Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/40

 promising career, marred by a somewhat splenetic temper, was cut short by his death, at his house in Oxford Street, London, on 6 July 1799. The journal of his tour is in the library of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and the drawings of the pyramids, made by him from actual measurement, are at New College, Oxford. Some of his designs are in Sir John Soane's museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.



REVELL or RIVELL, RICHARD (d. 1222), knight and landowner, said to have been the son of William Revell (, Devonshire, p. 82), probably a landowner in Devonshire and lord of Revelstoke in that county, received from Henry II grants of ‘Curi’ or Curry Rivell, and Langport, both in Somerset (MS. Record Office, Cartæ Antiquæ, R., Nos. 11, 12), and is said to have built a castle at Langport (Somerset Archæological Society's Proceedings, XI. i. 8). He was sheriff for Devonshire and Cornwall from the sixth to the tenth years of Richard I (Thirty-first Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Records, p. 279), and is said to have received from Richard the custody of the castles of Exeter and Launceston (, u.s.). He was paying rent to the crown in the reign of John, and was at Carrickfergus, Kilkenny, and Dublin in 1210, during the expedition to Ireland of that year (Rotuli de Liberate, &c., pp. 180, 204, 220). He married Mabel, sister and heir of Walter de Esselegh, or Ashley, in Wiltshire, and died in 1222. He appears to have had a son named Richard (Chancery Rolls, p. 94), who probably predeceased his father, for the elder Richard's heir, subject to the dower of his wife Mabel, who survived him, was his only daughter Sabina, wife of Henry de l'Orti. She survived her husband, who died in 1241, and had livery of the lands of her inheritance in Somerset and Dorset, which passed to her son Henry de l'Orti (de Urtiaco), summoned to parliament in 1299. It is probable that Revel's Hill, near Mintern in Dorset, takes its name from Sir Richard Revell. Contemporaries of Sir Richard were the landowners William Revell in Wiltshire and Hugh Revell in Northamptonshire; their connection with Sir Richard is not known.



REVETT, NICHOLAS (1720–1804), architect and draughtsman, was second son of John Revett of Brandeston Hall, near Framlingham in Suffolk, where he was born in 1720. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Fauconbridge. Adopting the profession of an artist, he made his way to Rome in 1742. He studied painting there, under Cavahere Benefiale. At Rome, Revett became acquainted with (1713–1788) [q. v.], the artist, Matthew Brettingham, and [q. v.], the painter. In April 1748 he made an expedition with them to Naples and back on foot. It seems to have been during this journey that the idea occurred to Revett and Hamilton, and was eagerly taken up by Stuart and Brettingham, of making an expedition to Athens to measure and delineate the monuments of Greek antiquity still remaining there. This idea was warmly supported, with money as well as other encouragement, by many of the English dilettanti in Rome. In March 1750 Stuart and Revett left Rome for Venice, Hamilton and Brettingham being unable to accompany them. At Venice they missed their boat, and were delayed some months, during which they visited the antiquities of Pola in Dalmatia. They became acquainted with Sir James Gray, K.B., the British resident at Venice, and, through his agency, were elected members of the Society of Dilettanti in London. Eventually they reached Athens in the spring of 1751, and resided there, with some intervals, until late in 1754, returning to England early in 1755. They drew and measured most of the antiquities in Athens and its neighbourhood, but their work was hampered by tumults due to the bad government of the Turks, and by incursions of a more formidable enemy, the plague. On their return to England they were admitted to the Society of Dilettanti, and, with the aid of some of the most influential members, they succeeded in publishing, in 1762, the first volume of ‘The Antiquities of Athens, measured and delineated by James Stuart, F.R.S. and F.S.A., and Nicholas Revett, Painters and Architects.’ The success of this book was instantaneous, but the lion's share of the credit fell to Stuart, who was dubbed ‘Athenian’ Stuart therefrom. Revett seems to have been displeased at this, and therefore parted with all his rights in the work to Stuart, having no