Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/349

 which, says Arber, is ‘the first entry of a contemporary sermon’ (ib. i. 237). He was fined in 1564 for printing unlicensed primers, in 1565 and 1584 for using indecorous language, and for improper behaviour on other occasions, which conduct did not prevent him from being called to the livery of the Stationers' Company in 1572, in serving as renter in 1580 and 1581, and being appointed under-warden in 1586 and 1588. He lived in Paternoster Row, at the sign of the Star, which, with the motto ‘Os homini sublime dedit,’ is to be found at the end of many of his books. He also lived in Whitecross Street, and was assignee to William Seres, whose device of the bear and ragged staff with garter he used. In 1585 he lived in Aldersgate Street at the sign of the Star. Herbert says ‘he was an exceedingly neat printer, and the first who used the semi-colon with propriety’ (, Typogr. Antiq. ii. 942). During thirty years he produced a large number of books, among which may be mentioned the first edition of the New Testament in Welsh, 1567, 4to; the first English translation of Ovid's ‘Heroycall Epistles,’ by George Turbervile; ‘An Alvearie or Quadruple Dictionarie,’ by John Baret, 1580, folio; ‘The Monument of Matrones,’ by Thomas Bentley, 1582, 3 vols. 4to; and the second edition of Holinshed's ‘Chronicles,’ 1586–7, 3 vols. folio. He printed for and in association with Tottel, Newbery, Toy, and others. He gave the copyright of eleven books for the poor of the Stationers' Company in January 1584 (, ii. 789). The last book printed by him is dated 1591. The time of his death is unknown.

[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), ii. 942–964; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. iii. 551, 568; Timperley's Encyclopædia, pp. 297, 347, 389, 441; Bigmore and Wyman's Bibliography of Printing, i. 162; Cat. of English Books in the British Museum printed to 1640, 1884, 3 vols.] 

DENHAM, JAMES STEWART, the elder (1712–1780), political economist, only son of Sir James Stewart, bart. [q. v.], sometime solicitor-general of Scotland, was born at Edinburgh on 21 Oct. 1712. He received his early education at North Berwick, entered Edinburgh University during the winter of 1724–5, when scarcely thirteen, studied law under Hercules Lindsay, a well-known civilian of Glasgow University, and was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates on 25 Jan. 1735. As was then customary, he now set out to travel. He went first to Leyden, then to Avignon, where he met the Duke of Ormonde and other Jacobites, and finally to Rome. Here the exiled Stewarts showed him such kindness that he became firmly attached to their cause. He returned to Scotland in July 1740. In October 1743 he married Lady Frances Wemyss, eldest daughter of the Earl of Wemyss, and sister of Steuart's intimate friend the Jacobite Lord Elcho.

He soon retired from Edinburgh to Coltness, his family property, but was in the Scottish capital in the autumn of 1745, when it was occupied by Charles. He at once joined the young prince, and in his service set out for Paris in October. He was abroad when the defeat of Culloden crushed the rising. He was excepted by name from the Act of Oblivion (20 Geo. II, c. 53) which was soon passed. A ‘true bill’ was afterwards found against him at Edinburgh, 13 Oct. 1748, and this in the circumstances absolutely prevented his return (Scots Mag. October 1748). For some years Denham wandered about the continent, occupying himself in a variety of studies. At Frankfort-on-the-Main he published in French ‘A Vindication of Newton's Chronology,’ 1757. He afterwards contributed to the ‘New Bibliothèque Germanique’ of M. Formey some papers in reply to M. des Vignolles' dissertation upon that system.

At Tübingen he wrote ‘A Dissertation upon the Doctrines and Principles of Money applied to the German Coin,’ in which he ‘endeavoured to disentangle the inextricable perplexities of the German mints.’ While at Venice he met Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who took a great interest in the exile and his wife. ‘I never knew people more to my taste,’ she wrote. At Spa in 1762 his declaration of the superiority of the British over the French armies excited the anger or suspicion of the French authorities. He was arrested and only released when peace was made in 1762. He was then permitted to return home, and in 1763 arrived in Edinburgh. He retired to Coltness, where he occupied himself in the preparation of his great work, ‘Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy’ (2 vols. 1767), for which he got 500l. from Andrew Millar. ‘This,’ says McCulloch (Literature of Political Economy, p. 11), ‘is the first English work which had any pretensions to be considered as a systematic or complete view of the subject.

The treatise expounds the source from the standpoint of the mercantile system, but the remarks on agriculture, the currency, and exchanges are of some value, and the ‘true theory of population is in several passages set in the most striking light.’ The reasonings are, however, ‘singularly tedious and perplexed.’ This caused Adam Smith somewhat sarcastically to observe that ‘he understood Sir James's system better from his con-