G17 



WANSLEBEN, JOHANN MICHAEL. 



WARBURTON, WILLIAM. 



618 



evidently a constitutional dislike or incapacity for any sort of regular 

 occupation. Having however acquired a great skill in old handwriting 

 (in the cultivation of which he may have been assisted by what he had 

 learned of the art of limning), this accomplishment recommended him 

 to the notice of Dr. William Lloyd, then Bishop of Lichfield and 

 Coventry (afterwards of Worcester), and that prelate sent him to 

 Edmund Hall, Oxford. He proved of great service to Dr. Mill, the 

 principal, by the assistance he gave him in making his collation of the 

 various readings of the Greek New Testament (published in 1707). 

 After this he was taken into the service of Dr. Charlett, master of 

 University College, who kept him at his own lodgings, and seems to 

 have employed him in transcribing, compiling, abridging, and other 

 such work. Charlett also got him appointed one of the under-keepers 

 of the Bodleian Library ; and he took a principal part in drawing up 

 the Indexes to the Catalogue of Manuscripts, the Latiu preface to 

 which is of his composition. He then left Oxford, and removing to 

 Loudon, became secretary to the Society for Promoting Christian 

 Knowledge. His next employment was as assistant to Dr. Hickes, 

 the eminent Anglo-Saxon scholar, for whom he travelled over the 

 kingdom in search of manuscripts in that language, and drew up in 

 English the descriptive catalogue of those contained in the public and 

 private libraries and other depositories visited by him, which, after it 

 had been translated into Latin by another hand, was printed in 

 Hickcs's ' Thesaurus Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium," 3 torn., 

 folio, Oxon., 1705, and forms the third volume of that great work. 

 This is Wanley's principal performance ; and it is admitted to be done, 

 all circumstances considered, with diligence, care, and competent 

 learning. His last employment was as librarian to Harley, earl of 

 Oxford, the founder of the famous Harleian collection of printed books 

 and manuscripts, and to his sou, the second earl, both of whom were 

 highly satisfied with his services in that capacity. He compiled the 

 Catalogue of the Manuscripts, which was first printed in 1762, as far 

 as to No. 2407. Among the Lansdowne manuscripts, in the British 

 Museum, is a very curious Diary, kept by Wanley, from March 1715, 

 till within a fortnight of his death, mostly of proceedings connected 

 with the Harleian library. Several extracts from it are printed in 

 Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century.' The only 

 separate work published by Wanley is a translation (from the French) 

 of Ostervald's ' Grounds and Principles of the Christian Religion,' 

 which appeared at London in an Svo volume, in 1704. 



Wanley was twice married ; first to a widow with several children ; 

 the second time, only a fortnight before his death, to a very young 

 woman. He was carried off by dropsy, 6th July 1726, when it was 

 found that he had lel't all he had, which amounted to something con- 

 siderable, to his widow. 



There are many letters relating to Wanley, principally from his con- 

 temporary and fellow antiquarian Hearne, in the ' Letters of eminent 

 Persons of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, from MSS. in the 

 Bodleian,' published (by Dr. Bliss) in 3 vols. Svo, in 1813. And there 

 are several of Wanley's own letters in the volume lately printed for 

 the Cau;den Society, entitled ' Original Letters of eminent Literary 

 Men of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries, with 

 Notes and Illustrations by Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S.,' &c., 4to, 

 1813. 



WANSLEBEN, JOHANN MICHAEL, son of a Lutheran clergy- 

 man, was born at Erfurt in 1635. After studying philosophy and 

 theology at Konigsberg, he was successively private tutor, soldier, and 

 vagabond ; at last he attached himself, for the purpose of studying the 

 Ethiopia, to Ludolf, at whose request he undertook a journey to 

 London. The object of this excursion was to superintend the printing 

 of Ludolf 'a ' Lexicon Ethiopicum,' which was published at London in 

 1661. Wansleben was also employed during his residence in England 

 by Edmund Castell, as an assistant in compiling his ' Lexicon Hepta- 

 glotton.' 



