SHI
978
SHO
the latter part of his life, retired to Maidstone, where he died at
an advanced age in 1804.—J. T—e. SHIPPEN, William, an eminent parliamentary leader of the jacobites, was the son of the rector of Stockport, and born in 1672. He was a member of the house of commons as early as 1716, and for many years retained in that assembly a high position as an honest, uncompromising jacobite. He is immortalized in a line of Pope's, which sufficiently characterizes him:—
" I love to pour out all myself as plain,
As downright Shippen, or as old Montaigne."
Walpole said of him, "I would not say who was corrupted, but I would say who was not corruptible; that man is Shippen." Shippen returned the compliment by saying, with reference to Walpole, "Robin and I are honest men." In 1741 he refused to join the parliamentary coalition against Sir Robert, and Shippen with his followers quitted the house. He died in 1743.—F. E. SHIRLEY, Sir Anthony, was born in 1565. He served with the English troops in Holland and in Ireland, and in the West Indies against the Spaniards. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for various services, and sent by her into Italy to assist the people of Ferrara against the pope; but finding upon his arrival there that peace had been finally arranged, he proceeded to Venice and thence to Persia, where he ingratiated himself so far with the shah that he was sent back by him as his ambassador to England in 1612. He was raised to the dignity of count by the emperor of Germany, and was appointed admiral of the Levant seas by the king of Spain. Such honours excited the jealousy of James I., who ordered him to return to England; but he did not obey the king, and continued in Spain until his death in 1630. He and his brothers were so famous as travellers that they were made the subjects of a comedy, written in 1607, entitled the "Travels of the Shirleys." There is an account of his West Indian expedition in the third volume of Hakluyt's Collection; and his travels into Persia and over the Caspian sea through Russia were each published separately.—F. SHIRLEY, James, the dramatist, who forms a connecting link between the poets of the Elizabethan and the Restoration periods, was born in London in September, 1596. From Merchant Tailors' school he went to St. John's college, Oxford, of which Laud was then president. Laud admired his talents, but objected to his taking orders, for the singular reason that he had a large mole on his left cheek. He went to Catherine hall, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree. Having taken orders, he received a curacy in or near St. Albans, but resigned it on his going over to popery, and became a teacher in St. Albans grammar-school. In 1618 he published his first work, "The Echo, or the Unfortunate Lovers," of which not a copy survives, but which is surmised to be the "Narcissus, or the Self-lover," of 1646, modelled on Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis. His earliest drama, a comedy, "Love Tricks," was licensed in 1625. Probably after its successful appearance he removed to London, and became a writer for the stage. To this earlier section of his dramatic career belong "The Traitor," 1631 (one of the best of his plays, in some measure the basis of Mr. Sheil's Evadne), and "The Gamester," 1634, of which there are several modern adaptations. In 1637 he went to Ireland and wrote for the theatrical company of Ogilby, whom he afterwards assisted to translate and annotate Homer and Virgil. Returning to London in 1638, on the breaking out of the civil war, he attended his, and earlier, Ben Jonson's patron, the royalist William, earl (afterwards marquis and duke) of Newcastle, and according to Wood assisted that nobleman in the composition of his dramas. The triumph of puritanism closed the theatres, and when Shirley returned to London after the downfall of the royal cause, he resumed his old vocation of a schoolmaster—this time on his own account—and with considerable success. He published a volume of poems in 1646, and wrote the preface to a collection of plays, previously unpublished, of Beaumont and Fletcher (1647), with the latter of whom he had been intimate. In 1649 appeared his "Via ad Latinam Linguam Complanata," one of three elementary grammars which he published. After the Restoration Shirley resumed the pen of the dramatist, and produced several plays. Burnt out in the great fire of London, he and his wife were so affected by terror and their losses that they both died, and on the same day, in October, 1666. "Shirley," says Charles Lamb, "claims a place among the worthies of this period, not so much for any transcendent genius