Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/381

 naught. The British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1842 made a grant to Denny of fifty guineas for the purpose of assisting him in the study of British Anoplura.

Denny died at Leeds on 7 March 1871, at the age of sixty-eight, and a fund amounting to 883l. was raised by subscription for the benefit of his widow and younger children. His published writings are: 1. ‘Monographia Pselaphorum et Scydmænorum Britanniæ; or an Essay on the British species of the genera Pselaphus of Herbst, and Scydmænus of Latreille,’ Norwich, 1825, 8vo. 2. ‘Monographia Anoplurorum Britanniæ; or an Essay on the British species of Parasitic Insects belonging to the order Anoplura of Leach,’ London, 1842, 8vo.

[Athenæum, 1871, p. 340; Reports of Leeds Phil. Soc. 1870–1, 1871–2; Freeman's Life of Rev. W. Kirby, pp. 403, 428; Report of Brit. Assoc. 1842.]  DENNY, WILLIAM (fl. 1653), who was created a baronet by Charles I 3 June 1642, was the author of a treatise entitled ‘Pelecanicidium, or the Christian adviser against self-murder,’ London, 1651, in prose and verse; and of a pastoral poem, ‘The Shepheards Holiday,’ written in 1653, but not published till 1870 in Huth's ‘Inedited Poetical Miscellanies.’ Denny also contributed commendatory verses to Stuart's ‘Rhoden and Iris,’ 1631, to ‘Annales Dubrenses,’ 1635, and to Benlowes' ‘Theophila,’ 1652. In 1654 it was proposed by the royalists to grant Denny the governorship of Yarmouth (, State Papers, iii. 248). He married Catherine Young, and died in great poverty, apparently before the Restoration.

[Corser's Collectanea, pt. v.; Blomefield's Norfolk, iii. 377, xi. 34.]  DENNYS, JOHN (d. 1609), author of ‘The Secrets of Angling,’ was known only by his initials (J. D.), prior to the investigations of Mr. T. Westwood, the late Rev. H. T., and Canon Ellacombe. He was first made generally familiar by six of his most beautiful stanzas on the angler's happy life in the first chapter of the ‘Compleat Angler’ (1653), and at first ascribed by Walton to ‘Jo. Da.’ In the fifth edition (1668), this is altered to ‘Jo. Davors.’ Others, as for instance R. Howlett in 1706, had assigned them to Donne or Davies. Pinkerton states that their authorship has been attributed to no less than six poets of the name of Davies. J. D.'s poem is itself prefaced by certain commendatory verses signed ‘Jo. Daues.’ This man was probably a relative of the author, whose great-grandmother's name was Davers, Danvers, or Daues. About 1811 the author's name was discovered from the following entry in the ‘Stationers' Registers:’ ‘23mo Martii, 1612’ (i.e. 1613) ‘Master Roger Jackson Entred for his Copie vnder th[e h]ands of Master Mason and Master Warden Hooper, a booke called “The Secretes of Angling,” teaching the Choysest tooles, bates, and seasons for the taking of any fish in pond or River, practised and opened in three bookes by John Dennys Esquier, vjd.’

A family of the name of Dennys had long lived in the parish of Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire. A stream which divides that parish from Dyrham is soon joined by other rivulets, and by their confluence a brook is formed called the Boyd, which falls into the Avon in the meadows below Bitton. The third verse of the ‘Secrets’ introduces this stream: And thou, sweet Boyd, that with thy watry sway, Dost wash the cliffs of Deignton and of Weeke; And through their Rockes with crooked winding way, Thy mother Avon runnest soft to seeke; In whose fayre streames the speckled Trout doth play. The north aisle of the old church of Pucklechurch is the burial-place of the family of Dennys.

The Rev. H. N. Ellacombe of Bitton has published six descents of the Dennys pedigree (correcting Sir Harris Nicolas's account) from Sir Walter Dennys of Pucklechurch, who was born in the latter part of the fifteenth or the very beginning of the sixteenth century. His second son, John (marrying Fortune, widow of William Kemys of Newport, and daughter of Thomas Norton of Bristol), left a son called Hugh. Hugh died in 1559, and left John (the author of the ‘Secrets’), by Katherine, daughter of Edward Trye of Hardwick, Gloucestershire, who died at Pucklechurch, 1583. John Dennys (J. D.) is known to have resided in the neighbourhood of Pucklechurch in 1572; married Elianor or Helena, daughter of Thomas Millet, Warwickshire; and was buried at Pucklechurch in 1609. R. I., the publisher of the poem (i.e. Roger Jackson), in his dedication, states that the ‘Secrets’ was a posthumously printed book. The large mansion of the Dennys still remains at Pucklechurch, but the family is extinct.

There seem to have been four ancient editions of the ‘Secrets of Angling.’ Ed. i., 1613, 12mo; a copy is in the Bodleian, and