Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/356

 of Malahidert on 23 June 1787 (ib. ii. 155). In 1764 he was elected curate of St. Bride, Dublin, and subsequently obtained the rectory of Killeshill, co. Tyrone (, Illustr. of Lit. vii. 778). He was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral on 12 June 1790; his wife was buried there on 24 Feb. 1790.

Lyon, although he never published anything, was reputed a learned ecclesiologist. ‘There is no one,’ says Monck Mason, ‘to whom the Irish antiquarian is more indebted; to his diligence we chiefly owe the preservation of whatever remains of the ecclesiastical antiquities of Dublin.’ For several years he was engaged, under the auspices of Swift, in investigating the antiquities of St. Patrick's, and received several grants of money for the prosecution of his researches. Swift in his last illness was confided to Lyon's care. Some manuscripts of Swift which remained in his hands were communicated to Sir Walter Scott by his nephew, Thomas Steele (ib. v. 397). He also left valuable manuscript remarks upon Hawkesworth's ‘Life of Swift,’ which have proved of the greatest use to succeeding biographers.

 LYON, JOHN (1734–1817), historian of Dover, was born at St. Nicholas in the Isle of Thanet, on 1 Sept. 1734. He was in early life master of a school at Margate, Kent, which he relinquished in 1770 to take holy orders. In 1772 he was elected by the parishioners to the perpetual curacy of St. Mary's, Dover. His studies were chiefly electricity and antiquities. He died on 30 June 1817, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Nicholas, Thanet. On his tombstone he is described as B.A. and F.L.S. His manuscripts and correspondence were destroyed by his executors in compliance with his request. His collection of books, shells, insects, and minerals were sold by auction in November 1817.

Lyon's principal work is a ‘History of the Town and Port of Dover and of Dover Castle, with a short Account of the Cinque Ports,’ 2 vols. 4to, Dover, 1813–14 (cf., Bibl. Man. 1243).

In 1775 he communicated to the Society of Antiquaries a ‘Description of a Roman Bath discovered at Dover’ (Archæologia, v. 325–34); in 1785, in a letter to John Nichols, the ‘History and Antiquities of Saint Radigund's, or Bradsole Abbey, near Dover,’ which was printed as No. xliv. of the ‘Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica;’ in 1786 to the Royal Society some notices ‘Of a Subsidence of the Ground near Folkstone, on the Coast of Kent’ (Phil. Trans., Abridgment, xvi. 91); and in 1792 to the Society of Antiquaries ‘Observations on the Situation of the antient Portus Iccius’ (Archæologia, x. 1–16). In Nichols's ‘Biographical Anecdotes of Hogarth’ will be found some account of William Tothall, F.S.A., which Lyon communicated to Andrew Coltee Ducarel [q. v.]

Lyon wrote also: 1. ‘Experiments and Observations, made with a view to point out the Errors of the present received Theory of Electricity,’ &c., 4to, London, 1780. 2. ‘Further Proofs that Glass is permeable by the Electric Effluvia, and that the Electric Particles are possessed of a Polar Virtue, with Remarks on the Monthly Reviewer's Animadversions on a late work intituled “Experiments,”’ &c., 4to, London, 1781. 3. ‘Remarks on the leading Proofs offered in favour of the Franklinian System of Electricity, with Experiments to shew the direction of the Electric Effluvia, visibly passing from what has been termed Negatively Electrified Bodies,’ 8vo, London, 1791. 4. ‘An Account of several new and interesting Phænomena discovered in examining the Bodies of a Man and four Horses killed by Lightning near Dover,’ 8vo, London, 1796.

 LYON, PATRICK (d. 1695?), of Carse, lord of session, was second cousin of Patrick Lyon, first earl of Strathmore [q. v.], and was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates on 11 July 1671. He had previously been professor of philosophy in the college of St. Andrews. For many years his family had an intimate connection with Dundee, his residence in that burgh having been in Whitehall Close, a passage now transformed into an open street. A splendid sculptured stone, bearing the arms of the United Kingdom, the initials of Charles II, and the date 1660, is still preserved in Dundee Museum, and is reasonably supposed to have been erected by Lyon in front of his residence to commemorate the Restoration. On the death of Lord Nairn he became an ordinary lord of session, taking his seat, with the title of Lord Carse, on 10 Nov. 1683. He was appointed one of the lords of justiciary on 20 Feb. 1684, but as he was an ardent Jacobite he was deprived of both offices at the revolution of 1688. His son, Magister Patrick Lyon of Carse, was declared his heir on 30 Oct. 1695. There is a portrait of Lyon in the drawing-room at Glamis Castle, which was painted by Jacob de Witt, a Dutch artist who was engaged in the deco-