Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/40

 gifts enabled him to imitate rather than to create. His fluency proved disastrous to the character of his work. It is said that he was in the habit of writing out the instrumental parts of his large compositions from memory before he had made a full orchestral score, and he frequently composed as many as four or five works simultaneously, writing a page of one while the ink of another was drying.

[Norfolk News, 19 April 1862; Grove's Dict. of Music, s.v. Perry; Sacred Harmonic Society, &c.; private information.]  PERRY or PARRY, HENRY (1560?–1617?), Welsh scholar, was born at Greenfield, Flint, about 1560. He was descended from Ednowain Bendew, founder of one of the fifteen tribes of North Wales (Bishop Humphreys's additions to Athenæ Oxon.) He matriculated from Balliol College, Oxford, 20 March 1578–9, at the age of eighteen, and graduated B.A. (from Gloucester Hall) 14 Jan. 1579–80, M.A. 23 March 1582–3, and B.D. (from Jesus College) 6 June 1597 (Alumni Oxon.) On leaving the university, about 1583, he went abroad, and, after many years' absence, returned to Wales as chaplain to Sir Richard Bulkeley of Baron Hill, near Beaumaris. During his stay at Beaumaris he married the daughter of Robert Vaughan, a gentleman of the place. An attempt was made by his enemies to show that his first wife (of whom nothing is known) was still living, but Perry succeeded in clearing his reputation. He may possibly be the ‘Henry Parry, A.M.,’ who, according to Browne Willis (St. Asaph, edit. 1801, i. 315), was rector of Llandegla between 1574 and 1597. He was instituted to the rectory of Rhoscolyn on 21 Aug. 1601, promoted to that of Trefdraeth by Bishop Rowlands on 30 Dec. 1606, installed canon of Bangor on 6 Feb. 1612–13, and received in addition from Rowlands the rectory of Llanfachreth, Anglesey, on 5 March 1613–14. The date of his death is not recorded, but as his successor in the canonry was installed on 30 Dec. 1617, it probably took place in that year.

Dr. John Davies, in the preface to his ‘Dictionary’ (1632), speaks of ‘Henricus Perrius vir linguarum cognitione insignis’ as one of many Welsh scholars who during the preceding sixty years had planned a similar enterprise. But the only work published by Perry was ‘Egluryn Ffraethineb’ (‘Elucidator of Eloquence’), a Welsh treatise on rhetoric, the outlines of which had previously been written by William Salesbury [q. v.], translator of the New Testament into Welsh. This appeared in London in 1595 in the new orthography adopted by John David Rhys in his recently published grammar (1592). A reprint, with many omissions, was issued by Dr. William Owen Pughe [q. v.] (London, 1807), and this was reprinted at Llanrwst in 1829. The preface shows that Perry knew something of eleven languages.

[ Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, with Bishop Humphreys's additions; Rowlands's Cambrian Bibliography, 1869; Rowlands's Mona Antiqua (catalogue of clergy); Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymreig, by Gweirydd ap Rhys.]  PERRY, JAMES (1756–1821), journalist, son of a builder, spelling his name Pirie, was born at Aberdeen on 30 Oct. 1756. He received the rudiments of his education at Garioch chapel, in the shire of Aberdeen, from the Rev. W. Tait, a man of erudition, and was afterwards trained at the Aberdeen high school by the brothers Dunn. In 1771 he was entered at Marischal College, Aberdeen University, and he was placed under Arthur Dingwall Fordyce to qualify himself for the Scottish bar. Through the failure of his father's speculations he was compelled to earn his own bread. He was for a time an assistant in a draper's shop at Aberdeen. He then joined Booth's company of actors, where he met Thomas Holcroft [q. v.], with whom he at first quarrelled, but was later on very friendly terms (cf., Memoirs, i. 293–300). Perry is said to have been at one time a member of Tate Wilkinson's company, when he fell in love with an actress who slighted him. His cup of misery was filled on his return to Edinburgh, when West Digges, with whom he was acting, told him that his brogue unfitted him for the stage. Perry then sought fortune in England, and lived for two years at Manchester as clerk to Mr. Dinwiddie, a manufacturer. In this position he read many books, and took an active part in the debates of a literary and philosophical society. In 1777, at twenty-one years old, he made his way to London with the highest letters of recommendation from his friends in Lancashire, but failed to find employment. During this enforced leisure he amused himself with writing essays and pieces of poetry for a paper called ‘The General Advertiser.’ One of his pieces attracted the attention of one of the principal proprietors of the paper who was junior partner in the firm of Richardson & Urquhart, booksellers. Perry was consequently engaged as a regular contributor at a guinea per week, with an additional half-guinea for assistance in bringing out the ‘London Evening Post.’ In this position he toiled with the greatest assiduity, and during