election he published the first edition of ' The Microscope 

 made Easy,' which was followed by his ' Employment for the Micro- 

 scope.' In 1744 he received from the hands of Sir Hans Sloaue, 

 President of the Koyal Society, the Copley medal, for his microscopical 

 experiments on the crystallisations and configurations of saline par- 

 ticles. His experiments upon the fresh-water polype (Hydra nridis), 

 and upon other minute animals, are very curious and instructive, and 

 bis observations are still valued. He died in the Strand on the 25th 

 of November 1774, in his 77th year, and was buried in the churchyard 

 of St. Mary-le-Strand. His collection of natural productions, with 

 some antiquities, &c., occupied ten days in the sale, which took place 

 in 1775. The larger alpine strawberry and the true rhubarb (Rlieum 

 palmatum) were introduced by Baker into this country ; he also made 

 us acquainted with the history of the Coccus Polonicus, or cochineal 

 of the north, transmitted by Dr. Wolfe. 



BAKER, SIR RICHARD, the author of the 'Chronicle of the Kings 

 of Kugland ' known by his name, was born about the year 1 5C3. Wood 

 (' AtUeme Oxouienses '), the writer of the article ' Sir Richard Baker' 

 in the ' Biographia Britannica,' makes Sissiughurst in Kent his birth- 

 place ; but Fuller, who speaks of him as a personal acquaintance in 

 his ' English Worthies,' states that he was a native of Oxfordshire. 

 Sir John Baker, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Henry VIII., was one 

 of his ancestors. Richard Baker was educated at the university of 

 Oxford, knighted in 1603, and married and settled in Oxfordshire 

 before the year 1620. Being in pecuniary difficulties soon after his 

 marriage, he was thrown into the Fleet prison, where he spent the 

 remaining years of his life, and died in the year 1644-45 in a state of 

 extreme poverty. It was during his imprisonment, and as a means of 

 subsistence, that he wrote his * Chronicle ' and various other works. 



Of the * Chronicle,' the most celebrated of his works, the author has 

 himself said, " that it was collected with so great care and diligence, 

 that if all other of our chronicles should be lost, this only would be 

 sufficient to inform posterity of all passages worthy or memorable to 

 be known." Although Baker's ' Chronicle' is by no means entitled to 

 this high commendation, at the same time we are not surprised at the 

 great popularity which it enjoyed for more than a century after its 

 publication (164l) among the squires and ancient gentlewomen of the 

 school of Sir Roger de Coverley. The manner was new, and as the 

 author of the ' Historical Library ' remarked, in his coarse fashion, 

 " pleasing to the rabble ;" meaning by the term ' rabbis ' all persons 

 not eminently learned. Hollinshed was too bulky and Speed too dull 

 a writer to be popular ; and Sir Richard's residence in the Fleet was a 

 hindrance to the compilation of a book overloaded with those nume- 

 rous references to authorities and antiquarian researches which perplex 

 and weary the general reader, however acceptable to the learned. 

 Though full of errors, Baker's ' Chronicle ' was long the text-book of 

 English history to country gentlemen and their families, but it is now 

 little read. The other works of Sir R. Baker consist chiefly of medi- 

 tations, prayers, and other devotional books. In a posthumous work 

 published in 1662, the 'Theatruin Redivivum,' he endeavoured to show 

 that the fathers were not so opposed to dramatic representations as 

 Prynne had represented in his ' Histrio-Mastix." 



Sir R. Baker's ' Chronicle' brought the history of England down to 

 the death of James ; he wrote also a few lines of the reign of Charles I. 

 by way of introduction. A fourth edition of the ' Chronicle ' was pub- 

 lished in 1665 by Edward Phillips, the nephew of Milton, bringing the 

 work to the coronation of Charles II. Phillips says (' Epistle to the 

 Reader'), that as to the transactions of Monk (duke of Albemarle), he 

 had permission to make use of his " Excellence's own papers, and 

 several other private collections of persons active with him in that 

 service," 



(Wood, Athena Oxonienses ; Fuller, English Worthies; Biographia 

 Britannica.) 



BAKER, THOMAS, the Cambridge antiquary, was born at Crooke, 

 in the parish of Lanchester, near Durham, September 14th, 1656. His 

 father was George Baker, Esq., and his grandfather Sir George Baker, 

 Knight, recorder of Newcastle. Thomas Baker was educated in the 

 free school at Durham, and afterwards sent, with his elder brother 

 George, to Cambridge, where he became a pensioner at St. John's 

 college, July 9th, 1674, and was elected fellow of his college in March 

 1679. Ho catered into orders in 1635, and in June 1687 was collated 



