had meant for Elmsley at Oxford, for Person and Dobree at Cambridge. With the later and more literary school of Sir Richard Jebb in England and von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff in Germany he had small sympathy. Verbal criticism and the discovery of corrupt passages mainly occupied him, and his fertile and venturesome habit of emendation exposed his work to disparagement (N. Wecklein in Berliner philologische Wochenschrift, 28 Jahrgang, 1908, No. 20). Yet not a few of his emendations have been approved by later editors (S. G. Owen in Bursian's Jahresbericht uber die Fortschritte der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 1909; Biographisches Jb. pp. 37 ff.) His own views on the editing of classical texts will be found in the introduction to his ‘Sophocles,’ vol. i., and in the preface to ‘The Philoctetes of Sophocles,’ 1870. The University of Dublin made him hon. LL.D. on 6 July 1892; he was also a Ph.D. of Budapest, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Letters at Athens.
Blaydes made a hobby of homœopathy and delighted in music, being an accomplished singer and naming his third son, George Frederick Handel, after the composer. To St. Paul's school, where his eldest son was a pupil, he was a munificent benefactor. In 1901 he presented to it the greater part of his classical library, amounting to 1300 volumes, with many framed engravings, principally of Italian scenery, now hung in the dining hall. In following years he gave many specimens of marble from the Mediterranean basin, together with more pictures, books, and a large collection of curios. The ample fortune which his first wife brought him he spent to the amount of 30,000l. on his studies, collections, and the printing of his books.
Blaydes married firstly, in 1843, Fanny Maria, eldest daughter and eventually (on the death in 1874 of her only brother, Sir Edward Henry Page-Turner, 6th baronet) one of the coheiresses of Sir Edward George Thomas Page-Turner, of Ambrosden, Oxfordshire, and Battlesden, Bedfordshire; she was killed in a carriage accident, 21 Aug. 1884, leaving issue three sons and four daughters. Blaydes' second wife was Emma, daughter of Mr. H. R. Nichols.
Blaydes' principal publications were:
- ‘Aristophanis Aves,’ 1842.
- ‘Aristophanis Acharnenses,’ 1845.
- ‘Sophocles,’ 1859 (vol. i. of the ‘Bibliotheca classica’ edition).
- The ‘Philoctetes,’ ‘Trachiniæ,’ ‘Electra,’ and ‘Ajax’ of Sophocles, 1870–5.
- ‘Aristophanis quatuor fabulæ,’ a collection subdated 1873–8.
- ‘Aristophanis comici quæ supersunt opera,’ 1886.
- ‘Aristophanis comœdiæ’—his best work; in 12 pts. dated 1882–1893.
- Nine sets of ‘Adversaria’ on various authors, 1890–1903.
- ‘Æschyli Agamemnon,’ 1898; ‘Choephoroi,’ 1899; ‘Eumenides,’ 1900.
- ‘Spicilegium Aristophaneum,’ 1902; ‘Spicilegium Tragicum,’ 1902; ‘Spicilegium Sophocleum,’ 1903.
- ‘Sophoclis Œdipus Rex,’ 1904; ‘Œdipus Coloneus,’ 1904; ‘Antigone,’ 1905; ‘Electra,’ 1906; ‘Ajax,’ 1908; ‘Philoctetes,’ 1908.
- ‘Analecta Comica Græca,’ 1905; ‘Analecta Tragica Græca,’ 1906.
- ‘Miscellanea Critica,’ 1907.
[The Pauline, No. 170, pp. 172 ff. (with portrait); Oxford Magazine, 29 Oct. 1908; private information; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]
BLENNERHASSETT, Sir ROWLAND, fourth baronet (1839–1909), political writer, born at Blennerville, co. Kerry, on 5 Sept. 1839, was only son of Sir Arthur Blennerhassett, third baronet (1794-1849), whose ancestors had settled in Kerry under Queen Elizabeth, by his wife Sarah, daughter of John Mahony. An only sister, Rosanna (d. 1907), became a sister of the Red Cross, and described her arduous labours in South Africa in 'Adventures in Mashonaland' (with L. Gleeman, 1893). Both parents were Roman catholics. Rowland succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father in 1849. After being educated first at Downside, under the Benedictines, and then at Stonyhurst, under the Jesuits, he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, but left without a degree for the University of Louvain. There he took a doctor's degree in political and administrative science, 'with special distinction.' He afterwards, in 1864, studied at Munich, where he formed a lifelong friendship with Dollinger. Finally he proceeded to Berlin, where he became acquainted with many leading politicians, including Prince Bismarck. A frequent visitor to France in later years, he came to know the chief men of all parties under the second empire.
About 1862 Blennerhassett became intimate with Sir John Dalberg (afterwards Lord) Acton [q. v. Suppl. II], with whose stand against later developments of ultramontanism he had a strong sympathy. The discontinuance by Acton in December 1863 of the 'Home and Foreign Review,' a Roman catholic organ of liberal tendencies, suggested the possibility of establishing a journal the main objects of which should be political and literary; and Blennerhassett
