Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/135

 the same year, and died on 13 Feb. 1653. By his wife, who died between 1641 and 1647, he had two children—Rodolph, born in 1617, who obtained an estate in Kent and died in 1667; and Elizabeth, born in 1618, who married William Trumbull of Easthampstead, and became the mother of Sir [q. v.], the friend of Pope.

Weckherlin was a voluminous writer in verse, and rendered considerable service to the literature of his fatherland by contributing to introduce the sonnet, the sestine, and other exotic forms. He attested his versatility by writing with equal facility in German, French, and English. His principal English poems are the Triumphal Shows set forth lately at Stutgart,' 1616; and a 'Panegyricke to Lord Hay, Viscount of Doncaster,' 1619, one copy of which, recorded to have been sold at an auction in 1845, is at present missing. A large proportion of his vernacular poems, chiefly published in 1641 and 1648, are imitated from the French or the English of Samuel Daniel, Sir Henry Wotton, and other writers personally known to him in England, or are translated from the Psalms. A considerable number, however, of his lyrics and epigrams are original, and on the strength of these he is pronounced by his German editor and biographer, Fischer, the most important national poet of his period prior to Opitz. The same authority considers that he would have gained a yet higher reputation but for his besetting incorrectness—'he wrote too much as a gentleman and too little as a scholar.' As a public servant he seems to have been efficient, though he did not escape charges of 'malicious barbarousness.' His poems have been published in two volumes by Hermann Fischer, Stuttgart, 1894–5. His portrait, painted when he was fifty by Mytens, was engraved by Faithorne after his death.

 WEDDELL, JAMES (1787–1834), navigator, son of a working upholsterer, a native of Lanarkshire, who had settled in London and there married, was born at Ostend on 24 Aug. 1787. The father was at the time in bad health, and seems to have died shortly afterwards, leaving the widow with two boys unprovided for. The elder son went to sea, eventually settled in the West Indies, made a little money there, and died about 1818. At a very early age the younger son, James, with no education beyond the little that his mother had herself been able to give him, was bound to the master of a coasting vessel, apparently a Newcastle collier. About 1805 he shipped on board a merchantman trading to the West Indies, made several voyages, and about 1808 was handed over to the Rainbow frigate, as a prisoner guilty of insubordination and mutiny; charged, in fact, with having knocked down his captain. Weddell's later conduct renders it very probable that the blow was given under extreme provocation. His opportunities for educating himself had, up to this time, been extremely small; such as they were, he had made the most of them; he was fond of reading; and, on board the Rainbow, so far improved himself that he was rated a midshipman, then quite as often a responsible petty officer as a youngster learning his profession. As a midshipman Weddell had more opportunities for reading and study; he rendered himself a capable navigator, and in December 1810 was appointed acting master of the Firefly. Twelve months later he was moved to the Thalia, and on her return to England and being paid off, he was on 21 Oct. 1812 promoted to be master of the Hope. A few months later he was moved to the Avon brig, with Commander (afterwards Admiral-of-the-fleet Sir George Rose) Sartorius [q. v.], who, in 1839, wrote of him as 'one of the most efficient and trustworthy officers I have met with in the course of my professional life. On taking command of the Portuguese liberating squadron (1831), I immediately wrote to Weddell to join me, but he unfortunately happened to be out of England, and when I received his answer accepting with pleasure my proposal, I had already given up the command.' The Avon was paid off in March 1814, and Weddell was appointed to the Espoir sloop, from which he was promoted to the Cydnus frigate and later on to the Pactolus, from which he was superseded in February 1816.

The reduction following the peace rendered it impossible for him to get further employment in the navy, and after three years on a scanty half-pay he accepted the command of the Jane of Leith, a brig of 160 tons, belonging to a Mr. Strachan, intended for a sealing voyage in the southern seas, for which the newly discovered South Shetland Islands seemed to offer great facilities. Of this first voyage, made in the years 1819–1820–21, no record is extant. Though