Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/147

 brig in the North Sea, in the Walcheren expedition, and afterwards off Cadiz. He was then appointed to the Weazel in the Archipelago; and on 26 Sept. 1811 was posted to the Minstrel of 20 guns, in which, and afterwards in the Thames, he was employed on the coast of Valencia and Catalonia till near the end of the war, during which time he was repeatedly engaged with the enemies' batteries and privateers, and received the thanks of Sir [q. v.], the commander-in-chief. In September 1813 the Thames returned to England and was paid off. On 25 Jan. 1836 he was nominated a K.C.H., and in June 1836 was appointed to the Madagascar of 46 guns, in which he went out to the West Indies. In the spring of 1838 he was compelled to invalid, and died in London on 20 May. He married, in 1814, a daughter of Lieutenant Woodyear, R.N., of St. Kitts, and had issue three daughters and two sons, the eldest of whom, Lumley Woodyear, died a retired commander in 1885.



PEYTON, THOMAS (1595–1626), poet, said to have been born at Royston, Cambridgeshire, in 1595, was probably a younger son of Sir John Peyton of Isleham, and brother of Sir [q. v.], but his name does not figure in the genealogies. After being educated at Royston he proceeded to Cambridge, and in 1613 was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn. Of a studious and religious temperament, he produced in London in 1620 the first part of a poem entitled ‘The Glasse of Time in the First Age, divinely handled by Thomas Peyton of Lincolnes Inne, gent.’ The volume opens with addresses in verse to King James, Prince Charles, Lord-chancellor Bacon, and the ‘Reader.’ The poem consists of 168 stanzas, of varying lengths, in heroic verse. It relates the story of man's fall, as told in the Bible. There are many classical allusions and digressions into contemporary religious topics. Peyton writes as a champion of the established church, and a warm opponent of the puritans. In 1623 he continued the work in a second volume entitled ‘The Glasse of Time in the Second Age,’ and brought the scriptural narrative to Noah's entrance into the ark. A further continuation was promised, but was never written. Some of the episodes in Peyton's poem—notably his descriptions of Paradise and of Lucifer—very faintly suggest some masterly passages on the same subject in Milton's ‘Paradise Lost,’ but the resemblances are not close enough to render it probable that Milton was acquainted with his predecessor's efforts (cf. North American Review, October 1860). Copies of Peyton's two volumes are in the British Museum. A reprint appeared at New York in 1886. Peyton died in 1626.



PFEIFFER, EMILY JANE (1827–1890), poetess, born on 26 Nov. 1827, was the daughter of R. Davis, who was in early years an officer in the army, and was through life devoted to art. At one time possessed of considerable property in Oxfordshire, he became before his death innocently involved in the failure of his father-in-law's bank, the chief banking institution in Montgomeryshire. The straitened circumstances of the family prevented Emily from receiving any regular education, but her father encouraged her to study and practise painting and poetry. Pecuniary troubles at home, however, darkened her youth with melancholy. She found relief in a visit to the continent, and in 1853 she married J. E. Pfeiffer, a German merchant resident in London, a man of warm heart and sterling worth. At a very youthful age she produced a volume of verse, ‘The Holly Branch.’ In 1857 appeared her first literary attempt of genuine promise, ‘Valisneria,’ an imaginative tale which, though much less powerful, may be compared to Sara Coleridge's ‘Phantasmion.’ Conscious of the imperfection of her education, she worked hard at self-culture, and published no more until 1873, when her poem of ‘Gerard's Monument’ (2nd edit. 1878) made its appearance. From that time forth her industry was conspicuous. A volume of miscellaneous poems appeared in 1876, ‘Glan Alarch’ in 1877, ‘Quarterman's Grace’ in 1879, ‘Sonnets and Songs’ in 1880, ‘Under the Aspens’ in 1882, and ‘The Rhyme of the Lady of the Rock’ in 1884. A long journey undertaken in the last year through Eastern Europe, Asia, and America was gracefully described in ‘Flying Leaves from East and West’ in 1885. At the same time Mrs. Pfeiffer interested herself in the social position of women, and issued in 1888 ‘Woman and Work,’ reprints of articles from periodicals on the subject. She also desired to reform modern female costume, and wrote in the ‘Cornhill Magazine’ in advocacy of a modified return to classical precedents. Her husband died in January 1889, and she never recovered from the blow. She wrote and