Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/453

 discoveries, however, were made. Drake escaped for the time, but was prosecuted in the following spring for some passages in the ‘Mercurius Politicus,’ a paper of which he was the author. He was convicted (14 Feb. 1706) of a libel, but a point was reserved, arising from a technical error. The word ‘nor’ had been substituted in the information for the word ‘not’ in the libel. Drake was acquitted upon this ground 6 Nov. 1706. The government then brought a writ of error; but meanwhile Drake's vexation and disappointments and ‘ill-usage from some of his party’ threw him into a fever, of which he died at Westminster, 2 March 1706–7.

Drake also wrote ‘The Sham Lawyer, or the Lucky Extravagant’ (adapted from Fletcher's ‘Spanish Curate’ and ‘Wit without Money’), acted in 1697 and printed, according to the title-page, ‘as it was damnably acted at Drury Lane.’ He is also said to have written ‘The Antient and Modern Stages Reviewed’ (1700), one of the replies to Jeremy Collier, and prefixed a life to the works of Tom Brown (1707). A medical treatise called ‘Anthropologia Nova, or a New System of Anatomy,’ was published just before his death in 1707. It reached a second edition in 1717, and a third in 1727, and was popular until displaced by Cheselden's ‘Anatomy.’ ‘Orationes Tres’ on medical subjects were printed in 1742. He contributed a paper upon the influence of respiration on the action of the heart to the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ xxiii. 1217. His portrait, by Thomas Foster, was engraved by Van der Gucht, and is prefixed to his ‘Anatomy.’

[Biog. Brit.; Boyer's Queen Anne, pp. 18, 19, 210, 218, 220, 221, 286; Life of Drake prefixed to ‘Memorial,’ 1711; Life (apparently very inaccurate) in Monthly Miscellany (1710), pp. 140–142; Hearne's Collections (Doble), i. 11, 59, 66, 155, 186, ii. 14; Biog. Dram. (Langbaine); Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 133, 340; Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 15; Bromley's Catalogue of Engraved Portraits, x. 233; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. viii. 272, 346.] 

DRAKE, JOHN POAD (1794–1883), inventor and artist, baptised 20 July 1794 at Stoke Damerel, Devonshire, was the son of Thomas Drake, by his wife, Frances Poad. Thomas Drake was fourth in descent from one John Drake (1564–1640), a farmer, who has been wrongly identified with a cousin of the admiral, who accompanied Edward Fenton [q. v.] on his voyage in 1582, was wrecked in the river Plate, fell into the hands of the Spaniards, and was for a time in the Inquisition. Thomas Drake was for some time an official in the navy yard at Plymouth, and showed great independence of character, injuring his prospects by refusing to connive at malpractices, and consequently dying in obscurity in Jersey 20 May 1835. John Poad Drake showed a taste for drawing, which led his father to place him under an architectural draughtsman. In 1809 his skill was recognised by an appointment as apprentice to the builder in Plymouth Dockyard. He continued to study painting under a local artist, and disgust at the official neglect of his father led him to leave the service and become a painter by profession. He saw Napoleon on board the Bellerophon in Plymouth Sound, and produced a picture of the scene, which he carried to America. In Halifax, N.S., he was employed by the subscribers to paint a portrait of Justice Blowers, to be hung in the court house. He visited Montreal (where he painted an altarpiece) and New York, where his picture of Napoleon was exhibited and seen by Joseph Bonaparte among others. While painting he devised improvements in shipbuilding, substituting a diagonal for the parallelogrammatic arrangement of ribs and planking. He returned to England in 1827, and in 1837 patented his diagonal system and a screw trenail fastening. He fell into the hands of adventurers who prevented him from deriving any benefit from this patent. From 1829 to 1837 he was occupied with schemes for breechloading guns, and from 1832 to 1840 laid proposals before government for ironcased floating batteries and steam rams. He also invented schemes for facilitating the working of heavy cannon and for ‘impregnable revolving redoubts.’ Drake presented some of his schemes before the ordnance committees which sat from 1854 to 1856. He received many compliments, but did not succeed in obtaining the adoption of his inventions. The ‘Standard’ (26 Nov. 1866) stated that he had laid ‘the fundamental principle of the now called Snider Enfield’ before government in 1835.

Drake continued inventing to the last, and steadily pressed his claims upon government, but without success. He died at Fowey, Cornwall, 26 Feb. 1883. He was survived by an only child, H. H. Drake, editor of a new ‘History of Kent.’ For pedigree see Lieutenant-colonel Vivian's ‘Visitation of Cornwall,’ p. 496, of ‘Devon,’ pp. 291, 299.

[Information from H. H. Drake; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. p. 1160; Mechanic's Magazine, lxvii. 242, 251–4, 393, 422, 493–5, 538, lxviii. 107, 181, 228, 542, 609, lxix. 61; Artisan, May 1852, March 1854; Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, xv. 113.] 