stored to his stall in Durham Cathedral, his rectory of Egglescliff, and the archdeaconry of Northumberland. Bishop Cosin also persuaded the intruding minister of Stanhope, Andrew Lamant, to take Long Newton instead of Stanhope, in order that Basire might be reinstated in the latter. Basire was now, therefore, a wealthy man, but he still had his troubles, one of the chief of them being the perversion of his son Peter to Rome. His hands moreover were more than full of work. 'The archdeaconry of Northumberland', he writes, 'will take up a whole man, (1) to reform the persons, (2) to repair the churches.'
He diligently visited the churches in his archdeaconry, and found 'many of them scandalously ruinous;' but he met with a liberal and vigorous supporter in his attempts to reform in Bishop Cosin, with whom he appears to have been as closely connected as with his predecessor, Bishop Morton. The last fifteen years of Basire's life were comparatively uneventful. Evelyn mentions in his Diary (10 Nov. 1661) that there 'preached in the abbey [Westminster] Dr. Basire, that great traveller, or rather French apostle, who had been planting the church of England in divers parts of the Levant and Asia; 'but we do not hear much of him from other sources.
He died on 12 Oct. 1676, and 'was buried in the cemetery belonging to the cathedral of Durham, near to the body of an ancient servant that had lived many years with him, and not by that of his wife in the cathedral' (Wood, Fasti Oxon.) It was his own 'desire' that his body should find 'burial in the churchyard, not out of any singularity . . . but out of veneration of the house of God.'
It remains to notice some of Basire's writings. In 1646 he published an interesting work entitled 'Deo et Ecclesiæ Sacrum. Sacriledge arraigned and condemned by St. Paul, Rom. ii. 22.' There was not much demand for this kind of work during the rebellion, but in 1668 Basire republished and enlarged 'a piece,' he says, 'which had been rough cast inter tubam et tympanum ' (that is, during the siege of Oxford). In 1648 he wrote a short treatise in Latin entitled 'Diatriba de Antiqua Ecclesiarum Britannicarum Antiquitate,' which was published in 1656 at Bruges by Richard Watson, chaplain to Sir R. Browne, and also translated and published by him in English in 1661. In 1659 appeared a 'History of the English and Scotch Presbytery, written in French by an eminent divine [Isaac Basire] of the Reformed Church, and now Englished,' which reached a second edition in 1660. In 1670 Basire published a short 'Oratio Privata;' but the most interesting of his works is his 'Brief of the Life, Dignities, Benefactions, Principal Actions and Sufferings of the Bishop of Durham', which is appended to the sermon ('The Dead Man's real Speech') preached by Basire at the funeral of Bishop Cosin, 29 April 1672. The 'Brief' is a very racily written little biography, giving in the space of 100 pages all that is necessary to be known about Cosin. Many of Basire's manuscripts are extant in the Hunter collection of manuscripts in Durham Chapter Library. A complete list is printed in Rud's 'Catalogue of Durham Chapter MSS.' They include an itinerary of tours in France and Italy for 1647-8, and notes of journeys made in 1667-8. The manuscripts left by Basire in Transylvania do not appear to be among them.
[Life and Correspondence of Isaac Basire, by W. N. Darnell, rector of Stanhope, 1831; Basire's Works; Wood's Fasti (Bliss), i. 518, ii. 100, 387; Magyar Konyvszemle (September-December), 1883; Notes and Queries, 6th ser. xi. 147, 257; information kindly given by L. L. Kropf, Esq.]
BASIRE, ISAAC (1704–1768); BASIRE, JAMES (1730–1802); BASIRE, JAMES (1769–1822); BASIRE, JAMES (1796–1869), represent four generations of a
family more or less known as engravers; but as three of the four men who practised their art bore the same Christian name, and as longevity allowed the life and work of one to overlap that of another or of the rest in a remarkable manner, it is with the utmost difficulty that the student traces their careers, and it is better to recognise frankly the impossibility of assigning with assurance to each member of the family his proper share in labour or reputation. Besides, there can be no doubt that more than once, in the long toil upon the copper-plate, a son was of assistance to a father, while his assistance was unrecognised and unacknowledged. But, broadly speaking, it may be said that the only Basire with whom the world of art will in the future much concern itself is that James Basire who was born on 6 Oct. 1730, and round his name and our imperfect record of his work the other members of his family who practised engraving may conveniently group themselves. For the James Basire of whom we speak the son of Isaac, the father of a second James, and the grandfather of a third James was the substantial master of his craft; he can hardly be assumed to have acquired from his father that measure of excellence with which he practised it, nor did he pass on to either his son or his
