Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/91

  

SABINE, JOSEPH (1770–1837), writer on horticulture, eldest son of Joseph Sabine of Tewin, Hertfordshire, and brother of Sir [q. v.], was born at Tewin in 1770. He was educated for the bar, and practised until 1808, when he was made inspector-general of assessed taxes, a post which he retained until his retirement in 1835. Sabine was chosen one of the original fellows of the Linnean Society in 1798, was elected fellow of the Royal Society on 7 Nov. 1779, and in 1810 succeeded [q. v.] as honorary secretary of the Horticultural Society. He found the society's accounts in the greatest confusion, and for his success in the work of reorganisation was awarded the society's gold medal in 1816. He took a leading part in the establishment of the society's garden, first at Hammersmith and afterwards at Chiswick; in sending out [q. v.] and others as collectors; in starting local societies in connection with the Royal Horticultural Society; in growing fine varieties of fruit; and in distributing new and improved varieties of flowers, fruits, and vegetables throughout the country. To the ‘Transactions’ of the society (vols. i.–vii.) he contributed in all forty papers, dealing among other subjects with pæonies, passion flowers, magnolias, dahlias, roses, chrysanthemums, crocuses, and tomatoes. His management of the society's affairs, which he ruled despotically, subsequently became unsatisfactory. A too sanguine view of its future led him to incur debts of more than eighteen thousand pounds. In 1830 a committee of inquiry was appointed, a vote of censure was threatened, and he resigned. He afterwards took an active part in the work of the Zoological Society, of which he was treasurer and vice-president, adding many animals to their collection. He was a recognised authority on British birds, their moulting, migration, and habits. He died in Mill Street, Hanover Square, London, on 24 Jan. 1837, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery on 1 Feb. There is a lithograph of him after a portrait by Eddis, and his name was commemorated by De Candolle in the leguminous genus Sabinea.

He contributed a list of plants to Clutterbuck's ‘History of Hertfordshire’ (1815), a zoological appendix to Sir John Franklin's ‘Narrative’ (1823), and four papers to the ‘Transactions of the Linnean Society,’ vols. xii–xiv. (1818–24), one dealing with a species of gull from Greenland, and another with North American marmots.



SABRAN, LEWIS (1652–1732), jesuit, was the son of the Marquis de Sabran, of the Saint-Elzear family, of the first nobility of Provence. His father was for many years resident ambassador to the court of St. James's, and married an English lady. Lewis was born at Paris on 1 March 1652, and educated in the college of the English jesuits at St. Omer. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Watten on 17 Sept. 1670, and was admitted to the profession of the four solemn vows on 2 Feb. 1688. On the accession of James II he was appointed one of the royal chaplains at St. James's Palace, and on the birth of the Prince of Wales on 10 June 1688 became the prince's chaplain. At the outbreak of the revolution he was ordered (November 1688) to proceed to Portsmouth in charge of the royal infant but was afterwards directed to return to the metropolis. In endeavouring to escape to the continent, disguised as a gentleman in the suite of the Polish ambassador, he fell into the hands of a furious mob, was brutally treated, and committed to prison. He was soon liberated, and escaped to Dunkirk.

He was appointed visitor of the province of Naples, and subsequently of the English province. On 23 June 1693 he was chosen at the triennial meeting of the province at Watten as the procurator to be sent to Rome. In 1699 the prince-bishop of Liège, by leave of the father-general of the order, constituted him president of the episcopal seminary in that city (, Records, v. 294;, Bibl. des Écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, 1872, ii. 746). He held the office till 1708, when he was declared provincial of the English province. In 1712 Sabran was appointed rector of the college at St. Omer, and in 1715 spiritual father at the English College, Rome. He died in Rome on 22 Jan. 1731 2.

Of two separately issued sermons by Sabran, published in 1687, one (on 2 Tim. iv. 7) ‘preached before the King at Chester on August 28, being the Feast of Saint Augustin,’ raised a heated controversy concerning the doctrine of the invocation of saints, in which [q. v.] was Sabran's chief antagonist. Sabran replied to Gee's first attack in ‘A Letter to a Peer of the Church of England,’ London, 1687, 4to; to his second