Page:A catalogue of notable Middle Templars, with brief biographical notices.djvu/222

 Boy, and at Cambridge, where he was President of the Union. He was called to the Bar 30 April, 1863, but devoting himself to politics he was returned for Chester in 1868, where he acted as Chairman of Committees during the very trying period of Irish obstruction (1874—1880). He became a Bencher of the Inn in 1880, and in the same year was sworn in of the Privy Council. In 1882 he was returned for Preston, but resigned that seat in favour of one for his University of Cambridge. In 1886 he became Postmaster-General. In this office he died suddenly from overwork and anxiety, 24 Aug. 1891.

Admitted 27 February, 1574-5.

The name of this famous Elizabethan soldier, courtier and scholar, appears on the Register as the "son of Walter Rawley of Budleigh, in the co. of Devon," 27 Feb. 1574-5, and as "late of Lyon's Inn." He was born at Budleigh in 1552, and was consequently twenty-two years of age at the time of his admission. The five years immediately preceding he had spent in France as a volunteer in the wars on the side of the Huguenots. He seems to have resided in the Temple for about two years, but to have devoted himself whilst there more to literature than to law, for according to his own statement at his trial, he "never studied the law." The incidents of his life are too well known to be recorded here. He was executed in Old Palace Yard 29 Oct. 1618, and his body buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster.

The works he left behind him, consisting of pieces historical, poetical, military, geographical, and philosophical, were collected and published at Oxford in 8 vols in 1829.

Admitted 13 October, 1739.

Second son of Sir John Randolph of Virginia. He was called to the Bar 10 Feb. 1743. He became a leader in the popular cause in the disputes with the Mother Country, and was the author of the address in the House of Burgesses, Virginia, against the Stamp Act, and president of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia in 1774. He died whilst attending the Congress in 1775.

Admitted 2 April, 1667.

Sixth son of James Ravenscroft of High Holborn. It is not probable that he ever practised at the Bar; for, whilst a student in 1671, he beguiled his time by composing his first play of Mamamouchi, a Comedy after the style of Molière's Bourgeois Gentilhomme. This was followed by a number of other plays, as The Careless Lovers (1673); Scaramouch (1673); the Wrangling Lovers (1677); Kinq Edgar and Alfreda (1677); The English Lawyer (1678); Dame Dobson (1683); The Canterbury Guests (1695); The Anatomist (1697); The Italian Husband (1698); and The London Cuckolds (1697). The last piece was first acted in Dorset Garden in 1682, and was frequently reproduced, becoming at last the stock piece for performance every Lord Mayor's Day down to 1754. He acquired considerable reputation by these productions, but that which principally preserves his memory is his literary quarrel with Dryden, whose work he had the audacity to criticise. The date of his death is not known, but it was probably in 1697 or soon after.