II 



REPP, THORLEIF GUDMUNDSSON. 



REPTON, HUMPHRY. 



mention, the continuance of most of their father's works, docks at 

 Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, Sheernecs, Qosport, Plymouth, and 

 Pembroke; Plymouth Breakwater; and the Royal Clarence and Royal 

 William Victualling Establishment. In London, East and West India 

 Docks, London Dock : Leith and Sunderland Docks. The harbours of 

 Liverpool, Whitehaven, Port Patrick, Donugbadee, Kingstown, Holy- 

 head, &c. The drainage of Bedford Level, Eau Brink Cut, Witham, 

 Lynn harbour, Norfolk estuary, &c. ; canals and river navigations in 

 various parts. The bridges of London, Southwark, Staines, Hyde-park, 

 and in various parts of England and abroad. The Messrs. Rennie 

 were the first who surveyed and laid down many of the present lines 

 of railways. They made the coming machinery, in conjunction with 

 Messrs. Boulton and Watt, of the Royal Mints of Calcutta and Bom- 

 bay ; and of the Mints of Lisbon, Mexico, and Peru ; the great Armoury 

 of Constantinople; the biscuit, chocolate, and great flour mills of Dept- 

 ford, Qosport, and Plymouth; the great dock gates of Sebastopol (ten 

 pair in number) ; the block and other machinery at Nicholaieff; the 

 biscuit machinery at Sebastopol ; the dredging machinery for the har- 

 bour of Odessa, the Mouth of the Danube, and Cronstadt ; the great 

 steam factory at Cronstadt ; the steam factory at Astrachan on the 

 Volga, besides many other works in Russia, France, Spain, Belgium, and 

 the Transatlantic Colonies; the land engines of Messrs. Cubitt, four in 

 number of forty horse power on the Woolf principle, besides many 

 land engines in government yards. Of marine engines they have 

 made many for the English govrnment ; the engines of the Archi- 

 medes, the first which were constructed, besides engines of large 

 steamers of war, such as the Samson, Bulldog, &c., the Queen's yacht 

 Elfin, the Reynard cruiser ; and they made the engines of the cele- 

 brated Wladiiair, and others, at Sebastopol. In the Baltic they made 

 the first screw steam engine ever furnished for the Russian Navy, 

 besides steam frigates, and two steam yachts, for Nicolas I. Also 

 many large steamers, such as the Peninsular and Oriental Navigation 

 Company's vessel Pera of 2620 tons and 453 horse power, and the 

 Candia of 1960 tons and 454 horse power. Also many steam engines 

 for vessels in France, Italy, the Mediterranean, and Mexico, &c. They 

 have also built ships both of wood and iron. The Namur and Liege 

 and the Mons and Manage railways were constructed under the direction 

 of Mr. G. Reunie in the years 1846-49. Sir John Eennie having 

 retired from the partnership in 1845, Mr. Rennie carried on the 

 business alone during several years, and was then joined by his two sons, 

 who now carry it on. Mr. Rennie was made a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society in 1822. He is a Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy, the 

 Academy of Turin, Rotterdam, &c. He is the Author of 'Experiments 

 on the Strength of Materials ; ' on ' The Frictions of Solids ; ' and on 

 ' The Frictions of Fluids,' published in the ' Philosophical Transactions.' 

 He is also the author of articles on Hydraulics, two Papers read before 

 the British Association, and of many papers on scientific subjects in 

 the ' Transactions' of the Civil Engineers, such as bridges, &c. 



* SIR JOHN RENNIE, his younger brother, has* borne an important 

 part in the works above mentioned, and also constructed many on his 

 own account. He was knighted on occasion of opening the new 

 London Bridge. Since the dissolution of the partnership with his 

 brother, he has practised as an architect. 



*REPP, THOKLEIF GUDMUNDSSON, an Icelandic scholar of 

 some eminence, and remarkable as being perhaps the only native of 

 Iceland who ever held a literary post in Britain, was born on the 6th 

 of July 1794, at Reykiadal in Arnoes-Syssel, where his father Gudmund 

 Bothvarson was the parish priest. After studying at the school of 

 Bessastad (the Eton of Iceland), he went in 1814 to the University of 

 Copenhagen, where he gained some academical prizes, and in 1821 he 

 paid a visit to England, from which he returned in the following year. 

 In 1825 the curators of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh were 

 desirous of procuring a learned foreigner for their under-librarian, and 

 made proposals to Professor Rask [RASK] the great philologist, which 

 he declined. " We are still anxious, however," wrote Dr. Irving, the 

 librarian, to P. E. Miiller [MULLER], bishop of Seland, " to procure a 

 librarian from Denmark, and I should for my own part be disposed to 

 prefer a young Icelander educated at Copenhagen, and alike familiar 

 with the languages of both countries, of three or four years' standing 

 in the university, and completely skilled in Greek and Latin ; and if 

 he were likewise acquainted with Swedish, German, and French, he 

 would be a still greater acquisition." He could hardly have specified 

 more accurately the very qualifications possessed by Repp, except that 

 in addition to the languages named the young Icelander was acquainted 

 with Spanish and Portuguese, and had a critical knowledge of Hebrew 

 and Arabic. He was accordingly recommended by Rask and Miiller 

 and several other distinguished men of Copenhagen, and appointed to 

 the office, but with the stipulation that the appointment was not 

 necessarily a permanent one. 



" The circumstance of express invitations to foreigners from large 

 public bodies, is," says Mr. Repp in a subsequent pamphlet, " exces- 

 sively rare in this country, so much so, that Mr. Repp verily believes 

 that this is the only one that has occurred during several centuries." 

