Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/136

 wish I had been fated to use an awl and end sooner than the pen, for nothing but a pensioned defender of government, a sycophant to managers, or a slave to booksellers can do anything more than crawl.’ In addition to the pieces named, Gentleman wrote an alteration of ‘Oroonoko,’ Glasgow, 12mo, 1760, played at Edinburgh, and dedicated to Boswell, and the following unprinted pieces: 1. ‘Osman,’ a tragedy (every subscriber for a ticket for the performance at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket was to have a large or small paper copy according to his seat. It was subsequently acted at Bath). 2. ‘Mentalist,’ a dramatic satire acted at Manchester about 1759. 3. ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’ (a serious opera acted at the Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, 1783. A piece similarly described was played for two or three nights at Covent Garden in February 1792). He published also: 1. ‘Fortune,’ a rhapsody (in verse), London, 1751, 4to (translated from an ode of Rousseau). 2. ‘Characters,’ London, 1766, 4to (in verse; a not very brilliant satire). 3. ‘Royal Fables,’ London, 1766, 16mo (rhymed fables in the manner of Gay). ‘Narcissa and Eliza, a Dramatic Tale in Verse,’ London, 1754, 4to, is assigned to him in the British Museum Catalogue. In 1774 was published in 12mo the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ with an introduction and notes by the author of the ‘Dramatic Censor.’ He edited Bell's acting edition of Shakespeare. This edition, which only professes to present the dramas as they were then played, is harshly characterised by Reed in the ‘Biographia Dramatica’ as the worst that ever appeared of any English author. His ‘Tobacconist’ is included in the ‘London Stage,’ vol. ii., and in the collections of Dibdin and Oxberry. His late years were spent in Ireland. He died in George Lane, Dublin, on 21 Dec. 1784 (Biographia Dramatica, 18 Dec. 1784;, MS. Notitia Dramatica), having during the last seven years of his life undergone extreme sickness and want.

[The chief authorities for his life are found in a long preface to the Modish Wife. The particulars there given are copied, with more or less abridgment and alteration, in the Biographia Dramatica and other works of theatrical reference. The Garrick Correspondence, Genest's Account of the English Stage, Boswell's Life of Johnson (ed. Hill), Gent. Mag. (1784), and his own printed works supply further particulars. The authority on which some of the works cited are ascribed to Gentleman is not always evident.]  GENTLEMAN, ROBERT (1746–1795), dissenting divine and tutor, was born at Shrewsbury in 1746. He was brought up under the ministry of Job Orton, who encouraged him in his studies. In 1763 he entered the Daventry academy under Caleb Ashworth [q. v.] On 15 Sept. 1765 Orton resigned the co-pastorate of the High Street congregation, Shrewsbury, and there was a division as to the appointment of his successor. The more conservative majority seceded, and Orton assisted them in building a new meeting-house. Gentleman was ultimately chosen as the first minister of this new society. He was a popular preacher, arianising in his theology, but of evangelical sentiment. He remained at Shrewsbury, where he kept a boarding-school, until 1779, when he accepted the position of divinity tutor at Carmarthen Academy (then at Rhydygorse, near Carmarthen), vacated by the removal of Jenkin Jenkins, D.D., to London. The experiment of housing the tutors and students in a residential college proved a failure, from the inability of Gentleman to maintain discipline. Bogue and Bennett say that the London ‘congregational fund’ withdrew its support from the academy owing to distrust of Gentleman's teaching; but this is an error; the support was withdrawn in 1755. He resigned his office in 1784, and the academy was removed to Swansea under Solomon Harris.

The dissenting congregation at Kidderminster had been divided after the death (1780) of Benjamin Fawcett [q. v.] Arian seceders erected a new meeting-house in 1782, but were without a pastor. Orton, who died at Kidderminster in 1783, made Gentleman his literary executor, and this circumstance probably recommended him to the Kidderminster seceders, who chose him as their first minister in 1784. His ministry was very successful. He died in his prime in July 1795, and was buried on 12 July in St. Mary's churchyard, Kidderminster.

He published: 1. ‘The Young English Scholar's … Companion,’ &c., Kidderminster, 1788, 12mo; another edit., 1797, 12mo. 2. ‘Plain … Addresses to Youth,’ &c., 1792, 8vo. From Orton's manuscripts he compiled ‘A Short and Plain Exposition of the Old Testament,’ &c., 1788–91, 6 vols. 8vo; 2nd edit., 1822, 8vo.

[Prot. Dissenter's Mag. 1795, pp. 180, 182, 312; Monthly Repository, 1822, p. 195; Bogue and Bennett's Hist. of Dissenters, 1833, ii. 535; Rees's Hist. Prot. Nonconf. in Wales, 1883, p. 496; Jeremy's Presbyterian Fund, 1885, pp. 20, 49, 66; extract from parish register, Kidderminster, per Rev. J. Hall.]  GEOFFREY (d. 1093), bishop of Coutances, came of a noble Norman family settled at Montbrai, or, as pronounced in Eng-