afterwards on Stuart's foundation—at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, but left the university without graduating to join a theatrical company. After having had considerable provincial experience as a comedian, he made his first appearance at Drury Lane in 1806 in the character of Jaques in ‘As you like it.’ He is said to have been a ‘respectable rather than a great actor’ (Biog. Dram.), but the former epithet is inapplicable to his domestic life. He died 11 April 1816, leaving a large family of doubtful legitimacy. As a writer he was industrious and versatile. He was the author of two poems, ‘A Friend to Old England,’ 4to, 1793, and ‘The Two Bills’ (a political piece), 4to, 1796, and of some ‘Observations made at Paris during the Peace,’ 8vo, 1803, but his reputation rests upon his dramatic pieces, some of which are not without merit. Included among them are the following: 1. ‘The Dreamer Awake’ (farce), 8vo, 1791. 2. ‘Maid of Normandy’ (tragedy), 8vo, 1793. 3. ‘Consequences’ (comedy), 8vo, 1794. 4. ‘The Fatal Sisters’ (dramatic reading), 8vo, 1797. 5. ‘The Discarded Secretary’ (historical), 8vo, 1799. 6. ‘The Tears of Britain, or Funeral of Lord Nelson’ (dramatic sketch), 8vo, 1805. 7. ‘Vintagers’ (melodramatic reading), 8vo, 1809. 8. ‘High Life in the City’ (comedy), 1810. 9. ‘The Lady of the Lake’ (Sir W. Scott's poem dramatised) (melodrama), 1811. 10. ‘Look at Home,’ 1812.
[Biog. Dram. ed. 1812, i. 223, 781; Biog. Dict. of Living Authors (1816), p. 111; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vi. 414; Genest's Hist. of the Stage, viii. 202; Robinson's Reg. of Merchant Taylors' School, ii. 143.]
EYRE, Sir GILES (d. 1695), judge, eldest son of Giles Eyre of Brickworth, Whiteparish, Wiltshire, M.P. for Downton in that county in 1660, by Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Norton of Rotherfield, Hampshire, entered Lincoln's Inn in October 1654, and was called to the bar in November 1661. He held the office of deputy-recorder to the mayor and corporation of Salisbury in 1675, and actively exerted himself in procuring the new charter granted to the town in that year, receiving a tankard of the value of 10l. in recognition of his services. He was subsequently appointed recorder, and continued to hold office until 13 Oct. 1684, when the charters of the corporation were surrendered. He was, however, reinstated on the renewal of the charters on 27 Oct. 1686. He represented Salisbury in the Convention parliament of 1688–9, and spoke in favour of the retention of the word ‘abdicated’ in the resolution declaring the throne vacant in the conference with the House of Lords, and supported the bill declaring the convention a regular parliament. On 4 May 1689 he was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law. The motto inscribed on the rings given, according to custom, by the newly called serjeants was appropriate to the occasion, being ‘veniendo restituit rem.’ He was at once created a justice of the king's bench. On 31 Oct. 1689 he was knighted. He died on 2 June 1695, and on the 12th was buried in the church of Whiteparish, Wiltshire. Eyre married twice. His first wife, Dorothy, daughter of John Ryves of Branston, Dorsetshire, died in 1677, and was also buried in Whiteparish church. His second wife, Christabella (surname unknown), survived him and married Lord Glasford, a needy Scotch papist, who was committed to the Fleet prison for debt in 1699, his wife having deserted him, though worth, according to Luttrell (iv. 549), 10,000l., and having taken all her property with her.
[Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, v. Frustfield Hundred, p. 56; Lists of Members of Parliament (official return of); Parl. Hist. v. 107, 129; Luttrell's Relation of State Affairs, i. 529, 598, iii. 481; Foss's Lives of the Judges.]
EYRE, Sir JAMES (1734–1799), judge, was son of the Rev. Thomas Eyre of Wells, Somersetshire, prebendary of Salisbury from 1733 till his death in 1753. Hoare (Modern Wiltshire, Frustfield Hundred, p. 60) connects him with the Wiltshire family of Eyre. Another son, Thomas, B.C.L., of St. John's College, Oxford, 1754, and D.C.L. 1759, prebendary and treasurer of Wells, and prebendary of Salisbury, died on 26 March 1812, aged 81. James, baptised at Wells on 13 Sept. 1734, became a scholar of Winchester in 1747 (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, p. 248), matriculated at St. John's College, Oxford, on 27 Oct. 1749, but did not take a degree (Foster, Alumni Oxon.) He entered Lincoln's Inn in November 1753, being described in the register as the son of ‘Mr. Chancellor Eyre.’ having two years later transferred his name to Gray's Inn, he was called to the bar there in 1755, became bencher in 1763 and treasurer in 1766. He purchased the place of counsel to the corporation of London, and pleaded for some years; chiefly in the lord mayor's and sheriff's courts. He was appointed deputy-recorder in February 1761, and recorder in April 1763, in succession to Sir William Moreton. He was one of Wilkes's counsel in the action of Wilkes v. Wood, tried on 6 Dec. 1763. The defendant being under-secretary of state had, in pursuance of a general warrant signed by his chief, Lord Halifax, entered and searched Wilkes's house for evidence establishing his authorship of the celebrated No. 45 of the ‘North Briton.’ Eyre made an elaborate speech, which is
