Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/116

 upon Langbaine and Jacobs, with the aid of Coxeter's notes, and contains little original matter. Any research displayed was due to Shiels, but the whole work was revised by [q. v.] The later volumes are ascribed on the title-page to Cibber ‘and other hands.’ Johnson was in error in attributing the whole credit of the work to his former assistant. Apart from his compilations, Shiels wrote a didactic poem on ‘Marriage’ in blank verse (London, ‘at the Dunciad in Ludgate Street,’ 1748, 4to), and another piece in praise of Johnson's ‘Irene,’ called ‘The Power of Beauty’ (printed in Pearch's ‘Collection,’ i. 186). Above even Dr. Johnson Shiels venerated his countryman, James Thomson, upon whose death he published an elegy of some merit—‘Musidorus’ (London, 1748, 4to). But his admiration for the poet seems to have been rather more fatuous than discriminating, if Johnson may be believed. ‘I once read him,’ says the latter, ‘a long passage of Thomson. “Is not this very fine?” I said. “Splendid!” exclaimed Shiels. “Well, sir, I have omitted every other line.”’ Shiels died of consumption in May's Buildings, London, on 27 Dec. 1753. ‘His life was virtuous,’ says the doctor, ‘and his end pious.’



SHILLETO, RICHARD (1809–1876), classical scholar, son of John Shilleto of Ulleskelf, Yorkshire, was born on 25 Nov. 1809. He was educated first at Repton and then at Shrewsbury school, under Dr. Butler, and subsequently at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was admitted a scholar on 12 Feb. 1828. He graduated B.A. as second classic, was bracketed ‘wooden spoon’ in 1832, and proceeded M.A. in 1835. An early marriage prevented him from obtaining a fellowship at Trinity. He took orders, and remained at Cambridge as a private coach. He examined in the classical tripos in 1839 and 1840, was for some years lecturer at Trinity, and lectured at King's College up to the time of his death.

For some thirty years Shilleto devoted his best energies to coaching. He did the work that the colleges ought to have done, and taught all the best scholars that Cambridge produced. At length in 1867 he was elected fellow of Peterhouse, being the first fellow elected under a statute of the college that permitted the election of eminent scholars though married. He was appointed assistant tutor, dean, and prælector of Peterhouse. He then relinquished his private coaching. He died at his house in Bateman Street on 24 Sept. 1876, leaving a widow and numerous family (Notes and Queries, 5th ser. vi. 280).

Shilleto was justly pronounced the greatest Greek scholar in England since the death of Gaisford. His knowledge of Greek prose diction was consummate, but he left few published proofs of his remarkable attainments. An admirable edition by him of Demosthenes's ‘De Falsa Legatione’ appeared in 1844 (other editions 1853, 1864, 1874), and he wrote various ‘Adversaria’ to classical authors, such as Thucydides, Hyperides, and Aristotle, part of which, with a mass of excellent composition, still remains unpublished. He long cherished a scheme of editing the whole of Thucydides, but he only completed the first book (1872) and part of the second; and even what he did is scarcely worthy of his great powers.

Shilleto sustained a polemic against Cobet with credit, and his pamphlet, entitled ‘Thucydides or Grote,’ published in 1851, though it was not in the best taste, brought a charge against Grote's claims to exactness from which the historian's reputation was only partially vindicated. He contributed some translations to Kennedy's ‘Sabrinæ Corolla’ and ‘Arundines Cami.’ He sent some ‘Conjectures on Thucydides’ to the first number of the ‘Journal of Philology,’ 1868, and three papers read in 1875 and 1876 before the Cambridge Philological Society were published posthumously in the same journal (vol. vii. 1877). He made numerous contributions to ‘Notes and Queries’ under the anagram ‘Charles Thiriold.’ His skits in Latin, Greek, or English were the current topic of every Cambridge combination-room. Some pieces that appear over his initials were partly the work of pupils.

His son, (1848–1894), born on 18 June 1848, and educated at Harrow, graduated B.A. as scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1871, and M.A. in 1875. Ordained deacon in that year and priest in 1872, he served curacies at Lambourne, Essex (1871–3), Holy Trinity, Hoxton (1874–5), and Haigh, Lancashire (1876). In 1877 he was appointed second master at King Edward VI's grammar school at Stratford-on-Avon, and from 1879 to 1882 he was master of Ulverston school. He was curate of Satterthwaite, Lancashire, from 1881 to 1883, and of Lower Slaughter, Gloucestershire, from 1883 to 1885. He died,