Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/159

 the edition of 1891 has, too, a youthful portrait.

[Memoirs by the present writer and by Sir Henry Cole prefixed to their respective editions of Peacock's writings. The latter has also an essay by Lord Houghton, and personal reminiscences by Mrs. Clarke, Peacock's granddaughter. Recollections by Sir Edward Strachey, bart., in vol. x. of Garnett's edition; Shelley's letters to Peacock, and his biographers in general; James Spedding in Edinburgh Review, vol. lxviii.; James Hannay in North British Review, vol. xlv.; R. W. Buchanan in New Quarterly Mag. vol. iv.; George Saintsbury in Macmillan's Mag. vol. liii.] 

PEADA (d. 656), under-king of the South Mercians, the eldest son of Penda [q. v.], king of the Mercians, was made ealdorman or under-king of the Middle Angles by his father in 653. He desired to marry Alchflæd, or Ealhflæd, the daughter of Oswy, or Oswiu [q. v.], king of the Northumbrians, and went to her father's court to ask for her as his wife, but Oswy refused unless Peada became a Christian. Accordingly he heard preaching, and was further persuaded by his friend and brother-in-law Alchfrith or Alchfrid, who had married his sister Cyneburh or Ciniburga, so that he declared that he would profess Christianity, even though his wished-for bride should be denied him. He was therefore baptised by Bishop Finan [q. v.], along with his thegns and other followers, at a place called At-wall, supposed to be Walbottle, near Newcastle, and, having received his bride, took back with him to his kingdom four priests, Cedd [q. v.], Adda, Betti, and Diuma, afterwards bishop of the Middle Angles and Mercians. With the help of Peada these missionaries had great success, and daily baptised many nobles and sick people; nor were they forbidden by Penda to preach in his immediate dominions (, Historia Ecclesiastica, iii. c. 21). On the overthrow and death of Penda in 655, Oswy made Peada under-king of the South Mercians, separated by the Trent from the North Mercians, who seem to have then become directly subject to the Northumbrian king. At the following Easter-tide, however, Peada was wickedly slain, it was said, through the treachery of his wife (ib. c. 24). He is said to have been one of the co-founders of the monastery of Medeshamstede, or Peterborough, with his brothers Wulfhere [q. v.], Æthelred, and Merewald, and his two sisters [see under ].

[Bede's Hist. Eccl., Flor. Wig. (both Engl. Hist. Soc.); Anglo-Saxon Chron. an. 652, and Peterborough insertion under 656; Green's Making of England; art. ‘Peada’ in Dict. Chr. Biogr. by Bishop Stubbs.] 

PEAK or PEAKE, JAMES (1730?–1782?), engraver, born about 1730, practised in London as an engraver in the mixed etching and line manner of Thomas Vivares [q. v.] and others. He attained some eminence as an engraver of landscape, and his works are noteworthy in the history of English engraving. These are mostly from paintings by Claude Lorraine, G. Smith of Chichester, R. Wilson, J. Pillement, and other landscape-engravers. He also executed some spirited etchings of dogs and other animals. He is said to have died about 1782.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Nagler's Künstler-Lexicon.] 

PEAKE, RICHARD BRINSLEY (1792–1847), dramatist, son of Richard Peake, who was for forty years in the treasury office of Drury Lane Theatre, was born in Gerrard Street, Soho, on 19 Feb. 1792. He was articled to James Heath [q. v.] the engraver, and remained with him from 1809 to 1817, when he turned his attention to writing for the stage. His first production seems to have been ‘Amateurs and Actors,’ a musical farce, given at the English Opera House on 29 Aug. 1818, and revived at Covent Garden on 28 Oct. 1826. It was followed by ‘The Duel, or My Two Nephews,’ a two-act farce (Covent Garden, 18 Feb. 1823); ‘Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein,’ based partly on Mrs. Shelley's novel, and partly upon a French piece (Covent Garden, 9 July 1824); and ‘Comfortable Lodgings, or Paris in 1750,’ a farce, played first at Drury Lane on 10 March 1827 and on twelve subsequent occasions, with Liston in the chief part of Sir Hippington Miff. One of the best of Peake's numerous pieces, ‘The Haunted Inn,’ a two-act farce, appeared at Drury Lane on 31 Jan. 1828, and was played eighteen times. His farce ‘Before Breakfast’ was acted at Bath on 28 Feb. 1828, and ‘Master's Rival,’ which had proved an utter failure at Drury Lane in the previous February, was given with applause at Covent Garden on 6 May 1829. Peake is said to have written most of the later ‘At Homes’ given by Charles Mathews at the Adelphi from 1829 onwards. For about the last ten years of his life he was treasurer at the Lyceum Theatre. His last play, ‘The Title Deeds,’ an original comedy, in three acts and in prose, appeared in 1847, and Peake died on 4 Oct. in this same year, leaving a large family in somewhat necessitous circumstances. Besides those above mentioned, Peake's chief plays were: 1. ‘The Bottle Imp,’ a melodramatic romance, produced at Covent