Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/399

 , and Bohemia till 1770, when he returned to England. In 1772 he went to Spain and Portugal, returning the following year. Of this journey he published an account, entitled ‘Travels through Portugal and Spain in 1772 and 1773,’ London, 1775, 4to; the volume contains a fine print of ‘Our Lady of the Fish,’ drawn by Cypriani and engraved by Bartolozzi, and was pronounced by Dr. Johnson ‘as good as the first book of travels you will take up.’ The work appeared the same year in 12mo in Dublin, and French and German editions were issued the following year. In 1775 he visited Ireland, and then wrote his ‘Tour in Ireland in 1775,’ London, 1776, 8vo, of which there were several Irish editions. In the appendix he states he had taken sixteen sea voyages and travelled altogether about twenty-seven thousand miles. This book was very unpopular in Ireland. It evoked ‘An Heroic Epistle’ from Donna Teresa Pinna y Ruiz of Murcia, a lady whose acquaintance he formed when in that town, humorously complaining in the stilted verse then fashionable that he had deserted his Pinna for Hibernia. Twiss published the lines with explanatory notes, and responded in similar strain with ‘An Heroic Answer from R. Twiss, esq., to Donna Teresa,’ Dublin, 1776, 12mo.

He subsequently devoted himself to literature and fine arts and to speculations in endeavouring to manufacture paper out of straw, whereby he seriously impaired his fortune. He, however, revisited France during the revolution, the account of which appeared as ‘A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792,’ London, 1793, 8vo, which was also issued in two vols. 12mo in Dublin.

Twiss was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1774, but withdrew from it in 1794. He died in Somers Town on 5 March 1821.

In addition to the works already named, he wrote two volumes of miscellaneous notes on ‘Chess,’ published anonymously, London, 1787–89, 8vo; and was author of ‘Miscellanies,’ London, 1805, 2 vols. 8vo.

 TWISS, TRAVERS (1809–1897), civilian, eldest son of the Rev. Robert Twiss by his wife, Fanny Walker, was born in Gloucester Place, Marylebone, on 19 March 1809. From his mother, Anne Travers, Robert Twiss inherited an estate at Hoseley, Flint. He died unbeneficed at his town residence, 35 Hamilton Terrace, on 23 Nov. 1857.

Travers matriculated on 5 April 1826 from University College, Oxford, where he gained a scholarship next year. He graduated B.A. (first class in mathematics, second class in classics) in 1830, M.A. in 1832, B.C.L. by commutation in 1835, and D.C.L. in 1841. From 1830 until his marriage in 1863 he was a fellow of University College, and he acted as bursar in 1835, dean in 1837, and tutor from 1836 to 1843. In 1864 he was elected an honorary fellow. He thrice served—a very unusual distinction—the offices of public examiner in both the arts schools, in literis humanioribus in 1835 and the two following years, and in disciplinis mathematicis 1838–1840. Twiss was one of the few Oxford men of his day who possessed a competent knowledge of German, and his ‘Epitome of Niebuhr's History of Rome’ (1836, 2 vols. 8vo) helped to redeem the university from the reproach of obscurantism. A dissertation by him ‘On the Amphitheatre of Pola in Istria’ appeared in the transactions of the Ashmolean Society in 1836. He condensed the principal results of the Niebuhrian criticism in an annotated edition of Livy—‘Livii Patavini Historiarum Libri … animadversiones Niebuhrii, Wachsmuthii, et suas addidit Travers Twiss,’ Oxford, 1840–1, 4 vols. 8vo.

Meanwhile Twiss was devoting himself to a study of law, political economy, and international politics. On 19 Feb. 1835, he was admitted a student at Lincoln's Inn, where he was called to the bar on 28 Jan. 1840, and elected a bencher on 19 Jan. 1858. On 2 Nov. 1841 he was admitted a member of the college of advocates. In succession to John Herman Merivale [q. v.] he held at Oxford for the quinquennial term 1842–7 the Drummond chair of political economy. His contributions to economic science were merely perfunctory, a few professorial lectures: ‘On Money;’ ‘On Machinery’ (two); and ‘On Certain Tests of a Thriving Population’ (four), Oxford, 1843–5. The bent of his mind, concrete, cautious, inductive, was indeed entirely alien to the Ricardian dogmatism then in vogue, while he lacked the originative faculty necessary for striking out a path for himself. His concluding course, however, entitled ‘View of the Progress of Political Economy in Europe since the Sixteenth Century’ (London, 1847, 8vo), is not without historic value.

It was on questions of international law that he was gradually concentrating his attention. In 1852 he was elected to the chair of international law at King's College, 