 The experiment did not end satisfactorily to all parties. Mr. Repp 

 contributed the article on the Advocates' Library to the ' Penny 

 Cyclopsedia' in 1833, and in it he remarked that "a collection of 

 Spanish books containing nearly 3000 volumes was in the year 1824 

 bought from a London bookseller at very great expense," and that " of 



the librarians, or, as they are called in Scotland, Keepers of the Advo- 

 cates' Library, the two first only deserve to be mentioned as men of 

 literary attainments, viz., Thomas Ruddiman and David Hume." The 

 collection of tke Marquis of Astorga had been purchased as containing 

 8000 volumes, and no keeper of a library for the time being was likely 

 to acquiesce in such a remark respecting his distinguished predecessors. 

 Mr. Repp's colleagues complained of infirmities in his temper ; and ho 

 complained that his colleagues employed him in a way less suited to a 

 man of acquirements than to a clerk or porter. After a contest which 

 produced two or three pamphlets and Reports of some interest, which 

 may be found in the library of the British Museum, Mr. Repp was 

 informed by the curators that his future services would be dispensed 

 with. In 1834 he was a candidate for the office of teacher of modern 

 languages at an institution at Dollar in Fife, and printed a series of 

 very high testimonials from Sir William Hamilton, Professor Wilson, 

 and others ; but in 1837 he returned to Denmark. He obtained per- 

 mission to give public lectures on the English language and literature 

 at Copenhagen, and has since continued in that capital, engaged in 

 teaching English, in bringing out a dictionary, and in other literary 

 labours. 



Mr. Repp is the author of several works in Latin, Danish, and 

 English, and edited one of the Sagas in his native Icelandic, the 

 ' Saxdsela-Saga,' or ' History of the Inhabitants of Saxdal,' published 

 with a Latin translation at Copenhagen, in 1826. One of the most 

 original of his Danish works is a pamphlet entitled ' Dano-Magyariske 

 Opdagelser' (' Dano-Hungarian Discoveries,' Copenhagen, 1843), in 

 which he points out some resemblances which he considers to exist 

 between Danish and Hungarian. His most important English work is 

 his ' Historical Treatise on Trial by Jury, Wager .of Law, and other 

 co-ordinate Forensic Institutions formerly in use in Scandinavia and 

 in Iceland,' Edinburgh, 1832-38. It treats on an interesting subject, 

 and contains much information that might be sought for in vain in 

 any other English book ; but a smile is occasionally excited by the 

 pertinacity with which the Icelandic author vindicates the moral and 

 intellectual supremacy of the Icelanders, alleging that those who 

 migrated from Norway to that island were " the most distinguished 

 men in the former country the flower of that stock of which less 

 illustrious branches, emigrating to different parts of the world, became 

 conquerors and rulers of the nations they visited, and indeed the 

 patriarchs of modern European culture." A long preface in English 

 by Repp, embracing a view of the Danish language and literature, is 

 prefixed to Ferrall and Repp's ' Danish and English Dictionary ' 

 (12mo, Copenhagen), which, though on a small scale, is considered 

 the best dictionary of the two languages extant. Erslew, in his 

 ' Forfatter-Lexicon,' enumerates several theological works of some 

 length, which were translated by the Icelandic librarian from German 

 into English for the ' Edinburgh Biblical Cabinet ' and similar works, 

 and also some articles in the ' Penny Cyclopaedia,' ' Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica,' and ' Blackwood's Magazine.' 



REPTON, HUMPHRY, who first assumed professionally the title 

 of ' Landscape Gardener,' was born May 2, 1752, at Bury St. Edmund's, 

 where his father held the lucrative situation of Collector of Excise. 

 After being placed first at the grammar-school at Bury, and then at 

 that of Norwich, he was sent by his father, who intended to make a 

 man of business of him, to Gorkum in Holland, in the summer of 1764. 

 At the age of sixteen he returned to England, and was placed in a 

 merchant's counting-house at Norwich, but all his leisure was devoted 

 to poetry, music, and drawing. At the age of twenty-one he married, 

 and was set up in business as a general merchant by his father, and for 

 a while affairs prospered with him, but after a few years took an 

 unfavourable turn, owing to losses of vessels at sea, and other circum- 

 stances in trade ; wherefore having lost both his parents, he determined 

 upon following his own inclination. He accordingly settled at Sustead, 

 near Aylsham, in Norfolk, where he passed five years occupying himself 

 with farming experiment?, gardening, and the study of rural scenery. 

 But in 1783 his friend and neighbour Mr. Wyndham of Felbrigg being 

 appointed secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Repton agreed 

 to accompany him as his confidential secretary. The flattering ex- 

 pectations thus suddenly raised were as suddenly blighted, for his 

 patron gave up his post almost immediately, and Repton returned to 

 Sustead. There however he did not long remain, for, compelled to 

 retrench, he took a small house at Harestreet, Essex, to which he 

 became so much attached as ever after to reside there. Just at this 

 time (1784) he became acquainted with Mr. Palmer, who introduced 

 the mail-coach system, and he joined with him in his project ; but 

 though eventually the scheme prospered, Repton had to put up with 

 pecuniary loss. He resolved to try whether he could not extricate 

 himself from his embarrassments by gratifying his own tastes at the 

 same time, and accordingly announced to his friends his intention of 

 practising as a ' Landscape Gardener." The field was open, for Brown 

 had been dead some years [BROWN], and there was no one besides of 

 any note. With what success this last scheme was crowned needs 

 hardly be said, for business soon began to pour in upon him, and ho 

 was consulted by the owners of 'Places' in almost every part of the 

 kingdom. Repton continued to enjoy uninterrupted prosperity and 

 good health up to January 29th, 1811, when, being upset in his 

 carriage, he received a severe injury to the spine, which rendered him 

 a long while an invalid. He died suddenly on the 24th of March 1818. 



