appeared in 1623, the seventh in 1623 (not 1628, as given in some lists), the eighth in 1623, the ninth in 1628, the tenth in 1632, the eleventh in 1636, the thirteenth in 1644, and the fourteenth in 1647. Willis also wrote ‘The Schoolemaster to the Art of Stenography, explaining the rules and teaching the practise thereof to the understanding of the meanest capacity,’ London, 1623, 16mo; 2nd edit. 1628; 3rd edit. 1647. This work is printed so as to be sold separately, or in conjunction with the later editions of ‘The Art of Stenography.’ Willis's shorthand alphabet, the first introduced into German literature, is given in ‘Deliciæ Philosophicæ,’ Nuremberg, 1653, iii. 53.
To students of mnemonics Willis is well known as the author of ‘Mnemonica; sive Ars Reminiscendi: e puris artis naturæque fontibus hausta, et in tres libros digesta, necnon de Memoria naturali fovenda libellus e variis doctissimorum operibus sedulo collectus,’ London, 1618, 8vo. The treatise ‘De Memoria naturali fovenda’ was reprinted in ‘Variorum de Arte Memoriæ Tractatus sex,’ Frankfort, 1678. The whole work was translated into English by Leonard Sowersby, a bookseller ‘at the Turn-Stile, near Newmarket, in Lincoln's Inn Fields,’ and printed at London, 1661, 8vo. This book develops many of the principles of the local memory in an apt and intelligible manner. Copious extracts from it are printed in Feinaigle's ‘New Art of Memory,’ 3rd edit. 1813, pp. 248–92.
[Cooper's Parliamentary Shorthand, p. 5; Gibbs's Historical Account of Compendious and Swift Writing, pp. 38, 43; Gibson's Bibl. of Shorthand, pp. 13, 237; Journalist, 11 March 1887; Levy's Hist. of Shorthand; Lewis's Hist. of Shorthand; Newcourt's Repertorium; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. ii. 306; Shorthand, ii. 160, 168, 176; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Zeibig's Geschwindschreibkunst.]
WILLIS, JOHN WALPOLE (1793–1877), justice of the king's bench, Upper Canada, born on 4 Jan. 1793, was the second son of William Willis (d. 1809), captain in the 13th light dragoons, by his wife Mary (d. 1831), only daughter and heiress of Robert Hamilton Smith of Lismore, co. Down. He entered Gray's Inn on 4 Nov. 1811, was called to the bar, and joined the northern circuit in 1817. Shortly afterwards his first published work, a book on the law of evidence, appeared. There came out in 1820 ‘Willis's Equity Pleading,’ for many years a standard work on the subject, and in 1827 a valuable treatise on the ‘Duties and Responsibilities of Trustees.’ The colonial office at this time intended to establish a court of equity in Upper Canada, and to make Willis its chief. As an interim appointment he received a puisne judgeship in the king's bench. On 18 Sept. 1827 he presented his warrant to the lieutenant-governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland [q. v.], but soon found that neither the governor nor the council, neither the assembly nor the bar, was disposed to assist him in organising a court of chancery. His chief opponent was (Sir) John Beverley Robinson [q. v.], afterwards chief justice, then attorney-general and practical leader of the government. There arose differences between the judge and the law officer as to the conduct of crown business which waxed keen with time, and were plainly expressed on both sides. The judge was evidently the more hasty, for within a year of his appointment he declined to sit in banco, and declared his reasons openly. They were that the act constituting the court directs that ‘a chief justice, with two puisne judges, shall preside’ in it; that the chief justice was absent from the province on leave, and not likely to return; and that, till his successor was instituted, the court could not legally sit in banco. The lieutenant-governor took no step to fill the vacancy, but at once amoved Willis under 22 George III, c. 75, and nominated Mr. Justice Hagerman in his place. Thereupon there was an appeal to the privy council on the ground that the amoval order was ‘unwarranted, illegal, and ought to be void.’ The assembly sided with the judge, chiefly because it was at that time struggling to make the executive responsible, and to change the tenure of judicial office from a holding ‘at pleasure’ to a holding ‘during good conduct;’ and in an address to the king it characterised the governor's action as ‘violent, precipitate, and unjustifiable.’ The excitement in the province grew more intense when it was known that no positive neglect of duty, no actual malfeasance in office, was or could be established against Willis. The imperial government, on report from the privy council, dismissed the appeal, confirmed the amotion order, and refused to reinstate the judge, as the assembly had requested. But on reconsideration afterwards the order of amotion was set aside, because the appellant had no opportunity of a hearing before the order was issued. Willis was then given a judicial appointment in Demerara, and afterwards in New South Wales (1841). He displeased the governor of this colony also, Sir George Gipps [q. v.]; and he was again amoved in 1842 without notice. Appeal proceedings lasted three years, but finally the order was quashed for the same reason as in the Upper Canada case. Arrears
