Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/844

BUC He gained his monarch's favour by meeting every royal whim with a higher and cleverer manifestation of that whim; and as a politician he managed the changeful circumstances of the time by an equally changeful variety of resources and dispositions within himself. Buckingham especially possessed a keen sense and power of satire, which at times furnished the salt whereby his deeds were preserved from utter corruption, and enabled him to scorn the very vices he indulged in. Buckingham went through a course of study at Cambridge, and then was sent abroad with his only brother. Lord Francis Villiers, under the care of one Mr. Aylesbury. When the young men returned to England the civil war had already broken out, and they at once attached themselves to the royal cause. They joined the force assembled by Lord Holland, who made the duke master of the horse. Surprised by Colonel Rich at Kingston, Lord Francis was slain in the confusion, while Buckingham escaped first to London, and afterwards to Holland, where Prince Charles welcomed him with favour. Subsequently, he accompanied the prince in his expedition to Scotland, being the only Englishman of quality allowed to remain about the royal person in that country. When the battle of Worcester rendered an immediate restoration hopeless, Buckingham withdrew to France, soon rejoining the exiled prince, by whom he was made knight of the garter for his fidelity. About this period parliament bestowed on Fairfax some of the Buckingham family estates, a large portion of which, however, that general generously restored to the mother of the duke. Buckingham ventured to visit England privately, and married the daughter and sole heiress of Thomas, Lord Fairfax. During an excursion made to visit his sister, he was arrested and cast into the tower; but at the Restoration recovered his liberty, and was made one of the lords of the bedchamber, called to the privy council, and appointed lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire and master of the horse. In 1666 he entered into a plot against Clarendon, and held correspondence with parties disaffected to the king. This was detected, and he was struck out of all his commissions. Restored in the following year, and, after discharging an embassy to France, he finally succeeded in overthrowing Clarendon and forming the famous ministry of the cabal, so called from the initial letters of the names of its principal members, viz., Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. Of this cabal the duke of Buckingham was president, and virtual prime-minister of England. Charles abandoned Buckingham, however, when he was assailed by the house of commons, and accused of carrying on a correspondence with the king's foes. He then joined Shaftesbury and the opposition; and on one occasion was committed to the tower in consequence of an offensive speech concerning the dissolution of parliament. After the death of Charles, Buckingham retired to his manor of Helmsley in Yorkshire, where he employed his time in receiving his friends, in literature, and hunting. His principal literary work is the comedy of the "Rehearsal," written in ridicule of the mock-heroic style of tragedy then popular, and to which even the genius of Dryden at times condescended to pander. Buckingham also wrote a farce, called the "Battle of Sedgemour," and adapted from Beaumont and Fletcher the comedy of the Chances. He produced in addition some religious tracts, in which he advocated a true and perfect liberty of conscience, and argued against popery with clear though coarse satire. Buckingham died April 16, 1688, of an ague and fever, arising from a cold caught by sitting on the ground after fox-hunting. Pope's description of the miserable deathbed of this worthless and profligate nobleman is well known, but it is inaccurate in some of its details. A complete edition of his works was published in two volumes, 1775.—L. L. P.  BUCKINGHAM,, a prolific writer, was born in 1786. His career was marked by extraordinary vicissitudes and adventures. He was at first bred to the sea, and then became successively a printer, a bookseller, the captain of a trading vessel, a shipowner and merchant, the proprietor and editor of a newspaper and of two literary journals, and finally an author and public lecturer. He travelled extensively in Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia, repeatedly visited India, and in 1816 established a journal in Calcutta, which, by the boldness of its attacks upon the maladministration of Indian affairs, led to his expulsion from the presidency of Bengal, and the seizure of his printing-presses. On his return to England, he established the Oriental Herald, and the Athenæum, and published his "Travels in Palestine, Arabia, Mesopotamia," &c. He afterwards made several tours through various parts of Europe and North America, of which he published a very lengthened account. Mr. Buckingham sat in the house of commons as member for Sheffield from 1832 to 1837. He took a deep interest in social reforms, and delivered a great number of popular lectures in various parts of the country. He published two volumes of his "Autobiography," but died before the work was completed, 20th June, 1855.—J. T.  BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,, duke of, son of Lord Mulgrave, was born in 1649. He served as a volunteer with the earl of Ossory in the second Dutch war, and so distinguished himself by his gallantry at the naval battle of Solebay, that, although a mere youth, he was appointed to the command of the Royal Catherine, second-rate man-of-war. He entered the French service, in order to learn war from Turenne, and commanded the forces defending Tangier against the Moors, writing, during the expedition, a poem called "The Vision." He was made by James II. governor of Hull and lord-chamberlain, and often risked the royal displeasure by plain and sensible advice. He was opposed to the Revolution, although he submitted to it, and at first refused to hold any office; but at the end of King William's reign he was advanced to many dignities, which were increased on the accession of Queen Anne, whose lover he was said to have been. He was sworn lord of the privy seal, and created duke of Buckinghamshire. He was an active friend of the tory party, and brought into its service a certain skill for intrigue. He was president of council, and one of the lords'-justices in Great Britain; but on the accession of George I. threw himself into active opposition to the court. He died 24th February, 1720, and was interred in Westminster abbey. Dryden is said to have revised his "Essay on Satire," while his "Essay on Poetry" was applauded by both Dryden and Pope.  BUCKLAND,, a noted English Romanist, born at West Harptre, Somersetshire, in 1564; educated at Rheims, and afterwards at Rome. The last twenty years of his life were spent in missionary labours in his native country. He died in 1601. One of his works, entitled "Seven Sparks of the Enkindled Flame," &c., has some passages which, according to a sermon of Archbishop Usher's preached in 1640, were best interpreted by the gunpowder plot.  BUCKLAND,, D.D., F.R.S., a distinguished geologist, eldest son of the Rev. Charles Buckland, was born, March 12, 1784, and received his early education at the grammar school of Tiverton, and at Winchester college. In 1801 he entered Corpus Christi college, Oxford, as a scholar on the Exeter foundation.—It was during the early boyhood of the subject of our memoir that two happy generalizations were arrived at by eminent scientific men. Werner had shown that the rocky strata which form the earth's crust, are arranged in a certain determinate order, which is never interrupted; and William Smith, that the fossiliferous strata can be identified at great distances by their organic remains, and can be classed by means of these in the order of their relative antiquity. An extraordinary interest was thus excited in the study of fossils, especially in the south of England, where the scene of Smith's labours chiefly lay, and where organic remains are very abundant, and easily obtained from the strata in a perfect state. Such facilities were afforded by Axminster, the birthplace of Dr. Buckland; and here, when a mere child, he made his first collection of fossils from the has quarries of the neighbourhood. Afterwards, when a schoolboy at Winchester, which is situated in the chalk district, other opportunities were afforded of gratifying this taste. He attended the mineralogical lectures of Dr. Kidd, and in company with friends at Oxford, who had drawn their knowledge of fossils from William Smith, he made frequent excursions in the neighbourhood. The fruits of these formed the nucleus of the magnificent collection afterwards placed by him in the Oxford museum. He took the degree of B.A. in 1804, and five years after was elected a fellow of his college. During the four or five following years, his geological researches were directed to the verification of Smith's views, as regarded the south-west of England, so as accurately to group the fossils in the various strata, and to obtain correct sections of the beds in the order of their superposition. Of robust frame, active habits, and a buoyant temperament. Dr. Buckland took great delight in these excursions, which were usually performed on horseback. In 1813 