Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/226

 17, 4to. An unfinished work in Latin, which only brings the history of the island down to the reign of Henry II.  MS. James 13. 'Epistolae R. Jamesii ad amicos cum variis orationibus et carminibus ejusdem,' pp. 300, 4to.  MS. James 16. 'An Epitome of a book entitled, The first tome of the Agreement of the two Monarchies Catholique, that of the Roman Church, and the other of the Spanish Empire, and a defence of the precedency of the Catholique kings of Spain above all princes of the world. By Father John de la Puent, Madrid, 1612.'  MS. James 33. 'Epistola Ric. Jamesii ad amicum quendam de genuflexione sive adoratione ad nudam prolationem nominis Jesu.'  MS. James 34. 'Legend and Defence of that noble knight and martyr Sir John Oldcastle set forth by Richard James.' An annotated copy of Hoccleve's poem.  MS. James 35. 'Translations and English Verses by R. James.'  MS. James 36. 'Reasons concerning the unlawfulness of Attempts on the Lives of Great Personages.'  MSS. James 37, 38. Two sermons from which some extracts are printed by Corser in his preface, pp. lxxxviii-xciii.  MS. James 40. 'Iter Lancastrense.'  MS. James 41. 'Dictionarius Anglo-Saxonicus.'  MS. James 42. 'Dictionarius Saxonico-Latinus.'  MS. James 43. A bundle containing, with other notes, 'A Description of Poland, Shetland, Orkney, the Highlands of Scotland, Wales, Greenland, and Guinee' (4 sheets), 'An Account of James's Travels into Russia' (5 sheets, which never reached the Bodleian Library and are now lost), 'A Russian Vocabulary' and 'A Russian MS.' In MS. Cotton. Julius C. iii. there are five letters of James's which are printed by Corser (pp. l-lii) and by Dr. Grosart, and in Harl. MS. 7002 six more which are printed by Dr. Grosart (pp. xxxiii-viii); in Tanner MS. Ixxv. f. 54 there is a letter from James to a Mr. Jackson asking him to present to Sir R. Cotton a manuscript of Abelard belonging to Balliol College.

James's 'Iter Lancastrense' is a poem descriptive of a tour in Lancashire in 1636, when he stayed with [q. v.] It was edited for the Chetham Society in 1845 by [q. v.], with notes and a copious introduction, in which many of James's minor poems are reprinted, together with extracts from some of his prose works. In 1880 Dr. A. B. Grosart published 'The Poems of Richard James' (only one hundred copies printed), with a preface, in which he adds a little to Corser's account. This volume contains the 'Iter Lancastrense,' 'The Muses Dirge,' the edition of Hoccleve's 'Oldcastle,' the minor English and Latin poems collected from James's published works and MSS. James 13 and 35, and the 'Reasons concerning the unlawfulness of Attempts on the Lives of Great Personages.'



JAMES, ROBERT, M.D. (1705–1776), physician, son of Edward James, a major in the army, was born at Kinvaston, Staffordshire, in 1705. He was educated at the grammar school of Lichfield, and at St. John's College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1722 (aged 17), and graduated B.A. on 5 July 1726 (, Alumni Oxon. ii. 741). He studied medicine, and was admitted an extra-licentiate of the College of Physicians of London, 12 Jan. 1728. In the same year (8 May) he was created M.D. in the university of Cambridge by royal mandate. After practising at Sheffield, Lichfield, and Birmingham, he settled in London, where he lived first in Southampton Street, Covent Garden, and afterwards in Craven Street, Strand, having also rooms in Craig's Court, Charing Cross. On 25 June 1745 he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians, but never attained any higher degree in the college. In 1743 he published ‘A Medical Dictionary, with a History of Drugs,’ in three volumes, folio. The dedication to Dr. [q. v.] was written by Dr. Johnson (, i. 85, ed. 1790), who also made some contributions to the work, and wrote the proposals for it. The articles are well written, and contain much information compiled from books, but very little original information. In 1745 he published ‘A Treatise on the Gout and Rheumatism,’ and in 1748 a ‘Dissertation on Fevers.’ In both works the chief object is to draw attention to his own method of cure, which is praised, without being clearly described. It consisted in the administration of a powder and of a pill, for which James took out a patent on 13 Nov. 1746. On 11 Feb. 1747 he deposited in the court of chancery a description of the components and method of manufacture of these prescriptions. It was asserted at the time that both had been learnt from a German named William Schwanberg, and it was clearly proved afterwards that the receipt sworn to in the patent would not<section end=James, Robert/> pro-