& passed in his troublesome travailes in the Citties of Jerusalem, Dammasko, Bethelem & Gallely; and in the Landes of Jewrie, Egipt, Grecia, Russia, & in the Land of Prester John. Wherein is set foorth his extreame slaverie sustained many yeres togither, in the Gallies & wars of the great Turk against the Landes of Persia, Tartaria, Spaine, and Portugall, with the manner of his releasement, and comming into Englande in May last. London. Printed by Ralph Blower, for Thomas Pavier,’ 4to. There is no date on the title-page, nor on the title-page of a reprint ‘printed by A. J. for William Barley, dwelling in Gratious Streete, neere leaden hall,’ which has six woodcuts. But the second edition, ‘Newly enlarged and corrected by the Author. Printed for William Wright,’ is dated 1590. The first woodcut is altered from that of the previous edition, and some slight corrections made in the text. The tract has been reprinted by Professor Arber (London, 1868) among his ‘English Reprints,’ with a careful introductory ‘chronicle’ of Webbe's life, so far as it can be disentangled from the confused and sometimes contradictory details of his narrative. Mr. Arber's investigation establishes the bonâ fide character of Webbe's story as a whole, while it shows that his memory as regards dates was not accurate. The tract gives a vivid picture of the courage and constancy of the Elizabethan Englishman.
Nothing further is known of Webbe's life, but possibly he is the Edward Webbe who paid a hundred pounds to the Virginia Company in 1620 (Brown, Genesis, U.S.A. ii. 1044).
[Edward Arber's edition in English Reprints contains all that is known of Webbe and his book.]
WEBBE, JOSEPH (fl. 1612–1626), grammarian and physician, was English by birth and Roman catholic in religion. He graduated M.D. and Ph.D. at some foreign university, perhaps Padua. In 1612 he published at Rome an astrological work entitled 'Minae Coalestes Affectus segrotantibus denunciantes, hoc anno 1612,' 8vo. Before 1622 he returned to England, and in 1623 was residing in the Old Bailey. He strongly advocated a colloquial method of teaching languages, proposing to extend it even to the classical tongues, and to substitute it for the pedantic manner of grammatical study in general use. In 1622 he published, in support of his views, 'An Appeale to Truth, in the Controuersie betweene Art and Vse' (London, 4to), which he supplemented in 1623 by 'A Petition to the High Court of Parliament, in the behalf of auncient and authentique Authors' (London, 4to), in which he says that his system has received encouragement from James I, and that he wishes to receive a monopoly of the right to teach by his method. John Gee [q. v.], in his 'Foot out of the Snare,' describes him in 1623 as residing 'in the Old Bayly,' where 'he pretendeth to teach a new gayne way to learne languages, and by this occasion may inveigle disciples.' His latest work, dedicated to Charles I, appeared in 1626, entitled 'Vsus et Authoritas' (London, 12mo), a treatise on hexameters and pentameters. Webbe was also the author of a translation of 'The Familiar Epistles of Cicero' (London, 12mo), undated, but probably published about 1620.
[Webbe's Works; Foley's Record of the English Province of the Soc. of Jesus, i. 683.]
WEBBE, SAMUEL (1740–1816), musical composer, the son of a government officer who died in Minorca about 1740, was born in England in 1740. Owing to poverty, his mother could do nothing better for her son than apprentice him at the age of eleven to a trade. His seven years of cabinet-making over, Webbe applied himself to the study of languages. His mother had died, and, to support himself, he copied music for a dealer, and thus attracted the notice of Barbandt, a musician, who thenceforward gave him lessons. Webbe soon adopted music as his profession. It is likely that he deputised for Barbandt at the chapels of the Portuguese and Bavarian embassies. In 1766 he won the first of his twenty-six prize medals from the Catch Club, of which he was a member from 1771. On the resignation of Warren Home in 1794 Webbe was appointed the club's secretary, and was actively employed in its interests until 1812 (preface to W. Linley's Requiem). On the establishment, in 1787, of the Glee Club, Webbe became the librarian, and he joined the Concentores Sodales soon after the formation of their society in 1798.
Webbe produced about three hundred glees, canons, catches, and part-songs, and upon this work his fame chiefly rests. In the meantime he had become organist to the chapel of the Sardinian embassy near Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was announced in the Laity's Directory' of 1793 to give instrucion gratis every Friday evening at seven o'clock, 'to such young gentlemen as present themselves to learn the church music.' Among his pupils and choir-boys were John Danby [q. v.], Charles Knyvett the younger [see under Knyvett, Charles],
