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Bernard
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Bernard

took place in London towards the close of 1828. A further selection, entitled 'Retrospections of the American Stage by John Bernard,' edited by Laurence Hutton and Brander Matthews, began in the June (1884) number of the 'Manhattan and New York Magazine,' but was discontinued after the appearance of three instalments. Some of the dates given in the introduction to this are different from those we supply. Our own dates are, however, accurate. Six chapters of American retrospections by John Bernard, selected by his son, also appear in Tallis's 'Dramatic Magazine,' 1860-1.

[Bernard's Retrospections of the Stage, 2 vols. 1830; Dunlop's History of the American Theatre; Genest's Account of the English Stage; Biographia Dramatica.]

J. K.


BERNARD, JOHN PETER (d. 1750), biographer, was the son of James Bernard, a French protestant minister, well known in his day as a man of letters. He received his education at Leyden, where he took degrees in arts and philosophy. In 1733 he was settled in London, and gaining a livelihood by preaching, giving lessons in literature and mathematics, and compiling for the booksellers. He is remembered by having contributed largely to the 'General Dictionary, Historical and Critical,' 10 vols, folio, London, 1734–41. Some idea of the share he had in this laborious undertaking may be gathered from his letters to the editor, Dr. Thomas Birch, preserved at the British Museum in the Additional (Birch) MS. 4301. Bernard died in the parish of St. Marylebone, Middlesex, 6 April 1760.

He had been admitted a fellow of the Royal Society in January 1737-8.

[MS. Addit.430],ff. 1-99; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, v. 287 n., Gent. Mag. xx. 188; Letters of Administration in P. C. C. granted 30 May 1760.]

G. G.


BERNARD, MOUNTAGUE (1820–1882), international lawyer, was descended from a Huguenot family which left France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and for several generations owned land at Montego Bay in Jamaica. He was the third son of Mr. Charles Bernard of Eden in that island, bv Margaret, daughter of Mr. John Baker of Waresley House, Worcestershire, and was born at Tibbert on Court, Gloucestershire, on 28 Jan. 1820. After passing through Sherborne school, he gained a scholarship at Trinity College, Oxford, where Professor Freeman. Sir R. Lingen, and the present bishop of St. David's, Dr. W. B. Jones, were scholars at the same time. In 1842 he took a first class in classics and a second in mathematics. He subsequently took the degree of bachelor of civil law, was elected to the Vinerian scholarship and fellowship, and in 1840, after studying in the chambers of Mr. Palmer, now Lord Selborne, with whom it was his fortune to be associated on several occasions in after life, was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. Few thoughtful minds at Oxford forty years ago escaped the influence, by way either of attraction or repulsion, of the high-church movement. Bernard's interest in ecclesiastical questions led him in 1846 to be one of those who founded the 'Guardian' newspaper, of which he is said to have been for some years the editor. He also found time for much historical reading, and for a wider study of legal systems than is usual for a practising lawyer. The Oxford University Commissioners of 1864 having founded a chair of international law and diplomacy out of the revenues of All Souls' College, Bernard in 1859 became its first holder. The appointment was in many ways a happy one. A new subject was introduced by a teacher of unquestioned authority; the academical study of law gained a zealous advocate, while the university acquired a wise counsellor and an indefatigable helper in the details of its administration. Bernard was appointed assessor, or judge, of the Chancellor's Court, and, as such, was instnmiental in assimilating its procedure, which had previously been that of the civilians, to the practice of the courts of common law. But the demand for his services was not confined to the precincts of the university. In 1866 he was secretary to the royal commission for investigating the nature of the cattle plague, and in 1868 was a member of the commission on naturalisation and allegiance, the report, of which led to the abandonment by Great Britain of the time-honoured, but now inconvenient rule, 'nemo potest exuere patriam.' In 1871 he went out to America as one of the high commissioners who eventually signed the treaty of Washington, and on his return was made a privy councillor, a member of the Judicial Committee of Council, and a D.C.L. He had been elected, a year or two previously, to a fellowship in All Souls' College. In 1872 he was sent to Geneva to assist Sir Roundell Palmer in presenting the British case to the tribunal of arbitration constituted in pursuance of the treaty. His public employments had become hardly compatible with his work at Oxford, and in 1874 he resigned his professorship and left the university. Henceforth he lived chiefly in London or with relations at Overross near Ross in Herefordshire, reappearing only from