Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/70

 was detained in prison, but he escaped soon afterwards. Before the end of the year he was recaptured, sent to London, and lodged in the Tower, where, after enduring severe privations, he died on 14 Oct. 1585, not without suspicion of poison.

He wrote:
 * 1) ‘De Linguâ Hibernicâ.’ Some collections from this work are among the manuscripts in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.
 * 2) An Ecclesiastical History. A portion of this work was, in Sir James Ware's time, in the possession of Thomas Arthur, M.D.
 * 3) A Catechism in Irish, 1560.
 * 4) Account, in Latin, of his escape from the Tower of London, 1565. In Cardinal Moran's ‘Spicilegium Ossoriense,’ i. 40.
 * 5) ‘De Controversiis Fidei.’
 * 6) ‘Topographia Hiberniæ.’
 * 7) ‘Vitæ Sanctorum Hiberniæ.’



CREASY, EDWARD SHEPHERD (1812–1878), historian, was born in 1812 at Bexley in Kent, where his father was a land agent. In the boy's early youth the father removed to Brighton, where he set up in business as an auctioneer and started the ‘Brighton Gazette,’ chiefly with a view of publishing his own advertisements. Young Creasy having displayed intellectual leanings was placed on the Eton foundation, and obtained the Newcastle scholarship in 1831. He became fellow of King's College, Cambridge, in 1834, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1837. For several years he went on the home circuit, and he was for some time assistant-judge at the Westminster sessions court. In 1840 he was appointed professor of modern and ancient history in London University. In 1860 he was appointed chief justice of Ceylon, and received the honour of knighthood. Ten years afterwards he returned home on account of indisposition, and although able again to resume his duties, his health was permanently broken, and he finally retired in about two years. He died 27 Jan. 1878. The work by which Creasy is best known is his ‘Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,’ 1852, which, in some degree on account of its striking title, immediately became popular, and, while it has secured the favour of the general reader, has met with the approval of those learned in military matters. The ‘Historical and Critical Account of the several Invasions of England,’ published in the same year (1852), though not so well known, possesses similar merit. His ‘Biographies of Eminent Etonians,’ which first appeared in 1850, has passed through several editions, but does not possess much intrinsic value. ‘The History of the Ottoman Turks’ has also obtained a wide circulation, the latest edition being that of 1878. Among his other works are: Along with Mr. Sheehan and Dr. Gordon Latham he took part in contributing to ‘Bentley's Miscellany’ the political squibs in verse known as the ‘Tipperary Papers.’
 * 1) ‘History of England,’ 1869–70, in 2 vols.
 * 2) ‘Old Love and the New,’ a novel, 1870.
 * 3) ‘Imperial and Colonial Institutions of the British Empire, including Indian Institutions,’ 1872.



CREECH, THOMAS (1659–1700), translator, was born in 1659 at Blandford in Dorset. His father, also called Thomas Creech, died in 1720, and his mother, Jane Creech, died in 1693, both being buried in the old church in that town. They had two children, Thomas the translator and one daughter Bridget, who married Thomas Bastard, an architect of Blandford, and had issue six sons and four daughters. Creech's parents were not rich. His classical training was due to Thomas Curgenven, rector of Folke in Dorset, but best known as master of Sherborne school, to whom Creech afterwards dedicated his translation of the seventh idyllium of Theocritus, and to whom he acknowledged his indebtedness for his instruction in the preface to his translation of Horace. For his education material assistance was received from Colonel Strangways, a member of a well-known Dorsetshire family. In Lent term 1675 he was admitted as a commoner at Wadham College, Oxford, and placed under the tuition of Robert Pitt, the choice of the college being no doubt due to the fact that Pitt, as connected with his native county of Dorset, would aid in the lad's advancement. Creech's translation of one of the idyls of Theocritus is inscribed to his ‘chum Mr. Hody of Wadham College,’ and another is dedicated to Mr. Robert Balch, who at a later date was his ‘friend and tutor.’ If an expression of his own can be trusted, his attainments at this period of his life were below the level of his contemporaries. Two of his letters to Evelyn are printed in the latter's diary (1850 ed. iii. 267, 272), and from the first, written in 1682, it appears ‘that he was a boy scarce able to