Page:A catalogue of notable Middle Templars, with brief biographical notices.djvu/57

 

Admitted 30 December, 1835.

Second son of John Burke, of Brompton, the well-known genealogist, and brother of Peter Burke, Serjeant-at-Law. He was born in London 5 Jan. 1814, and was called to the Bar 25 Jan. 1839. His leisure time at the Bar was employed in assisting his father in the publication of his works on the Peerage, which he subsequently continued on his own account. He was made Ulster King-at-Arms in 1853 and was knighted the following year, and in 1855 succeeded Earl Stanhope as Keeper of the State Papers in Ireland. His report on the French Records led to the passing of the Act of 1867, providing for the safe keeping of the Irish Records. He retained the office of Ulster King-at-Arms till his death, 12 Dec. 1892.

Burke's best-known works are the later editions of his father's books on the Peerage, but he published several on his own account, as The Roll of Battle Abbey (1848); Anecdotes of the Aristocracy (1849); The Romance of the Aristocracy (1855), and the Book of the Orders of Knighthood (1858).



Admitted 28 January, 1865.

Eldest son of Charles Granby Burke, of St. Philips, Miltown, co. Dublin, a Justice of the Peace and Master of the Court of Common Bench. He was born in Dublin 21 Oct. 1814. He was called to the Bar 10 June, 1870. A visit to Spain led to his taking up the study of Spanish literature, and on his return he published a Collection of the Proverbs occurring in Don Quixote, with Notes, entitled Sancho Panza's Proverbs, and subsequently A Biography of Gonzalo de Cordova, 1877. In 1873 he practised as a barrister in India, and subsequently in Cyprus (1885—89). In May, 1895, he became Agent-General to the Pervian Corporation, and proceeding to Lima, fell ill and expired on the voyage 1 June, 1895.

Besides the works mentioned above he published A History of Spain to the Death of Ferdinand the Catholic (1895), and a Life of Benito Juarez, President of Mexico. He was also the author of two novels, Beating the Air (1879) and Loyal and Lawless (1880), and he was the compiler of the Glossary in Borrow's Bible in Spain.



Admitted 15 January, 1708-9.

Youngest son of Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury. For twenty years after his admission he neglected the practice of his profession in favour chiefly of political writing in opposition to the Tory administration. On the accession of the Whigs to power he was sent as Consul to Lisbon, on his return from which place he resumed the study of the law, and was called to the Bar 7 Feb. 1728. In 1736 he received the degree of the Coif, in 1740 was made King's Serjeant, and in the following year was advanced to the Bench of the Common Pleas, "where he administered justice with learning and uprightness for nearly twelve years." He died on 8 Jan. 1753, having received the honour of knighthood in 1745.

Thomas Burnet's published writings consist chiefly of political pamphlets, but he left some poems, issued in 1777, and to him we are indebted for an edition of his father's History of his own Time, to which he prefixed a life of the bishop. Amongst his early publications was a travesty of the Iliad, which, of course, brought upon him the wrath of Pope, who holds him up to scorn with the "Oldmixons and Cooks" in a famous passage in his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (not in the Dunciad, as generally stated).