477 



SHENSTONE, WILLIAM. 



SHERIDAN, DR. THOMAS. 



478 



Warbeck,' each in three volumes. She also wrote ' Rambles hi Ger- 

 many and Italy,' an account of her journeys with her husband. In 

 1839 she published an edition of his poetical works, with a few 

 biographical notes added, in which the more offensive passages of 

 'Queen Mab' are omitted; and in 1840 a selection from his letters 

 and a few specimens of his prose writings. In all these she pays a 

 most affectionate tribute to his goodness of heart and the other 

 amiable qualities which she states invariably secured him the love 

 of all who knew him. She died in London, on the 1st of February 

 1851. 



SHENSTONE, WILLIAM, an English poet, was born November, 

 1714, at the Leasowes, Hales Owen, Shropshire. He was sent to 

 Pembroke College, Oxford, in the year 1732, and remained there some 

 time, taking no degree. He amused himself in a desultory manner, 

 travelling about and writing poetry, till 1745, when he commenced 

 residing on his patrimony at his native place. The remainder of his 

 life was spent in rural occupations. .He took great pride and spared 

 no expense in the cultivation of his garden, and in his latter years 

 became much involved in consequence. He died February 11, 1763. 

 A very beautiful Latin epitaph on his cousin, and a few stanzas like 

 that quoted by Johnson in his Life of him, full of genuine and simple 

 feeling, redeem his poems from the charge of utter insipidity and life- 

 lessness. They consist of elegies, pastorals, and odes, &c. His prin- 

 cipal poem and the best of his longer pieces is ' The Schoolmistress/ 

 and next in rank may be placed his Elegies. Johnson has pretty 

 accurately hit off his character in the concluding sentence of his Life 

 of Shenstone " The general recommendation of Shenstone is easiness 

 and simplicity; his general defect is want of comprehension and 

 variety. Had his mind been better stored with knowledge, whether 

 he could have been great, I know not ; he could certainly have been 

 agreeable." A spirit of mortified ambition, ill suited to the retirement 

 which he professed to court, appears in all his writings. 



SHERARD, WILLIAM, better known as the patron and fellow- 

 labourer of other botanists than by his own writings, was born at 

 Bushby in Leiceslershire, in the year 1659. He received his early 

 education at Merchant Taylors' School, and was entered as a student 

 of St. John's College, Oxford, in 1677, and became a Fellow of the 

 same college in 1683. He was travelling tutor successively to Charles, 

 second viscount Townshend, and to Wriothesley, lord Howland, son 

 of Lord Russell who was executed. During this period of his life he 

 made two tours on the Continent, in Holland, France, Italy, &c. ; and 

 then made the acquaintance of Boerhaave, Hermann, Tournefort, 

 Vaillant, Micheli, and of most others of the ablest botanists of the 

 time. He is believed to have been the author of an anonymous work 

 called 'Schola Botanica,' published at Amsterdam, in 1689, giving an 

 account of the plants then growing in the botanic garden at Paris. In 

 1700 he communicated a paper to the Royal Society, on the making 

 of Japan and Chinese varnishes, which was inserted in the 22nd volume 

 of their ' Transactions.' 



In 1702 he was appointed British consul at Smyrna, having previously 

 been one of the commissioners for the sick and wounded at Portsmouth. 

 Smyrna afforded him an opportunity of pursuing botany ; here he laid 

 the foundation of his great 'Herbarium/ which is still a national 

 treasure, and cultivated with great care and attention many rare and 

 exotic species of plants. In 1718 he returned to England, and received 

 the degree of LL.D. 



In 1721 he returned to the Continent, and Vaillant, the African 

 traveller, being then in a dying state, Sherard succeeded in transferring 

 the manuscripts and drawings of this great traveller to Boerhaave, who 

 published them in the 'Botanicon Parisiense/ in 1727. In this work 

 Boerhaave was materially assisted by Sherard. In his various visits 

 to the Continent Sherard became intimate with Dillenius, who was 

 professor of botany at Giessen; and in 1721 he invited him to 

 come over to England to superintend the botanic garden of his 

 brother Dr. James Sherard, at Eltham. This invitation was accepted 

 by Dillenius, and forms an important point in the history of botany in 

 this country. 



Sherard was a quiet unassuming man, who loved the study of 

 natural history for its own sake. He seemed to prefer assisting others 

 in their labours to producing anything of his own. He was thus the 

 fellow-labourer of Catesby, in the ' Natural History of Carolina,' and 

 also of Dillenius, in the publication of the ' Hortus Elthamensis.' He 

 died in 1728, at the age of sixty-nine. At his death he bequeathed 

 his great Herbarium, containing upwards of 12,000 species of plants, 

 to the University of Oxford, and also left 3000?. for the purpose of 

 endowing a botanical chair in the same University. This was undoubt- 

 edly the greatest service done by Sherard to botany; although at 

 present it has not perhaps produced the fruit which might have been 

 anticipated. 



