Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/254

Humphrey Among the learned men whom the duke patronised was Titus Livius of Forli, who left his home to search out some princely protector, and found the warmest welcome from him (Vita Henrici V, pp. 1-2, ed. Hearne). Gloucester made him his poet and orator, procured for him letters of denization in 1437 (Fœdera, x. 661), and encouraged him to write his life of Henry V. Leonard Aretino translated at his request Aristotle's `Politics' into Latin, and proposed to dedicate the work to him. Two manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, one of which was Humphrey's own copy, contain a long and eulogistic dedication to Gloucester. It has been printed in H. W. Chandler's `Catalogue of Editions of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics in the Fifteenth Century,' pp. 40-4. But Aretino ultimately dedicated his book to Eugenius IV. Leland's account of this transaction (p. 443) is confused and inaccurate. Pietro Candido Decembrio, the friend of Valla, offered him a translation of Plato's 'Republic.' Peter de Monte, the Venetian, dedicated to him his book, `De Virtutum et Vitiorum inter se Differentia' (Cat. MSS. Bibl. Bodl. i. 173;, Scrittori Veniziani, i. 368). Humphrey also had in his pay, as secretary, Antonio da Beccaria of Verona, whom he employed to translate into Latin six tracts of Athanasius, the manuscript of which is still in the British Museum. Æneas Sylvius celebrated his love for the poets and orators. Nor were English men of letters neglected. He was the friend of John Whethamstead, the scholarly abbot of St. Albans. Bishop Beckington was his chancellor and devoted to his service. He promoted Bishop Pecock, despite his rationalistic tendencies. He was the chief patron of Capgrave,the Austin friar of Lynn, who calls him 'the most lettered prince in the world,' and dedicated to him, among other works, his `Commentary on the Book of Genesis,' the presentation copy of which is still preserved at Oriel College, and resolved to write his life (De Illust. Hen. p. 109). He urged John Lydgate to translate Boccaccio's `Fall of Princes' into English (, Prologue), gave him money in response to his poetic appeal (, Minor Poems, p. 49, Percy Soc.), and was extravagantly eulogised by him. He patronised William Botoner. Kymer, his physician, was a man of mark. Nicholas Upton revered him as his special lord, and dedicated to him his heraldic book, 'De Militari Officio' (, De Stud. Milit. pp. 2-3, ed. 1654). George Ashley, the poet, was one of his servants (Letters of Margaret of Anjou, p. 114, Camden Soc.) There is something almost Italian about him, both in his literary and in his political career.

A promenade in St. Paul's Cathedral, much frequented by insolvent debtors and beggars in the sixteenth century, was popularly styled `Duke Humphrey's Walk,' from a totally erroneous notion that a monument overlooking it was Duke Humphrey's tomb. 'To dine with Duke Humphrey,' i.e. to loiter about St. Paul's Cathedral dinnerless, or seeking an invitation to dinner, was long a popular proverb (cf., Richard III, act iv. sc. iv. l. 176).

[Stevenson's Wars of the English in France, Whethamstead's Register, Amundesham's Annals, Beckington's Letters, Cole's Memorials of Henry V, Waurin's Chroniques, Anstey's Munimenta Academica, all in Rolls Series; Davies's English Chronicle, Gairdner's Collections of a London Citizen and Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, Letters of Margaret of Anjou, all in Camden Soc.; Monstrelet, Jean le Févre, Seigneur de Saint-Remy, T. Bassin, all in Soc. de l'Histoire de France; Williams's Gesta Henrici V (Engl.Hist. Soc.); Rymer's Fœdera; Rolls of Parliament; Nicolas's Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council; Chastellain's Œuvres, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove; T. Livius Foro-Juliensis's Vita Henrici V, ed. Hearne; Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 198-200; Stubbs's Const. Hist. vol. iii.; Pauli's Geschichte von England, vol. v.; F. von Löher's Jacobäa von Bayern, especially Fünftes Buch, Humfried von England; Dufresne de Beaucourt's Hist. de Charles VII; Leland's Comment.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. pp. 420-1; Pauli's Pictures of Old England, trans, pp. 373-407 (a good popular account).]  HUMPHREY, WILLIAM (1740?–1810?), engraver and printseller, born about 1740, began life as an engraver. In 1765 he obtained a premium from the Society of Arts for a mezzotint engraving of a portrait of Rembrandt by himself. He engraved portraits in mezzotint, after R. E. Pine; that of John Sturt, the engraver, after William Faithorne; of Colonel Richard King, after Kneller; of Sir William Mannock, after S. Cooper; of Madame Du Barry, from a drawing by B. Wilson, and others. He also etched a few small portraits, and engraved in stipple `Cupid and Psyche' and `Beauty and Time,' from his own drawings, and `The Nativity of Christ,' after J. S. Copley. Later in life Humphrey devoted himself almost entirely to printselling, and made numerous journeys to Holland and elsewhere on the continent, especially collecting English portraits. He became the chief agent for the great private collections of portraits, &c., made about this time. At one time he took C. H. Hodges [q.v.], the engraver, to Amsterdam, where Hodges established himself as an engraver and printseller, and subsequently presented to Humphrey an engraving by himself of