Page:A catalogue of notable Middle Templars, with brief biographical notices.djvu/91



Admitted 15 November, 1698.

Second son of Alexander Denton of Hillsdon (Hillesden), co. Bucks. He was called to the Bar 26 May, 1704, and in the following year was committed to the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms for pleading for the plaintiffs in the Aylesbury case. He was subsequently elected a Member of Parliament for Buckingham, and, taking high rank in his profession, was promoted to the Bench of Common Pleas in 1722, a position he filled till his death, 22 March, 1740. He was elected a Bencher of the Inn 5 July, 1720.

Admitted 12 June, 1812.

Eldest son of Thomas De Quincey of Green Hay (Greeuheys), Lancaster, where he was born 15 Aug. 1785. The family took its name from the village of Quincey, in Normandy. Thomas was educated at Bath Grammar School, where he rapidly mastered the Latin and Greek languages, and subsequently at Manchester Grammar School, whence he ran away, July, 1802. After many adventures he entered Worcester College, Oxford, but left without graduating. During his residence there he suffered from toothache, and took to opium eating for relief, the commencement of a habit which subsequently became confirmed. In 1807 he became acquainted with Coleridge, Wordsworth, and the Lake school of poets, of whom he became an ardent admirer; and whilst eating his dinners at the Middle Temple, he formed the acquaintance of Lamb, Talfourd (q.v.), Sir H. Davy, and other literati. In 1816 he married Margaret Simpson, and for some time afterwards resided at Kendal, and edited the Westmorland Gazette. In 1821 he returned to London, and contributed to the London Magazine, in which his Confessions of an Opium Eater first appeared. From this time to his death he was a frequent, but irregular, contributor to this and Blackwood's and Tait's Magazines, in which, and other periodicals, most of his writings appeared, his only separate publications being Klosterheim [a Novel] in 1839, and the Logic of Political Economy (1844). The latter portion of his life was spent in Edinburgh, where he died, 8 Dec. 1859.

The best known of De Quincey's writings are mentioned above: his contributions to periodical literature are too numerous to mention; but seven volumes of his collected works were published in America in 1851—2, and an edition in London in fourteen volumes, revised by himself, in 1853—60. His Life has been written by H. A. Page. 2 vols. (1881).

Admitted 23 October, 1617.

Eldest son of Sir Anthony Dering of Pluckley, Kent. He was born in the Tower of London, 28 Jan. 1598. He was created a Knight in 1619, and a Baronet in 1627. He represented Kent in the Long Parliament, and took an active part in all measures of church reform. Though attached to the popular party, he gave offence by his support of Episcopacy, and by a vote of the House was committed to the Tower in 1641. On the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the king's forces, but his health obliged him to throw up his commission. In 1644 he made his peace with the Parliament. He died 22 June in that year. Before his death he published many of his "Speeches," and he was the author of a work entitled The Four Cardinal Virtue of a Carmelite Friar (1641) and of a Discourse of Proper Sacrifice (1644).