that the king would recover, and insisted that the patient should be more gently treated and allowed greater freedom than heretofore (Grenville, Buckingham Papers, ii. 35; Jesse, iii. 92). He soon became popular at court. Mme. D'Arblay describes him as ‘a man of ten thousand; open, honest, dauntless, light-hearted, innocent, and high-minded’ (Diary, 1892, iii. 127); while Hannah More calls him ‘the very image of simplicity, quite a good, plain, old-fashioned country parson’ (Memoirs, ii. 144).
After the king's recovery in 1789 Willis returned to his private practice, but his reputation now stood so high that he was obliged to build a second house at Shillingthorpe, near Gretford, in order to accommodate the large number of patients who wished to be attended by him. He died on 5 Dec. 1807, and was buried at Gretford, where a monument to his memory was erected by his surviving sons. His first wife died on 17 April 1797, and not long before his death he married Mrs. Storer, who survived him.
Willis had five sons by his first wife; of these John (1751–1835), with his father, attended George III in 1788, and again in 1811 alone; Thomas (1754–1827) was prebendary of Rochester, rector of St. George's, Bloomsbury, and of Wateringbury, Kent; Richard (1755–1829) was admiral in the royal navy; and Robert Darling (1760–1821) became physician-in-ordinary to the the king, whom he attended during his second attack of madness, wrote ‘Philosophical Sketches of the Principles of Society and Government,’ London, 1795, 8vo, and was father of Robert Willis (1800–1875) [q. v.]
[Report from the Committee appointed to examine the Physicians who have attended his Majesty during his Illness touching the state of his Majesty's Health, London, 1788, 8vo, in A Collection of Tracts on the proposed Regency, 1789, 8vo, vol. i.; A Treatise on Mental Derangement, by Fra. Willis, M.D., 2nd edit., London, 1843, 8vo, p. 86; Wraxall's Memoirs, iii. 197; Jesse's Life and Reign of King George the Third, vol. iii. passim; Life of Charles Mayne Young, by his son, i. 343–50; inscription on the monument in Gretford church; private information.]
WILLIS, HENRY BRITTAN (1810–1884), painter, was born in 1810 at Bristol, the son of a drawing-master in that city. He practised for a time in Bristol with little success, and then went to the United States, but after a brief stay was compelled by ill-health to return. In 1843 he settled in London, and gained a considerable reputation as a painter of cattle and landscapes. He frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy, British Institution, and Suffolk Street Gallery from 1844 to 1862, and from 1851 to 1857 was a member of the ‘Free Exhibitions’ Society. In 1862 he was elected an associate of the ‘Old Watercolour’ Society, and thenceforth was a constant contributor to its exhibitions; in 1863 he became a full member. Willis painted in an attractive manner various picturesque localities in Great Britain, introducing finely composed groups of cattle. His ‘Highland Cattle,’ painted in 1866, was acquired by Queen Victoria, and his ‘Ben Cruachan Cattle coming South’ was at the Paris Exhibition of 1867. Four of his compositions were engraved in the ‘Art Union Annual,’ 1847. He died at Kensington on 17 Jan. 1884, and was buried in the cemetery at Hanwell.
[Roget's Hist. of the ‘Old Watercolour’ Soc.; Athenæum, 1884; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Armstrong.]
WILLIS, JOHN (d. 1628?), stenographer and mnemonician, graduated B.A. from Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1592–3, M.A. in 1596, and B.D. in 1603. On 12 June 1601 he was admitted to the rectory of St. Mary Bothaw, Dowgate Hill, London, which he resigned in 1606 on being appointed rector of Bentley Parva, Essex. Probably he died in 1627 or 1628, as it is stated that the ‘Schoolemaster’ was completely fitted for the ninth edition of his ‘Stenography’ (1628) by ‘the aforesaid authour, a little before his death.’
Willis invented the first practical and rational scheme of modern shorthand founded on a strictly alphabetical basis. The earlier systems devised by Timothy Bright (1588) and Peter Bales (1590) were utterly impracticable, and had no result, whereas Willis's method was published again and again, and was imitated and improved upon by succeeding authors.
The first work in which his system was explained appeared anonymously under the title of ‘The Art of Stenographie, teaching by plaine and certaine rules, to the capacitie of the meanest, and for the vse of all professions, the way to Compendious Writing. Wherevnto is annexed a very easie direction for Steganógraphie, or secret writing,’ London, 1602, 16mo. The only copies known to exist are in the British Museum and the Bodleian Libraries. The fifth edition is entitled ‘The Art of Stenographie, or Short Writing by spelling characterie,’ London, 1617. A Latin version, ‘Stenographia, sive Ars compendiose Scribendi,’ was published at London in 1618. The sixth edition of the English work