in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly the same language, and had a set of moral feelings and notions in common." Mr. Hallam thinks that "Shirley has no originality, no force in conceiving or delineating character, little of pathos, and less, perhaps, of wit; his dramas produce no deep impression in reading, and of course can leave none in the memory. But his mind was poetical; his better characters, especially females, express pure thoughts in pure language; he is never tumid or affected, and seldom obscure; the incidents succeed rapidly; the personages are numerous, and there is a general animation in the scenes, which causes us to read him with pleasure." There is more enthusiasm in the criticism of the best of his biographers, Mr. Dyce, who also remarks that no other single English dramatist but Shakspeare has written so many regular five act pieces. "His fancy," says Mr. Dyce, "was exuberant. His scenes are rich in delicate imagery and picturesque similes; and even in those plays where character is somewhat faintly delineated, his eloquence and softly-coloured dialogue bestow a charm." His "Dramatic Works and Poems now first collected," with a careful biography by Mr. Dyce, were published in 1833.—F. E. SHIRLEY or SHERLEY, Sir Robert, whose strange adventures seem to belong to the region of romance, was born in 1581, the third son of Sir Thomas Sherley of Wisneston or Wiston, Sussex. In 1599 he accompanied his brother Sir Anthony into Persia, and with him shared the favour of Shah Abbas. When Anthony departed on a mission to Europe, the shah detained Robert as a hostage for his brother's return. He gave him high command in the wars then waged by the Persians against the Turks, "wherein he so valiantly bestirred himself that the Persians gave him a crown of laurel for the victory." The shah's favour towards him was confirmed, and in Persian phrase, "his bread was baked for sixty years." Towards the close of 1608 he was sent on an embassy to Europe, to rouse the christian princes against the Turk. He went to the courts of Poland, Germany, and Rome, and was made a count of the empire, and knight of the sacred palace of the Lateran, with the singular power of legitimating all bastards. In 1611 he reached England with his wife Teresia, cousin to Shah Abbas, and returned to Persia the following year. In 1623 he again went to England with Persian credentials that the English ministers could not get interpreted. In February, 1626, arrived another ambassador from the shah, a native Persian, who publicly insulted and struck Sir Robert Sherley, calling him an impostor. King Charles thereupon sent Sir Dodmore Cotton as ambassador to Persia, and Sherley with him. Nogdibeg, the Persian envoy, died on the way from the effects of opium, says Herbert, who was in the English embassy. Sherley found that the shah had no more need of him. He was treated with contempt, and being weak in health was attacked with fever and apoplexy, and died 13th of June, 1627, at Casbin.—(See The Three Brothers, or Travels of A., R, and T. Sherley, 8vo, 1825.)—R. H. SHIRLEY, Sir Thomas, the son of Sir Thomas Shirley of Wiston in Sussex, was an eminent medical practitioner in the reign of Charles I., and physician to that monarch. He was the author of several essays, &c., upon medicinal questions, some of which are noticed in the Philosophical Transactions. He died in 1678.—F. SHORE, Jane, the unhappy mistress of Edward IV., was the wife of a young and wealthy citizen of London, a goldsmith, when she was seduced by the licentious king. She retained her influence over her royal lover while he lived, and never "abused it to any man's hurt," says Sir Thomas More, "but to many a man's comfort and relief." On the death of Edward, Richard, the protector, in order to throw as much discredit as possible on the late king's morals and the legitimacy of Edward V., singled out Shore for punishment. Appropriating to himself her plate and jewels, to the value of three thousand marks, he delivered over her person to the ecclesiastical court, which condemned her to do penance. In her kirtle with her feet bare, carrying a lighted taper in her hand and preceded by the cross, she was compelled to walk through the streets of London before a concourse of people. She is said to have long survived that day of shame, "begging of many that but for her would have been beggars," and to have died in the reign of Henry VIII. Her story was made the basis of a tragedy by Rowe, entitled Jane Shore.—R. H. SHORE. See Teignmouth. SHOVEL, Sir Cloudesley, a distinguished English admiral, was born in 1650. His parents were poor, and put him apprentice to a shoemaker; but he disliked the trade, and went to sea.