Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/413

 accuratissimè ad Meridianum Civitatis Londinensis supputatæ,’ London, 1558, 4to. To the latter work the following are added: ‘Canon Ascensionum Obliquarum cujusvis stellæ non excedentis 8 gradus Latitudinis confectus,’ and ‘Tabula Stellarum Fixarum insigniorum,’ &c. These works were the first in England in which the principles of the Copernican philosophy were recognised and asserted.

He lived in London at the date of his first ‘Ephemeris,’ and appears, from a remark in a manuscript in the Lambeth Library, to have been a public instructor in science. On 4 Sept. 1558 he received a confirmation of arms and the grant of a crest allusive to his attainments in astronomical science, viz. the device of a red arm issuing from the clouds and presenting a golden orrery.

He married, about 1560, Jane (d. 1609), daughter of John Amyas, a Kentish gentleman, and some time between that date and 1577, settled down at Ardsley, where he continued till his death, his position being that of a gentleman held in esteem among the better class of his neighbours. In the Yorkshire visitation of 1585 he recorded his arms and crest and the names of his wife and nine children. In his will, dated 28 Dec. 1586, he describes himself as a ‘fermer sometyme student in the mathymathicke sciences.’ He died soon after the date of this will, the administration of his estate being granted to his widow on 3 May 1587. His library passed into the hands of William Coley of York, who afterwards returned it to the family.

[Joseph Hunter's Gens Sylvestrina, 1846, pp. 77–80; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 300; Glover's Visitation of Yorkshire, ed. Foster, 1875, p. 317; Yorkshire Archæological Journal, xiv.; Foster's York. Pedigrees, West Riding, 1874.]  FIELD, JOHN (1782–1837), composer, was the son of a violinist employed in a theatre in Dublin, where he was born on 26 July 1782. His grandfather, an organist, taught him the rudiments of music. His father and grandfather were determined to make an infant prodigy of him, and so great were the hardships he experienced in the process, that he made an abortive attempt to run away from home. This must have been at an extremely early age, for he was only twelve years old when he made his first appearance as a London performer. His father had procured an engagement at Bath and subsequently at the Haymarket Theatre; and, apparently soon after his arrival in London, the boy was placed under Clementi's tuition, perhaps as an articled pupil. In 1794 or 1795 he played at a public concert, appearing in concertos by Dussek and Clementi. He was advertised as being only ten years of age. In 1799 he performed a concerto of his own composition at a concert given for the benefit of the younger Pinto, and again at a concert of the New Musical Fund. This concerto attained considerable popularity, and he was engaged to play it at a concert given at Covent Garden Theatre on 20 Feb. 1801, when Mozart's ‘Requiem’ and Handel's ‘L'Allegro’ were also given. The ‘Morning Post’ of a day or two after the concert called him (wrongly, of course) ‘the late pupil of Clementi,’ and his concerto ‘the celebrated one composed by himself.’ Parke, in his ‘Musical Memoirs,’ is less flattering: ‘Mr. Field (pupil of Clementi) played a concerto on the pianoforte, which was more remarkable for rapidity than expression;’ but Parke also calls Mozart's ‘Requiem’ ‘a composition of infinite science and dulness.’ In 1802 Clementi took him, by way of Paris and Vienna, to St. Petersburg, where Clementi established a branch of his pianoforte business, and where Field was apprenticed to him as a salesman, whose duties consisted largely in showing off the pianofortes to intending purchasers. The statement, commonly made, that he had been apprenticed to the firm established by Clementi in London, turns out to be unsupported. At the concerts given by the master and pupil Field was received with great favour. Although the Russian tour was so successful, the avarice which was the chief defect of Clementi's character showed itself in his treatment of Field, who was at one time nearly perished with cold for want of proper clothing. In December 1802 Spohr was taken by Clementi to hear Field play in his warehouse. He gives in his autobiography a graphic account of the awkward English youth, knowing no language but his own, and grown out of his clothes to such an extent that when he sat down to play his arms were bare nearly to the elbows. His grotesque appearance was completely forgotten when he began to play. Then, says Spohr, ‘man war nur ein Ohr!’ Field had made enough of a position by 1804 to warrant his staying in Russia after Clementi had left the country. In that year he gave a concert with Madame Mara in St. Petersburg, and for some years after this he had continued success as a teacher. In 1812 and 1823 he visited Moscow and was well received. His music, with that of Hummel and Rossini, is spoken of as ‘the rage’ in St. Petersburg. At some time between 1824 and 1828 he settled in Moscow. In the latter year he formed the intention of returning to England, but 