Wansleben, on his return to Erfurt, was sent by Duke Ernst of 

 Gotha, at Ludolf's suggestion, to examine into the condition of the 

 Christians in Egypt and Abyssinia. He performed the Egyptian part 

 of the undertaking, but returned to Europe without attempting to 

 penetrate into Abyssinia. He landed at Leghorn in February 1665, 

 and proceeded to Rome, where he declared himself a convert tc the 

 Romish Church, and soon after entered the Dominican order. In 

 1670 he visited Paris, and was sent to Egypt by Colbert, for the pur- 

 pose of collecting information respecting the state of the country and 

 purchasing manuscripts. He landed at Damietta in March 1671, and 

 left Cairo for Constantinople in September 1673. He visited in suc- 

 cession the Coptic convents of the Delta, the Faiurn, the deserts of 

 St. Macariua and St. Anthony, in search of manuscripts, and ascended 

 the Nile as far as Esneh. He made several excursions from Constan- 

 tinople into Asia Minor, and was preparing to return to Egypt when 

 he was recalled to France. He reached Paris in April 1676 ; but 

 instead of obtaining the objects of his ambition, a bishopric or pro- 

 fessorship of Oriental languages, he was called to account for the 

 moneys entrusted to his disposal, and disgraced for misapplying them. 

 After soliciting in vain a grant of public money to enable hitn to print 

 the Ethiopic works he had collected, his necessities obliged him to 

 accept, in 1678, the office of vicar in a village near Fontainebleau, 

 where he died, on the 12th of June 1679. 



Ludolf, iu the preface to his commentary on the ' History of 



Ethiopia,' speaks slightingly of Wansleben, but his opinion may have 

 been biassed by the conduct of his former scholar ; he must have 

 entertained some respect for Wansleben' s acquirements when he sent 

 him to London to carry his Ethiopic Grammar and Lexicon through 

 the press. The published works of Wansleben are 1, ' Index Latinus 

 in Jobi Ludolfi Lexicon ^Ethiopico-Latinum ; Appendix ^Ethiopico- 

 Latina, Liturgia S. Dioscori, Patriarchae Alexandrini, ^Ethiop. et Lat.,' 

 4to, Londini, 1661 ; 2, 'Conspectus Operum ^Ethiopicorum quae ad 

 excudendum parata habebat Wanslebius,' 4to, Paris, 1671; 3, 'Rela- 

 idone dello stato presente dell' Egitto,' 12mo, Paris, 1671 ; 4, 'Nouvelle 

 Relation, en forme de Journal, d'un Voyage fait en Egypte en 1672 et 

 1673,' Paris, 1677. This edition enters much more into detail than 

 the Italian version : an English translation from the French was pub- 

 lished at London in 1678. 5, 'Histoire de 1'Eglise d' Alexandria fondle 

 par St. Marc, que nous appelons cclle des Jacobites Copies d'Egypte, 

 dcrite au Caire memo en 1672 et 1673,' 12mo, Paris, 1677. This work 

 professes to be a compilation from Coptic writers. Besides these, a 

 manuscript account of Wansleben's first expedition to Egypt was 

 transmitted to Gotha. Possibly the pamphlet published in London in 

 1679, entitled 'A Brief Account of the Rebellions and Bloodshed 

 occasioned by the anti-Christian practices of the Jesuits and other 

 Popish Emissaries in the Empire of ^Ethiopia : collected out of a 

 manuscript history written in Latin, by J. Michael Wansleben, a 

 learned Papist/ may have been compiled from his narrative. A manu- 

 script entitled ' Diarium conscriptum a J. M. Wanslebio, Sommerdano 

 Thuring, ab anno 1654,' is said to be preserved in the Ducal Library 

 at Weimar. 



