Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/233

 men to recant, but in vain, he was brought to the stake with many tortures and burned before St. Peter's, 2 Aug. 1581.

[Copie of a Double Letter … containing the true Advises of the Causes and Maner of the Death of one Richard Atkins, executed by Fire in Rome, 2 Aug. 1581, 12 leaves, sine 1. et d.; The English Romayne Life (cap. 8); Report of the Christian Suffering of Richard Atkins, written by A[nthony] M[unday], London, 1582, 4to; to this is added a curious woodcut showing two of the incidents mentioned above, and ‘the order of the marterdom of the aforesaid R. A. at Roome;’ see also Lansd. MS. 982, 13.]  ATKINS, SAMUEL (fl. 1787–1808), marine painter, contributed to the Royal Academy between 1787 and 1796. From 1796 to 1804 he was in the East Indies, when he returned to England, and continued to exhibit until 1808. He worked in oil and water colour. The water-colour collections of South Kensington and the British Museum have each an example of his work. It is rather early in manner, low in tone, quiet, and truthful. A picture of ‘Shakespeare's Cliff, Dover,’ has been engraved after him by R. and D. Havell. Nagler attributes to this Samuel Atkins the originals of two engravings of sea-subjects after ‘— Atkins:’ ‘Ships in Sight of Harbour,’ engraved in aquatint by H. Merke; and ‘A Sea Piece,’ by F. Janinet. A water-colour drawing also, ‘Seascape with Ships,’ he gives to this painter.

[Nagler's Künstler-Lexicon, 2nd ed., and Redgrave's Dict. of Painters.]  ATKINS, WILLIAM (1601–1681), a Jesuit, was born in Cambridgeshire in 1601. He became a secular priest, and was sent on the English mission in 1631. Four years later he entered the Society of Jesus. In 1653 he was chosen rector of the ‘College of St. Aloysius,’ which at that period comprised the counties of Lancaster and Stafford. Father Atkins was one of the most remarkable of the victims of Titus Oates's plot. In 1679 he was living at Wolverhampton, being almost an octogenarian, and for six years he had been completely paralysed, bedridden, and nearly speechless. Nevertheless he was charged with high treason in inciting the people to rebellion. The pursuivants dragged him from his bed, and, forcing him into a most incommodious vehicle, conveyed him to Stafford gaol, eleven miles distant. He was tried at the assizes before Lord Chief Justice Scroggs, 13 Aug. 1679, and condemned to death on account of his sacerdotal character. The sentence was not, however, carried out, and the aged ecclesiastic was allowed to languish in Stafford gaol, where he died, 17 March, 1681.

[The Trial, Conviction, and Condemnation of Andrew Brommich and William Atkins for being Romish Priests, Lond. 1679, fol.; Dodd's Church History, iii. 314; Oliver's Collectanea S. J. 48; Foley's Records, vols. v. and vii.]  ATKINSON, HENRY (1781–1829), mathematician, the son of Cuthbert Atkinson, a schoolmaster, was born at Great Bavington, in Northumberland, 28 June 1781 He was educated by his father, and at an early age he began to assist in conducting Bavington school. When he reached his thirteenth year his father, considering him capable of managing that school, resigned it to his charge, and opened another at West Woodburn. These two schools were superintended by the father and son alternately. About Henry's sixteenth year his father and he quitted the school at Bavington, and opened another at West Belsay, which they continued to superintend alternately with the school at Woodburn. Henry afterwards removed to Stamfordham, where he kept a school, conjointly with his sister, for upwards of six years. Then, with his sister, he removed to the adjoining village of Hawkwell. Finally, on 14 Nov. 1808, he settled in Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he passed the remainder of his days. In that large town he speedily attained the highest rank in his profession.

Atkinson devoted his leisure to the study of scientific subjects, on which he submitted some remarkable papers to the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle. His earliest contribution was entitled ‘A New Method of extracting the Roots of Equations of the Higher Orders.’ The discovery was first made by himself in 1801, and the essay was read to the society in August 1809. Many years afterwards this paper formed the basis on which its author rested his claim of priority in discovering the mode of handling equations which has been pursued by Holdred Nicholson and Horner with such marked success. In the following year Atkinson read an elaborate essay ‘On the Eclipses of Jupiter's Satellites, and on the Mode of Determining the Longitude by these Means.’ In 1811 he produced two papers—one containing ‘An Ingenious Proof of Two Curious Properties of Square Numbers,’ which Dr. Hutton spoke of in terms of high approbation, and the other ‘Demonstrating that no sensible error can arise in the theory of Falling Bodies from assuming Gravity as an uniformly accelerating Force.’ In 1813 he read an elaborate paper ‘On the Comet of