Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/321

 and conversation-pieces with the free Society of Artists in 1769 and 1771, and at the Royal Academy, commencing in 1774, portraits in chalk, small whole-lengths, groups, “Gipsy Boy and Girl,” and occasionally landscape views. He last exhibited in 1799.' Like his father, he was probably better known as a successful teacher of drawing, in which occupation he made more money than by his pictures. Burgess died in Sloane Square, Chelsea, on 12 May 1812, at the age of 63. He was the father of H. W. Burgess, landscape-painter to William IV.

 BURGESS, WILLIAM (1755?–1813), engraver, in conjunction with his son, Hilkiah, published a set of prints of the Lincolnshire churches, and of Lincoln and Ely cathedrals. To the profession of an artist he united that of a baptist minister, and presided over a congregation of that sect at Fleet in Lincolnshire for twenty years. He was also the author of a controversial pamphlet on the works of Dr. Adam Clarke. He died suddenly at Fleet on 11 Dec. 1813, in his fifty-ninth year (Gent. Mag. lxxxiii. ii. 701).

 BURGESS, WILLIAM OAKLEY (1818–1844), mezzotint engraver, was the son of the parish surgeon of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London. He was born in 1818, and early in life became a pupil of Thomas Goff Lupton, the well-known mezzotint engraver, with whom he remained until he was twenty years of age. He applied himself with great earnestness to the study of his art, and acquired so much delicacy in its practice that he would in all probability have attained a very high position in it had he not been prematurely cut off. His death, which took place on 24 Dec. 1844, in the twenty-seventh year of his age, was caused by an abscess in the head, supposed to have arisen from a blow of a skittle-ball some years before.

Burgess's best engavings are after the works of Sir Thomas Lawrence. They include a larger and a smaller plate of the Duke of Wellington, both of which are remarkable for their admirably graduated tones, as well as the portraits of General Sir John Moore and of Charlotte, duchess of Northumberland, which were published in the series of fifty plates of ‘Engravings from the choicest Works of Sir Thomas Lawrence,’ 1835-45.

 BURGH, BENEDICT (fl. 1472), clerk and translator, became rector of Sandon, Essex, in 1440, archdeacon of Colchester in 1465, a prebendary of St. Paul’s in 1472, and was afterwards made ‘high canon of St. Stephen's' at Westminster. He translated Cato's precepts into English verse. The opening words of Caxton’s translation of Cato’s precepts, printed on 23 Dec. 1483, are: ‘Here begynneth the prologue or prohemye of the booke callid Caton, whiche booke hath ben translated out of Latin in to Englysshe by Mayster Benet Burgh, late Archedeken of Colchester and hye chanon of Saint Stephens at Vifesmestre, which ful craftly hath made it in balade ryal for the erudicion of my lorde Bousher, sone and heyr at that time to my lord the erle of Essex.' Burgh then was probably tutor of the young Lord Bouchier, and was certainly dead in 1483.

 BURGH, HUBERT (d. 1243), chief justiciar, is said to have been the son of a brother of William FitzAldelm, steward of Henry II and lord of Connaught (, Baronage). He was employed by Richard I. When John divorced his wife, Isabella of Gloucester, in 1200, he sent Hubert and other ambassadors from Rouen to the king of Portugal, to ask his daughter in marriage. Although the king was so unmindful of the safety of his ambassador as to marry Isabella of Angloulême during the course of their embassy, they nevertheless returned in safety. The next year Hubert, who now appears as the king's chamberlain, was sent with a hundred knights to guard the Welsh march. The famous story that forms the groundwork of Shakespeare‘s ‘King John,’ act iv. sc. 1, 2, rests on the authority of Ralph of Coggeshall, who says that Hubert was castellan of Falaise; that be had charge of Arthur of Brittany, after he was taken at Mirabel; that he kept him in strict custody in fetters fastened round his ankles with three rings; that John, enraged at the gallant attacks of the Bretons, sent a messenger to Falaise with orders to mutilate and blind his nephew, and that Hubert had the messenger turned out of the castle, believing that the king would repent him of his cruel order. In the hope of checking the forays of the Bretons, he pretended, we are told, that the king’s command had been obeyed, and that Arthur was dead. When, however, the