Cleasby, Richard (DNB00)
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CLEASBY, RICHARD (1797-1847), philologist, brother of Sir Anthony Cleasby [q. v.], and eldest son of Stephen Cleasby, was born on 30 Nov. 1797. He was educated at a private school, and for some years assisted his father in his business, but in 1824 gave up trade and proceeded to the continent to devote himself to the study of philosophy and literature. After spending four years principally in Italy and Germany, he returned for a winter's term at the university of Edinburgh, repaired again to the continent, and, after much roaming, settled down in 1830 at Munich to study philosophy under Schelling and old German under Schmeller and Massmann. Philology gradually encroached on philosophy, and his excursions into almost every district of Germany, to which he devoted all the time he could spare from his studies, procured him an extraordinary knowledge of German dialects. A liver complaint, which he had contracted in Italy, compelled him to frequently resort to Carlsbad, and he occasionally revisited England for a brief period. His first visit to Denmark and Sweden was in May 1834, and he became gradually more and more attracted by Scandinavian subjects. In 1839 he collated the 'Codex Argenteus' at Upsala, and in January 1840, 'to get an unaccountable and most scandalous blank filled up,' he
