Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/353

Shakerley tributes, in biographies or prefatory introductions, to (among others) Norman Macleod, Clough, Professor Ferrier, Dean Stanley, and Erskine of Linlathen.

 SHAKERLEY, JEREMY (fl. 1650), astronomer and mathematician, was author of ‘The Anatomy of Urania Practica, or a short Mathematical Discourse; laying open the errors and impertinences delivered in a Treatise lately published by Mr. Vincent Wing and Mr. William Leybourne, under the title of Urania Practica,’ London, 1649. Leybourne retorted in ‘Ens fixum Shakerlæi, or the annihilation of Mr. Jeremie Shakerley,’ 1649.

Shakerley's chief claim to distinction is as the second observer of the transit of Mercury. The first transit was observed in 1631 (, Astronomy, 1889, p. 341). According to [q. v.] (Astronomia Britannica, London, 1669, p. 312), Shakerley foretold the transit of 1651 in a colloquy or disputation entitled ‘De Mercurio in sole videndo.’ No trace of this tract seems extant. Wing asserts that Shakerley went to India to observe the phenomenon, and that he made his observations by means of a telescope at Surat on the morning of 24 Oct. 1651.

While still absent, apparently in India, there appeared in London Shakerley's ‘Tabulæ Britannicæ, the British Tables; wherein is contained Logistical Arithmetick, the Doctrine of the Sphere, astronomicall chronologie, the ecclesiasticall accompt, the Equation and Reduction of Time, together with the Calculation of the Motions of the Fixed and Wandering Stars, and the Eclipses of the Luminaries. Calculated for the Meridian of London from the hypothesis of Bullialdus and the Observations of Mr. Horrox’ (pp. 92 and tables), London, 1653, R. & W. Leybourn. Wallis wrote to Collins on 13 Feb. 1671–2, ‘What Shakerley's tables are I know not;’ but Flamsteed, addressing the same correspondent on 13 Aug. 1672, seemed to be better informed. ‘The precepts,’ Flamsteed wrote, ‘I found translated by the ingenuous (sic) Mr. Shakerley, which I transcribed from him because I thought them clearer expressed than the English ones in Crabtree's letter, though they are in substance the very same’ (, Corresp. of Scientific Men, ii. 157, 351).

 SHAKESPEAR, JOHN (1774–1858), orientalist, born at Lount, near Ashby, Leicestershire, in August 1774, was the son of a small farmer. He was educated at the parish school at Staunton Herald, and afterwards at a school kept by a clergyman, who brought him to the notice of, lord Rawdon (afterwards Marquis of Hastings) [q. v.], the lord of the manor. Lord Rawdon, who was contemplating a mission to North Africa, sent Shakespear to learn Arabic in London, where he studied the language under Richardson and James Golius. In 1793 Lord Rawdon obtained for him a post in the commissariat of a force under his command, which it was proposed to send in aid of the insurgents in Brittany. About 1805 he was appointed to an oriental professorship at the Royal Military College, Marlow. When the East India Company, in 1809, opened a training college for cadets at Addiscombe, he was appointed professor of Hindustani there on 200l. a year, his salary rising in 1811 to 400l. and in 1822 to 600l. While at Addiscombe he compiled a Hindustani grammar and dictionary, and various text-books. Of the first edition of his dictionary he said that it was little more than a revision of one published in Calcutta by Dr. William Hunter, who died at Java in 1812; but subsequent editions contained the results of his own researches. In 1829 he retired from the East India Company's service with a pension of 300l. a year. Being a man of singularly frugal and self-denying habits, he put by a considerable proportion of his salary as a professor, in addition to which he made large sums by the sale of his books. He was thus enabled on his retirement to purchase Langley Priory in Leicestershire, thereby fulfilling, it was said, the ambition of his boyhood (, Addiscombe).

In 1856 he gave 2,500l. to the trustees of the fund for preserving William Shakespeare's house at Stratford-on-Avon, this munificent offer being prompted apparently by the idea that he might have been descended from a branch of the dramatist's family. In his will he bequeathed a further sum to the fund (Athenæum, 1858, ii. 85); but the court of chancery pronounced the bequest invalid. He died at Langley Priory on 10 June 1858 unmarried, the estate passing to his nephew, Charles Bowles, who took the surname of Shakespear.

There is a portrait by H. P. Briggs, painted in 1835, and two others by artists unnamed, all at Langley Priory.

He was author of:
 * 1) ‘Hindustani Grammar,’ 1813; 6th edit. 1855.
 * 2) ‘Dictionary 