DILLENIUB was the first who occupied the chair of botany founded 

 by Sherard. He was born at Darmstadt in 1687. He came over to 

 England in 1721. He published in this country a new edition of Ray's 

 ' Synopsis,' illustrated with twenty-four plate?, in 1724. The ' Hortus 

 Elthamensis' appeared in 1732. His greatest work, and one which 

 has had a most important influence on the study of botany, is the 

 ' Historia Muscorum,' published in 1741. Although the name would 

 indicate that the mosses were the only subjects treated on, it included 

 observations on all the families of cryptogamic plants. It contains a 



fund of original research, and many modern observers would do well 

 to consult this volume before announcing their observations as entirely 

 new. Sherard during his life wished to have completed or continued 

 Bauhin's 'Piuax,' a work intended to have been a description of all the 

 plants then known, and for this purpose he collected a great mass of 

 materials. It was his wish at his death that this should be done by 

 the new professor at Oxford, but either Dillenius did not feel com- 

 petent to the task, or was too much occupied with his ' Historia,' for 

 the continuation of the ' Pinax ' never appeared. Dillenius died in 

 1747. His Herbarium is now with that of Sherard at Oxford, which, 

 containing as it does specimens from Linnaeus, Tournefort, and other 

 eminent botanists of that day, is, next to the Herbarium of Linnaeus 

 himself, one of the most authentic and valuable botanical records that 

 exists. 



SHERBURNE, SIR EDWARD, descended from an ancient family 

 residing at Stainhurst in Lancashire, was born in London, on the 18th 

 of September 1618. In his younger days he had the advantage of the 

 instructions of the celebrated Thomas Farnaby, who then taught a 

 school in Goldsmith's Rents; but in 1636, Farnaby removed from 

 London, and transferred his pupil to the care of Charles Aleyn, who 

 had been one of his ushers, and who is known as the author of some 

 very inferior historical poetry. In 1640 Sherburne set out on the 

 grand Continental tour, from which he was suddenly recalled to solace 

 the few remaining days of his father, who died in 1641, leaving his 

 son in possession of the post which he had enjoyed of the clerkship of 

 his majesty's Ordnance. The rebellion however prevented his retaining 

 this situation for any length of time. Being indeed a Roman Catholic 

 and firm royalist, he was ejected by a warrant from the House of 

 Lords in April or May 1642, and harassed by a long and expensive 

 confinement in the custody of the usher of the black rod. After his 

 release he entered actively into the service of the king, who created 

 him commissary-general of the royal artillery. Various fortunes now 

 awaited him. He witnessed the memorable battle of Edge-hill ; he 

 attended the king at Oxford, where he took his Master's degree on 

 December 20th, 1642, and pursued his studies for some time; he went 

 to London in 1646, where he was plundered of all his property, and 

 finally compelled to hide himsslf for safety in the chambers of a 

 relation in the Middle Temple. About 1651 fortune once more 

 smiled upon him, and he was appointed by Sir George Savile, who had 

 then recently returned from abroad, superintendent of his affairs, and 

 shortly afterwards was made travelling tutor to Sir John Coventry, 

 with whom he visited different parts of the Continent between the 

 years 1654 and 1659. On the Restoration he obtained with consider- 

 able trouble his old situation in the Ordnance, but at the revolution 

 of 1688 was again ejected from it upon refusing to take the necessary 

 oaths. He had received the honour of knighthood January 6th, 1682. 

 There is every reason however to believe that his latter days were 

 embittered by the evils of poverty, as we find him in 1696 presenting a 

 supplicatory memorial to the Earl of Romney, then master-general of 

 the Ordnance, and another to the king. Whether either of these 

 applications was attended with success is not known. He continued 

 his retirement till his death, which took place at London, on Novem- 

 ber 4th, 1702. 



Sherburne was the author of poetical translations of two pieces 

 from Seneca, the ' Medea/ and the ' Troades/ published respectively 

 in 1648 and 1679. These works procured him considerable reputation 

 in his time ; but his fame at present principally rests on the translation 

 of 'Manilius/ published at London in 1675, in a handsome folio 

 volume, and enriched by an appendix containing lives of scientific men. 

 This appendix is particularly valuable to the scientific historian as 

 containing much information regarding Sherburne's contemporaries 

 not to be met with elsewhere. 



SHERIDAN, DR. THOMAS, translated the 'Satires of Persius' 

 into prose, and also the ' Philoctetes ' of Sophocles into verse ; but 

 neither of these translations is worthy of being rescued from the neglect 

 into which they have_ fallen. His talents were more of a social nature 

 punning, quibbling, and fiddling, according to Lord Cork, with an 

 incessant flow of animal spirits. 



Dr. Sheridan was born in 1684 in the county of Cavan. His parents 

 were poor; but he was placed by a friend at Trinity College, Dublin, 

 where he made considerable progress in classical literature. He after- 

 wards took orders, and then set up a school in Dublin. Swift, who 

 was his friend, procured him in 1 725 a living in the south of Ireland 

 of about 150?. a year, but his recklessness or impudence spoiled all his 

 expectations ; for he preached a sermon on the 1st of August (the 

 anniversary of King George's birthday) on the text, " Sufficient for the 

 day is the evil thereof." On this being known he was struck off the 

 list of chaplains to the lord-lieutenant and forbidden the castle. He 

 bore this however with a light heart, and soon after changed his living 

 for one in Dunboyne ; but owing to the cheating of the farmers, and 

 other causes, the income was lowered to 80Z. a year. As this did not 

 suit him, he speedily gave it up for the free school of Cavaa, where he 

 had a salary of 801. a year besides his scholars. He was through life 

 indolent, careless, slovenly, and indigent. His animal spirits seemed 

 to supply every other deficiency, and to have preserved him cheerful 

 amidst all his poverty and distress ; but his habits as wed as his 

 temperament were careless and ill-regulated, and prevented any strict 

 attention to his duties. His indolence or imprudence made him sell 



