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Peacham, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Peacham, Henry, 1576?–1643?, English author, b. Hertfordshire, educated at Cambridge. The Compleat Gentleman (1622), his best-known work, offers his formula for the ideal Englishman. Among his other...

Henry the Lion

(Encyclopedia)Henry the Lion, 1129–95, duke of Saxony (1142–80) and of Bavaria (1156–80); son of Henry the Proud. His father died (1139) while engaged in a war to regain his duchies, and it was not until 1142...

Dixon, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Dixon, Thomas, 1864–1946, American novelist, b. Shelby, N.C., grad. Wake Forest College. A militant Southerner, he is best known for his novel The Clansman (1905), on which D. W. Griffith's movie Th...

Parnell, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Parnell, Thomas, 1679–1718, Irish poet, b. Dublin. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he was archdeacon of Clogher from 1706. He was a friend of Pope and Swift and a member of the Scriblerus Club....

Fleet, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Fleet, Thomas, 1685–1758, American colonial printer, b. Shropshire, England. He arrived in Boston c.1712, a refugee because of his opposition to the High Church, and became a prominent printer and p...

Birch, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Birch, Thomas, 1779–1851, American artist, b. London. Birch settled in Philadelphia in 1793. Famous for his paintings of landscapes and historical scenes, he is also noted for a series of engravings...

Medwall, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Medwall, Henry, fl. 1486, first known English vernacular dramatist. He was chaplain to Cardinal Morton. His Fulgens and Lucrece (1497), whose heroine must choose between two suitors, is the earliest k...

Nelson, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Nelson, Thomas, 1738–89, American Revolutionary general, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Yorktown, Va. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress (1775–77, 1779), commander (1777�...

Rowlandson, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Rowlandson, Thomas rōˈləndsən [key], 1756–1827, English caricaturist, b. London. He studied at the Royal Academy and in Paris, but his passion for gambling prevented him from producing much unti...

Wilson, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, Henry, 1812–75, American politician, Vice President of the United States (1873–75), b. Farmington, N.H. At 21 he legally changed his name from Jeremiah Jones Colbath, and as Henry Wilson h...