Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/72

  bee to the cart and delivered him a packet. These narratives must be carefully checked by the contemporary newspapers, especially the British Journal, 15 Aug. and 17 Oct. 1724, and the Weekly Journal, 29 Aug., 12 Sept., and 21 Nov. 1724. See also Celebrated Trials, 1825, iii. 375–89; Tyburn Chronicle, vol. ii.; Newgate Calendar, ed. Knapp and Baldwin; Hist. Reg. 1724 (Chron. Diary), pp. 45, 47, 48; Malcolm's London Anecdotes; Villette's Annals of Newgate, i. 253; Griffiths's Chronicles of Newgate; Granger's Biogr. Hist. and Wonderful Museum; Caulfield's Portraits of Remarkable Persons, ii. 158, 167; Retrospective Review, vii. 273; Defoe's Romances and Narratives, ed. Aitken, p. xvi, Introduction; Thornbury's Old and New London, ii. 459; Wheatley and Cunningham's London; Thorne's Environs, p. 218; Extracts relating to St. Sepulchre's (Brit. Mus.); Biogr. Dram. 1812, ii. 283; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. ed. Bohn; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

 SHEPPARD, JOHN (1785–1879), religious writer, born on 15 Oct. 1785 at Frome, Somerset, where the family had resided since the Restoration, was son of John Sheppard by his wife Mary Kelson, daughter of John Banger of Piddletown, Dorset. He left school in 1800 to enter the woollen trade, in which most of the family were engaged. In 1806, after his father's death, he and his mother joined the anabaptists, a body to which many of his relatives belonged. With John Foster (1770–1843) [q. v.], baptist minister in Frome from 1804, Sheppard developed a lasting intimacy. The death of his uncle, Walter Sheppard, who made him his heir, enabled him to relinquish business. Determining to essay medicine, he matriculated at Edinburgh University towards the close of 1812, but was soon diverted to the study of philosophy and Hebrew. During two years' residence at Edinburgh he formed friendships with Thomas Chalmers [q. v.] and with Pinkerton the antiquary. In 1816 and 1817 he made tours through France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, and studied for some months at Göttingen. In 1823 Sheppard published his ‘Thoughts preparative or persuasive to Private Devotion,’ which went through five editions in as many years. From that period until his death he devoted himself to religious authorship, to lay preaching, and foreign travel. He died at Frome on 30 April 1879, and was buried in the dissenters' cemetery. He was twice married.

His works include: 1. ‘Athaliah,’ translated from Racine, 1815, 12mo. 2. ‘Letters on a Tour in France,’ London, 1817, 8vo. 3. ‘An Autumn Dream,’ poem, London, 1837, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1841. 4. ‘Cursory View of the State of Religion in France,’ London, 1838, 12mo. 5. ‘On Dreams,’ London, 1847, 12mo. 6. ‘On Trees, their Uses and Biography,’ London, 1848, 12mo. 7. ‘The Foreign Sacred Lyre,’ London, 1857, 8vo. 8. ‘The Christian Harp,’ London, 1858, 8vo.

[Memoir in T. G. Rooke's edition of ‘Thoughts preparative to private Devotion,’ London, 1881, 8vo; Ryland's Life and Letters of Foster, passim; Letters in a Journey to France, &c.; Burke's Landed Gentry, 8th ed., p. 1834; for a letter to Byron and the reply, Moore's Byron, ii. letter 469.]

 SHEPPARD, NICHOLAS (d. 1587), master of St. John's College, Cambridge, was a native of Westmoreland. He was admitted scholar of his college, 4 July 1549, and fellow 25 March 1553; being, however, ejected in the following year, he did not commence M.A. until 1558. In 1561 he was elected a minor fellow of Trinity College in the same university; in 1562 he was elected a senior fellow, and successively filled the offices of senior bursar (1562-3) and vice-master (1564-8) on the same foundation. On 14 Nov. 1561 he was appointed one of the university preachers. He proceeded B.D. in 1568, and was admitted master of St. John's 17 Dec. 1569. His abilities seem to have been small. Baker (writing early in the eighteenth century) observed that there had been 'less said of this master than of any other since the foundation of the college' (Hist. of St. John's College, ed. Mayor, i. 166). He was admitted archdeacon of Northampton in 1571; but his tenure of the mastership was terminated by something like expulsion from the college in 1574. Barker states that there was a tradition in the college that 'Shepperd' 'had put the seal to some grants or leases for his own emolument.' Subsequent proceedings and articles preferred against him appear to point to non-residence as the only charge that was substantiated.

According to Strype, he was brought into the mastership by the party which supported Whitgift, and Baker states that 'the Genevan psalters were discontinued' during his rule. Strype {Annals, ii. 304-6) adduces evidence which implies that at a later time he favoured the puritan party. He died in 1587.

Baker's Hist, of St. John's College; Baker MS. xxvi. 26; Registers of Trinity College.]

 SHEPPARD, ROBERT (fl. 1730–1740), engraver, worked for the booksellers during the second quarter of the last century. He engraved most of the portraits of sovereigns and statesmen in Rapin's ‘History of England,’ 1732–7, fol.; as well as the portrait of