RHODES, HUGH (fl. 1550), author of the ‘Book of Nurture,’ ‘born and bred in’ Devonshire, was a gentleman of the king's chapel. For the benefit of the children of the chapel he prepared his ‘Boke of Nurture, or Schoole of good Maners. For Men, Servants, and Children, with Stans puer ad mensam.’ This was printed by Thomas Petit, probably about 1550. There is a copy (imperfect) in the Bodleian Library. It deals with (1) ‘The Duties of Parents and Masters; (2) The Manner of serving a Knight, Squire, or Gentleman; (3) How to order your Mayster's Chamber at night to bed-warde; (4) The Book of Nurture and Schoole of good Manners for Man and for Chylde; (5) For the Wayting Servant; (6) The Rule of Honest Living.’ A new edition is dated in 1577, and this edition was reprinted in 1868 for the Early English Text Society by Dr. F. J. Furnivall.
Rhodes was also author of ‘The Song of the Chyld-byshop, as it was songe before the Queenis Majestie in her privie Chamber at her manour of Saynt James in the Feildis on Saynt Nicholas Day and Innocents Day this year nowe present, by the Chyld-byshope of Paules Churche with his Company’ (1555) (Warton, ed. Hazlitt, 1871, iv. 237). This poem consists of thirty-six octave stanzas and is a fulsome panegyric on Queen Mary.
[Preface to the Early English Text Society's reprint of the Boke of Nurture in the Babees Book, edited by F. J. Furnivall, 1868.]
RHODES, JOHN N. (1809–1842), painter, only son of Joseph Rhodes, was born at Leeds in 1809. His father practised as a painter at Leeds for nearly half a century, and died there in 1854. John, after studying art under his father, exhibited eight pictures between 1839 and 1842 at the Royal Academy, British Institution, and the Suffolk Street Gallery. The subjects were rustic scenes and groups of cattle. He resided for many years in London, but returned to Leeds, owing to ill-health, a few months before his death on 3 Dec. 1842.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists; Leeds Mercury, 10 Dec. 1842.]
RHODES, RICHARD (d. 1668), poet and dramatist, son of a gentleman in London, received his education at Westminster School, whence he was elected to a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on 31 July 1658. When he went to the university he was already ‘well grounded in grammar and in the practical part of music.’ He graduated B.A. on 22 March 1661–2. Wood heard that he afterwards took a degree in physic at Montpelier. Subsequently he travelled in Spain, and died at Madrid in 1668.
He was the author of ‘Flora's Vagaries;’ a comedy, publicly acted by the students of Christ Church in their common refectory on 8 Jan. 1663–4, and in London at the Theatre Royal by his majesty's servants, the part of Flora being taken by ‘Mrs. Ellen Gwin.’ It was published anonymously at London in 1670, and again in 1677, 4to.
Rhodes is mentioned by Wood as one of the sixteen persons who, like himself, frequented the weekly meetings at the house of Mr. Ellis for the cultivation of the ‘delightful facultie of musick,’ and he is described as ‘a junior student of Christ Church, a confident Westmonasterian, a violinist to hold between his knees.’ His name is also handed down in the second part of an anonymous ‘Session of the Poets’ (stanza xli.):
Rhodes stood and play'd bo-peep in the door,
But Apollo, instead of a Spanish plot,
On condition the varlet would never write more,
Gave him three pence to pay for a pipe and a pot.
[Baker's Biogr. Dram. 1812, i. 598, ii. 242; Dryden's Miscellany-Poems, ii. 93; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Welch's Alumni Westmon. (Phillimore); Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), vol. i. p. xxxv, vol. iii. 819, Fasti, ii. 248.]
RHODES, RICHARD (1765–1838), engraver, born in 1765, produced chiefly small line-engravings for illustrated books, in the style rendered popular towards the close of the last century by James Heath [q. v.], and continued by Charles Heath, to whom Rhodes was principal assistant for many years. He engraved plates after Fuseli in Woodmason's ‘Shakespeare,’ 1794, and in Cowper's ‘Poems,’ 1806; ‘Timon of Athens,’ after Howard, in Boydell's ‘Shakespeare,’ 1802; some plates in ‘Ancient Terra-cottas in the British Museum,’ 1810; numerous illustrations to Tegg's ‘Shakespeare,’ after Thurston, 1812–13; some of Stothard's designs for Byron's ‘Poems,’ 1814; eleven plates for Somerville's ‘Poems,’ 1815; several plates after Westall and others for Sharpe's ‘Poets,’ 1816–17; and a portrait of Henry Mackenzie, author of ‘The Man of Feeling,’ after Geddes. A number of proofs of Rhodes's engravings are in the print-room at the British Museum. He worked skilfully in a style which gave little scope for the individuality of an artist. He died at Camden Town on 1 Nov. 1838.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]
