Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/309

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Felltham
303
Felltham

by these relics are Xanthus, Pinara, Patara, Tlos, Myra, and Olympus. In 1844 Fellows presented to the museum his portfolios, accounts of his expeditions, and specimens of natural history illustrative of Lycia.

In consequence of some misstatements which had appeared in print, Fellows in 1843 published a pamphlet entitled ‘The Xanthian Marbles, their Acquisition and Transmission to England.’ In translating and elucidating the inscriptions in the first of his journals he was assisted by James Yates; in those of the second by Daniel Sharpe, president of the Geological Society. On 7 May 1845 he was knighted by the queen at St. James's Palace, ‘as an acknowledgment of his services in the removal of the Xanthian antiquities to this country.’ In all the expeditions he paid his own expenses, and never at any time received any pecuniary reward from the nation. During the latter part of his life he resided in the Isle of Wight, occupying his time with agricultural pursuits. He died at 4 Montagu Place, Russell Square, London, 8 Nov. 1860. He married first, 25 Oct. 1845, Eliza, only daughter of Francis Hart of Nottingham; she died 3 Jan. 1847; and secondly, 22 June 1848, Harriet, widow of William Knight of Oaklands, Hertfordshire; she died 19 March 1874.

Besides the works already mentioned Fellows was the author of:

  1. ‘A Narrative of an Ascent to the Summit of Mont Blanc,’ 1827.
  2. ‘Lycia, Caria, Lydia, illustrated by G. Scharf, with descriptive letterpress by C. Fellows.’ Part i. 1847. No more published.
  3. ‘An Account of the Ionic Trophy Monument excavated at Xanthus,’ 1848.
  4. ‘Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, more particularly in the Province of Lycia,’ 1852.
  5. ‘Coins of ancient Lycia before the Reign of Alexander, with an Essay on the relative Dates of Lycian Monuments in the British Museum,’ 1855.

[Gent. Mag. January 1861, pp. 103–4; Encyclopædia Britannica (1879), ix. 67; C. Brown's Lives of Nottinghamshire Worthies (1882), pp. 352–3; W. Hawes's Narrative of an Ascent of Mont Blanc (1828), ed. by Sir B. Hawes; Journal of Royal Geogr. Soc. (1861), xxxi. pp. cxxii–iii.]

G. C. B.

FELLTHAM, OWEN (1602?–1668), author of ‘Resolves,’ was son of Thomas Felltham of Mutford in Suffolk, and of Mary, daughter of John Ufflete of Somerleyton in Suffolk. From a Latin epitaph in the church of Babraham, Cambridgeshire, written by Owen upon his father, and printed among his poems in the folio editions of the ‘Resolves,’ it appears that he was the second or third son (‘natu filium minorem’) of a family of three sons and three daughters, and that his father died in 1631, at the age of sixty-two. According to two pedigrees in the British Museum (Harleian MSS. 5861, f. 76, and 1169, f. 81), he married Mary, daughter of Clopton of Kentwell Hall, Melford, Suffolk. At the age of eighteen he published a first version of the ‘Resolves,’ a series of moral essays, by which he is chiefly known. For some time he seems to have associated in the capacity either of secretary or chaplain with the family of the Earl of Thomond, settled at Great Billing, Northamptonshire. The final editions of the ‘Resolves’ are dedicated to Mary, dowager countess of Thomond. ‘William Johnson, of the colledge of the Society of Jesus in Cadiz,’ told Felltham, in a letter dated December 1637 (printed at end of ‘Resolves,’ 8th edit.), that he had ‘amongst catholicks lost a great deal of credit’ by his sixteenth Resolve ‘of the choice of Religion,’ which stated reasons for preferring the Anglican to the Roman church. Felltham replied that he was not a scholar by profession. ‘My books have been my delight and recreation, but not my trade, though perhaps I could wish they had.’ In another letter, addressed ‘to the Lord C. J. R.’ (i.e. Chief-justice Richardson), Felltham describes himself as ‘being put upon a Tryal for vindicating the right of the Antient Inheritance of my Family, gained from me by a Verdict last Assizes, by what means I shall forbear to speak,’ and congratulates himself on having his case ‘heard before your Lordship.’ No record of the lawsuit has been discovered. Felltham's poems exhibit strong royalist sympathies. In the last lines of the ‘Epitaph to the Eternal Memory of Charles the First … Inhumanely murthered by a perfidious Party of His prevalent Subjects,’ he talks of the dead king as ‘Christ the Second.’ Felltham was well known to the literary men of his time. He replied to Ben Jonson's ode, ‘Come leave the loathèd stage’ (see Lusoria, No. xx.), and Langbaine preferred the ‘sharp Reply made by the ingenious Mr. Feltham’ to the answers of Thomas Carew and Sir John Suckling. Thomas Randolph, Jonson's adopted son, who wrote in Jonson's defence, was afterwards acquainted with Felltham, and penned a fine address ‘to Master Feltham on his book of Resolves,’ full of enthusiastic and eloquent praise. Felltham contributed to the ‘Annalia Dubrensia,’ 1636, and to ‘Jonsonus Virbius,’ published in Ben Jonson's memory in 1638. He died and was buried at Great Billing early in 1668. His will is characteristic. He describes himself as of Great Billing, where he desires to be buried, but deprecates more than 30l. being spent on his funeral. His brothers Robert and Thomas and several nephews and nieces are mentioned