in J. S. Courtney's ‘Guide to Penzance,’ 1845, app. pp. 75–91, appear a number of Alexander Daniel's letters to his relatives, and one religious poem extracted from the ‘Meditations.’
[Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. 103, 1146–7; Gent. Mag. 1826, pt. i. 130–2; Gilbert's Survey of Cornwall, ii. 90; J. S. Courtney's Guide to Penzance, 1845, app. Some mention of the Daniel family is made in the Bodleian Library Rawlinson MS. C 789; extracts have been printed in the Cornishman, 16 and 23 Jan. 1879.]
DANIEL, EDWARD, D.D. (d. 1657), catholic divine, was a native of Cornwall. He entered the English college at Douay on 28 Oct. 1618 under the name of Pickford. After studying philosophy and one year of divinity he was sent with nine other students to colonise the new college founded at Lisbon by Don Pedro Continho for the education of English secular priests. These youths reached their destination on 14 Nov. 1628, and on 22 Feb. 1628–9 the college was solemnly opened. He was created B.D. and D.D. in 1640, being the first recipient of that honour after the Portuguese government had granted to the college the privilege of conferring degrees. He was then permitted to leave for the English mission, but was recalled in June 1642 to be president of the college, an office which he filled with credit for six years. Subsequently he was invited to Douay, where he was appointed professor of divinity on 1 Oct. 1649, and vice-president under Dr. Hyde, after whose death in 1651 he governed the college as regent until Dr. Leyburn was nominated as president. He continued to be professor of divinity till 4 July 1653, when he came to England and supplied the place of dean of the chapter in the absence of Peter Fitton, then in Italy, and on Fitton's death in 1657 he was designated to succeed him as dean; but he also died in September the same year.
He was the author of: 1. ‘A Volume of Controversies,’ 1643–6; folio manuscript formerly in the possession of Dodd, the church historian. 2. ‘Meditations collected and ordered for the Use of the English College at Lisboe. By the Superiors of the same Colledge,’ 1649; Douay, 2nd edit. enlarged, with illustrated frontispiece. The date of the latter edition is curiously signified by the following chronogram: ‘La Vs Deo MarIæ, et SanCtIs eIVs—i.e. M 1000, D 500, C 100, L 50, two V's 10, three I's 3 = 1663’ (Gillow, Bibl. Dict. of the English Catholics, ii. 11).
[Authorities quoted above; also Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornubiensis, pp. 103, 1146; Oliver's Catholic Religion in Cornwall, pp. 282, 380; Husenbeth's English Colleges on the Continent, p. 21; Catholic Magazine and Review, v. 417, 483, 484, 541; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 294.]
DANIEL, GEORGE, of Beswick (1616–1657), cavalier poet, born at Beswick on 29 March 1616, was the second son of Sir Ingleby Daniel of Beswick, a chapelry and estate in the parish of Kilnwick, Yorkshire, East Riding, by his second wife, Frances, daughter and heiress of George Metham of Pollington, in the parish of Snaith. William Daniel, the eldest son, died unmarried, and was buried at St. Michael's, Ousebridge, Yorkshire, 4 May 1644; he had been baptised at Bishop-Burton, 19 March 1609–10. Between George and the third son, Thomas, afterwards Sir Thomas Daniel, captain in the foot-guards, there was the closest friendship. He was knighted 26 April 1662, became high sheriff of Yorkshire 1679, and was buried at London about 1682; a loyal gentleman, of courage and business capacity, while George seldom left his home and his books. George had two sisters, Katharine (who married John Yorke of Gowthwaite, and died in March 1643–4) and Elizabeth. Few memorials of George remain, except the handsome manuscript collection of his poems (some others were destroyed by a fire, and these were naturally accounted his best); carefully transcribed, perhaps by a copyist, and signed by the author. The folio volume is enriched with several oil-paintings, four being portraits of himself, one with hand interlocked in that of his brother Thomas. George is here seen at his best, thirty years old; plump, fresh-coloured, with waving locks of light-brown hair, blue eyes, and small moustache. In a later portrait, taken in 1649, he appears as a student in his library, sitting in furred robe and large fur cap. Daniel is verbose and artificial, his subjects remote from contemporary interest. After the king's death he lived in retirement, and he let his beard grow untrimmed in memory of 30 Jan. In his ‘A Vindication of Poesie’ he calls Ben Jonson ‘Of English Drammatickes the Prince,’ and he speaks slightingly of ‘comicke Shakespeare.’ On the death of the laureate in 1638, he wrote a panegyric ‘To the Memorie of the best Dramaticke English Poet, Ben Jonson.’ His ‘Occasional Poems’ and his ‘Scattered Fancies’ possess merit, and show a cultivated taste. They were completed respectively in 1645 and 1646. He complains of one hearer who fell asleep under his recitation, and says that he will in future prefer tobacco, the charm of which is also celebrated
