Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/220

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Chetwood
212
Chetwynd

Chetwood disputes with B. Victor the authorship of ‘The Voyages of Captain R. Boyle,’ 1728, 8vo, reprinted 1787, 1797, 1804, and translated into French, and wrote ‘The Voyages of Captain R. Falconer,’ 12mo, 1724, and ‘The Voyages, Travels, and Adventures of Captain W. O. G. Vaughan, with the History of his brother, Jonathan, six years a Slave in Tunis,’ London, 1736, 12mo, 1760, 12mo. While in Dublin he gave to the world ‘Kilkenny, or the Old Man's Wish. By W. R. Chetwood. Printed for the Author,’ 1748, 4to. This is a very flaccid poem in the taste of the day, wishing for modest possessions conducive to comfort and health. It is curious as addressing Ambrose Phillips as ‘O awful Phillips,’ and contrasting him to his advantage with Pope. Neither Lowndes nor the ‘British Museum Catalogue’ mentions five new novels, viz.: 1. ‘The Twins; or The Female Traveller.’ 2. ‘The Stepmother; or Good Luck at last.’ 3. ‘The Inhuman Uncle; or The Repentant Villains.’ 4. ‘The Virgin Widow.’ 5. ‘Adrastus and Olinda; or Love's Champion. Written by W. R. Chetwood, Prompter to Her Majesty's Company of Comedians at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane; and Author of Faulconer, Boyle, and Vaughan's Voyages, &c. London, printed and sold by W. Lewis in Russell Street, Covent Garden’ (here follow other booksellers), ‘and at the Author's Lodgings, the Golden Ball in May's Buildings, St. Martin's Lane,’ 1741. In spite of this address the preface, dated 20 Feb. 1740–1, says the work, like others of Chetwood's, was written in prison. Its stories, which are told in commonplace style, are probably from the Spanish. At the end of a list of subscribers, including Mrs. Clive twelve books (i.e. copies), Mr. Garrick, Mrs. Woffington twelve books, and others known in the theatres, some of whom took fifty copies, is the announcement: ‘Shortly will be published: 1. “The Illustrious Shepherdess.” 2. “The Banish'd Princess.” 3. “The Twin Brothers;” and 4. “The Prince of Albania. Written originally in Spanish by Don Juan Perez de Montalvan, and now first translated into English.”’ He edited in Dublin a small collection of English plays and editions of single plays by Shirley and Jonson, to which he supplied prefatory matter. The work which has incurred the strongest condemnation is ‘The British Theatre. Containing the Lives of the English Dramatic Poets, with an Account of all their Plays,’ &c., Dublin, 12mo, 1750. It is indeed a pitiful compilation, in favour of which it can only be urged that it was written and published by Chetwood while in prison with little hope of escape.

[Works mentioned; Hitchcock's Irish Stage; Genest's Account of the English Stage; Baker, Reed, and Jones's Biographia Dramatica; Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual, &c.; Reed's Notitia Dramatica (MS.)]

J. K.


CHETWYND, EDWARD (1577–1639), divine, a native of Ingestre in Staffordshire, entered Exeter College, Oxford, in 1592, where he graduated B.A. in 1595, M.A. in 1598, and B.D. in 1606. He was chosen lecturer to the corporation of Abingdon in 1606, and in the following year lecturer to the corporation of Bristol. In 1613 he was appointed chaplain to Queen Anne. He took the degee of D.D. in 1616, and was appointed dean of Bristol in 1617. He also held the vicarages of Banwell in Somersetshire and Barclay in Gloucestershire. He published 'Concio ad Clerum pro gradu habita Oxoniae 19 Dec. 1607,' Oxford, 8vo, and some sermons. His son John is noticed below.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 641.]

J. M. R.


CHETWYND or CHETWIND, JOHN (1623–1692), divine, eldest son of Dr. Edward Chetwynd [q. v.] and Helena, daughter of Sir John Harington, was born at Banwell, Somersetshire, on 4 Jan. 1623. At the age of fifteen he was admitted a commoner of Exeter College, Oxford, where he took the B.A. degree in 1642. On leaving the university he threw in his lot with the presbyterians, seemingly at the instigation of his uncle, John Harington. He took the covenant, and, returning to Oxford when the visitors appointed by parliament were sitting, received the M.A. degree in October 1648. He then became a joint-pastor for the parish of St. Cuthbert in Wells, and while thus employed published in 1653, in addition to two or three sermons, a book written by his maternal grandfather, and entitled ‘A Briefe View of the Church of England in Queen Elizabeth's and King James's Reigne to the yeere 1608.’ This work, for which Chetwynd wrote a short introduction, is fairly described on the title-page as ‘a character and history of the bishops of those times, and may serve as an additional supply to Doctor Goodwin’s catalogue of bishops: written for the private use of Prince Henry upon the occasion of that proverb—

Henry viii pull'd down monks and their cells.
Henry ix should pull down bishops and their bells.’

At the Restoration Chetwynd saw fit to change his theological views, and after taking orders was appointed vicar of Temple in Bristol. He was also presented to a public lectureship in the same city, and later became a