(Biographic Universette ; Jbcher, Allgemeines Oclehrtcn-Lexicon ; 

 Prefaces to Castell's Lexicon Heptaglotton, and Ludolf's second edition 

 of his Ethiopia Grammar and Lexicon ; Nouvelle Relation d'un Voyage 

 fait en Egypte, Paris, 1698.) 



WARBECK, PERKIN. [HENRY VII.] 



WARBURTON, ELIOT BARTHOLOMEW GEORGE, eldest son of 

 the late Major G. Warburtou, of Aughrim, county Galway, Inspector- 

 General of Constabulary in Ireland, was born in 1810 : he represented 

 a branch of an old Cheshire family. He received his early education 

 at home and under the care of a tutor ; then entered Queen's College, 

 Cambridge, but after his second term he migrated to Trinity, where 

 he took his degree. He was subsequently called to the bar, but soon 

 ceased to practise, and turned his attention to the care and improve- 

 ment of his Irish estates. He first became known to the world as 

 an author by his captivating work on the East and Eastern Travel, 

 entitled the ' Crescent and the Cross/ which was first published in 

 1845. This work at once acquired unusual popularity, and is now (1857) 

 in the 13th edition. It was followed in 1849 by his ' Prince Rupert 

 and the Cavaliers/ a brilliant history and vindication of the gallant 

 prince, who so chivalrously distinguished himself in the civil war 

 under Charles I. He next published 'Reginald Hastings,' a romance 

 referring to and illustrative of the same period. Shortly afterwards he 

 edited the ' Memoirs of Horace Walpole and his contemporaries.' 

 His last work, which was published after his death, is entitled 'Darien, 

 or the Merchant Prince ;' it is a tale founded on the colony established 

 about the middle of the 17th century by a Scottish adventurer named 

 Paterson, on that portion of the northern coast of South America 

 which abuts on the Isthmus of Panama, and is known by the appella- 

 tion of Darien. Mr. Eliot Warburton married a daughter of the late 

 E. Grove, Esq., of Shenstone Park, Staffordshire, and niece of Sir 

 E. Cradock Hartopp, Bart., by whom he left issue, two sons. He 

 was lost in the ill-fated ship Amazon, which was burnt off the Laud's 

 End, January 4, 1852. 



WARBUKTON, WILLIAM, a very distinguished English prelate, 

 was born on the 24th of December 1698, at Newark, and was the 

 elder of the two sons of Mr. George Warburton, an attorney of that 

 place, who held the office of town-clerk, and of Elizabeth, daughter of 

 Mr. William Hobman, one of the aldermen of the borough. The 

 family was originally from the county of Chester. Warburtou's grand- 

 father, also au attorney, who had taken the royalist side in the civil 

 war, was the first of them that settled iu Newark. 



Warburton lost his father when he was only eight years old; so 

 that the care of his education fell upon his mother, who was left with 

 the charge of three daughters besides her two sons, and who survived 

 her husband many years. Being designed for the profession of his 

 father and grandfather, he received the usual grammar education, first 

 at the school of Okeham in Rutlandshire, under Mr. Wright, who 

 afterwards became vicar of Cambden in Gloucestershire, then at that 

 of his native town, which was taught by a cousin of his own of the 

 same name. On leaving school, in 1715, he was placed in the office 

 of Mr. Kirke, an attorney, at Easb Markham in Nottinghamshire, with 

 whom he continued till April 1719, when he set up in business for 

 himself at Newark. But a love of reading and study had early taken 

 possession of him : his professional success, probably impeded by 

 these tastes, is supposed not to have been considerable; and at length, 

 having made up his mind to enter the church, he received deacon's 

 orders from Dawes, Archbishop of York, in 1723. 



He now also published his first literary performance, a 12mo volumo 

 of ' Miscellaneous Translations, in prose and verse, from Roman Poets, 

 Orators, and Historians.' In 1726 ho received priest's orders from. 

 Gibson, bishop of London, and by the interest of Sir Robert Sutton, 



