Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/286

 He was a fellow of the Royal Society from 1775 to 1795. From 1767 onwards he was a regular correspondent of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ under the signature of ‘D. H.’—the final letters of his name—and succeeded John Duncombe [q. v.] in 1786 as a leading reviewer for the magazine. His political criticisms were strongly conservative in tone (, Lit. Anecd. vi. 272).

On the death of his mother (27 May 1774) he came into possession of the family mansion at Enfield, Middlesex, and of the extensive landed estates bequeathed to him in reversion by his father. He married, on 18 Aug. 1774, Anne, fourth daughter of Thomas Hall, esq., of Goldings, Hertfordshire. To the property at Enfield, where he permanently resided, he made many additions by purchase. His friend and biographer Nichols dwells on the happiness of his domestic life and on his pleasant and easy manners as a host (ib. vi. 310).

Gough was much distressed by the disastrous fire which destroyed Nichols's valuable property in 1808. In the same year his health failed and his reason was threatened. He died on 20 Feb. 1809, and was buried on the 28th in the churchyard of Wormley, Hertfordshire.

Gough's independent fortune pre-eminently qualified him for the labours of an antiquary, whose researches rarely receive adequate remuneration. His person was short, inclining to corpulence. His features bespoke the energy and activity of his mind. In youth he was shy; but as his intercourse with society advanced his manner became easier, and his conversation was always lively, often with a pleasant flow of humour, and his disposition communicative (, Biog. Dict. xvi. 133). His portrait has been engraved by Sawyer from a sketch taken at the Duchess of Portland's sale in 1786 (, Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 143).

His library (with the exception of the department of British topography bequeathed to the Bodleian Library) was sold in April 1810 for 3,552l. His prints, drawings, coins, medals, and other antiquities were sold in 1810 for 517l. By his will Gough gave to the university of Oxford all his printed books and manuscripts on Saxon and northern literature ‘for the use of the Saxon professor;’ all his manuscripts, printed books and pamphlets, prints and drawings, maps and copper plates, relating to British topography (of which he had in 1808 printed a nearly complete catalogue); his interleaved copies of his own works, the ‘British Topography,’ Camden's ‘Britannia,’ and the ‘Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain,’ with all the drawings, the copperplates of the ‘Monuments’ and the ‘Topography,’ and fourteen volumes of drawings of sepulchral and other monuments in France. All these he willed and desired to ‘be placed in the Bodleian Library, in a building adjoining to the Picture Gallery, known by the name of the Antiquaries' Closet, erected for keeping manuscripts, printed books, and other articles relating to British topography; so that all together they may form one uniform body of English antiquities.’ A catalogue of the collection by Dr. Bulkeley Bandinel was published at Oxford in 1814. The manuscripts are very numerous, and many of the printed books contain manuscript notes by Gough and other eminent antiquaries.

Among Gough's numerous contributions to antiquarian literature three works, his ‘British Topography,’ his ‘Sepulchral Monuments,’ and his edition of Camden's ‘Britannia,’ possess the highest permanent value. The first, planned when he was a youth at college, appeared in London in 1768, 4to, under the title of ‘Anecdotes of British Topography,’ and again as ‘British Topography, or an Historical Account of what has been done for illustrating the Topographical Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland,’ much enlarged, in 2 vols., London, 1780, 4to. It contains a minute and exhaustive description of all the public records, chronicles, heralds' visitations, printed books, manuscript collections, maps, charts, engravings, articles in periodicals, and other materials then available for the elucidation of the antiquities and topography of Great Britain and Ireland from the earliest times.

In 1786 Gough published the first volume of the ‘Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain applied to illustrate the History of Families, Manners, Habits, and Arts from the Norman Conquest.’ This volume (imp. fol.) dealt with the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. The second volume, published in 1796, and an introduction to it in 1799, treated of the fifteenth century. Here Gough stopped instead of continuing the work to the end of the sixteenth century as he originally intended. The three volumes are usually bound in five. The number and beauty of the plates, chiefly engraved by the Basires, give this work an almost unique interest among English books. Gough looked forward to preparing a new edition, and with this object obtained an ample store of new and accurate drawings by eminent artists. All these, with the numerous plates already engraved, form part of his bequest to the university of Oxford.

In 1773 Gough began a greatly augmented