Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/299

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cal and classical allusions in the play in ‘The History of Saguntum,’ 8vo, London, 1727, in which he is also at pains to prove the dramatist's superiority over Silius Italicus, from whose ‘Punica’ the plot is partly derived. Another lugubrious tragedy in blank verse, ‘Philotas,’ 8vo, London, 1731 (another edition, 12mo, London, 1735), brought out at Lincoln's Inn Fields on 3 Feb. 1730–1, with Quin again in the cast, met with an even colder reception, though it was suffered to run for six nights (ib. iii. 310–11). Fielding has introduced an ironical encomium on ‘Philotas’ in ‘Joseph Andrews.’ Frowde died unmarried at his lodgings in Cecil Street, Strand, in December 1738, and was buried in the cemetery in Lamb's Conduit Fields (London Daily Post, 22 and 28 Dec. 1738; Admon. Act Book, P. C. C. 1739). His portrait, by T. Murray, painted in 1732, was engraved by Faber in 1738 (Noble, Continuation of Granger, iii. 307–8).

[Baker's Biog. Dram. 1812, i. 257–8, ii. 217, iii. 146; Hist. Reg. vol. xxiii.; Chron. Diary, p. 49; Luttrell's Relation of State Affairs, 1857, i. 521, ii. 158, iv. 199; Will of Sir P. Frowde (P. C. C. 99 and 127, Bunce); Chester's London Marriage Licenses (Foster), col. 517.]

G. G.

FROWYK, Sir THOMAS (d. 1506), judge, a member of an important family of citizens of London, among whom king's goldsmiths, aldermen, and mayors are to be found (see Price, Guildhall of the City of London, 1886), was second son of Sir Thomas Frowyk of Gunnersbury, by his wife Joan, daughter and heiress of Richard and Joan Sturgeon. Born at Gunnersbury at least as early as November 1464, when he is mentioned by name in the will of his grandmother, Isabella Frowyk, he received his education at Cambridge. As Fuller (Worthies, ed. 1662, p. 183) says that he died before he was forty years old, which is confirmed by a statement in Croke's ‘Keilwey's Reports’ (ed. 1688, p. 85) that he died ‘in florida juventute sua,’ he must have joined the bar at a very early age, as his name occurs in the year-books of 1489. He was a member of the Inner Temple, and became serjeant in Trinity term 1494, according to the year-book. Dugdale, however, makes this event two years later. In May 1501 he was appointed a judge of assize in the western counties. In 1502, along with Mr. Justice Fisher and Conyngsbye, king's serjeant, he acted as arbitrator between the university and town of Cambridge, and by his award, 11 July, defined their respective jurisdictions. On 30 Sept. 1502 he succeeded Sir Thomas Wood as chief justice of the common pleas, and was knighted at Richmond the Christmas following. On 17 Oct. 1506 he died, and was buried at Finchley. According to Fuller, who says that he was ‘one of the youngest men that ever enjoyed that office,’ he was ‘accounted the oracle of law in his age.’ By his first wife, Joan Bardville, he had one son, Thomas (d.s.p.); his second wife, Elizabeth, married after his death Thomas Jakys; Frideswide, Frowyk's daughter and heiress by her, married Sir Thomas Cheyney of Shirland.

[Foss's Judges of England; Dugdale's Chron. Ser.; Cass's South Mimms, p. 99, London and Middlesex Archæolog. Soc. 1877, which corrects Foss; the Society's Transactions, iv. 260; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 10; Weever's Monuments, p. 333; Plumpton Correspondence, Camd. Soc. pp. 152, 165; Bibl. Legum Angliæ, ii. 192; Rot. Parl. vi. 522; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 332.]

J. A. H.

FRY, EDMUND, M.D. (1754–1835), type-founder, son of Joseph Fry (1728–1787) [q. v.], was born at Bristol in 1754. He studied medicine; took the degree of M.D. at Edinburgh, and spent some time at St. George's Hospital, London. In 1782 his father admitted his two sons, Edmund and Henry, as partners in the type-foundry business in Queen Street, London. The father retired in 1787, when the new firm, Edmund Fry & Co., issued their first ‘Specimen of Printing Types,’ followed the next year by an enlarged edition. Several founts of the oriental type, which fill twelve pages, were cut by Fry. In 1788 the printing business was separated from the foundry, and remained at Worship Street as the ‘Cicero Press,’ under the management of Henry Fry. The foundry was removed to a place opposite Bunhill Fields in Chiswell Street, and new works erected in a street then called Type Street. Homer's series of the classics (1789–1794), printed by Millar Ritchie, were from the characters of the Type Street foundry. In 1793 ‘Edmund Fry & Co., letter founders to the Prince of Wales,’ produced a ‘Specimen of Metal-cast Ornaments curiously adjusted to paper,’ which gained vogue among printers. The next year Fry took Isaac Steele into partnership, and published a ‘Specimen’ which ‘shows a marked advance on its predecessors’ (T. B. Reed, Old English Letter Foundries, p. 306). In 1798 he circulated a ‘Prospectus’ of the great work on which he had been occupied for sixteen years, published as ‘Pantographia, containing accurate Copies of all the known Alphabets of the World, together with an English explanation of the peculiar Force and Power of each Letter, to which are added Specimens of all well-authenticated