Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/139

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[Davies Gilbert's Parochial History of Cornwall, passim; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. i. 204, iii. 1215; Egerton MS. 1140; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1634–9; Patent No. 85.]

HALSWORTH or HOLDSWORTH, DANIEL, D.D., LL.D. (1558?–1595?), classical scholar, born in Yorkshire in or about 1558, arrived from England at the English College of Douay, then temporarily removed to Rheims, on 22 June 1580, and was sent in the same year with a number of other students to the English College at Rome, into which he was admitted on 9 Sept. He was ordained priest by Thomas Goldwell [q. v.], bishop of St. Asaph in the reign of Queen Mary, in October 1583. He remained in the college till September 1586, and was one of those who petitioned for the retention of the Society of Jesus in the management of the college. When he left he was sent with others to collect alms for the Rheims college, and it was intended that he should afterwards proceed to the English mission, but, with the consent of Cardinal Allen, he remained in Italy to continue his studies in one of the universities of that country, where he was created a doctor of the canon and civil laws and of divinity. Pits, who had been his fellow-student in the English College at Rome, extols him highly for his learning. He distinguished himself in oratory, poetry, philosophy, and mathematics, and in his knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. For some years he lived at the court of his patron, the Duke of Savoy, and afterwards was appointed theologian to St. Charles Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, with whom he resided both at Rome and Milan. On 22 Sept. 1591 he visited the hospice attached to the English College at Rome, and made a stay of five days. In the ‘Pilgrim-Book’ he is described as of Salop (Foley, Records, vi. 564). He died at Rome about 1595.

He was author of: 1. ‘Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, e Latino in Græcum Idioma versibus translata. Authore Dan. Alsvorto, Anglo,’ Turin, 1591, 8vo. The dedication to Cardinal Allen contains some curious remarks on the state of England. 2. ‘Avli Licinii Archiæ Poetæ tantopere à Cicerone celebrati Epigrammata. … A Daniele Alsuorto Anglo Latinis versibus fidelissime reddita,’ Rome, 1596, 8vo, dedicated to Cardinal Henry Cajetan, protector of the English nation. Reprinted in vol. ii. of ‘M. T. Ciceronis Orationum Commentaria Selecta virorum Germaniæ, Italiæ, et Galliæ, notis, scholiis, et annotationibus illustrata,’ Cologne, 1685, 8vo. 3. Several other works, both in prose and verse, which were never printed.

[Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 90; Douay Diaries pp. 167, 168, 375; Foley's Records, vi. 116, 143, 507; Gillow's Bibl. Dict. of the English Catholics, iii. 103; Knox's Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, p. 291; Pits, De Angliæ Scriptoribus, p. 794; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 372.]

HALTON, IMMANUEL (1628–1699), astronomer, born at Greystoke in Cumberland on 21 April 1628, was the eldest son of Miles Halton of Greenthwaite Hall, where the family had resided from the time of Richard II. Timothy Halton [q. v.] was probably a younger brother. Halton was educated at Blencowe grammar school in Cumberland, became a student at Gray's Inn, and thence entered the service of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel. He transacted on his behalf affairs of importance in Holland, and on his return to England accepted and kept for twenty years the post of auditor of his household, involving onerous duties connected with commissions and arbitrations. In 1660 the successor of his patron made him a grant of part of the manor of Shirland in Derbyshire; he came to reside at Wingfield Manor in the same county early in 1666, and purchased some of the adjacent lands from the sixth Duke of Norfolk on 28 May 1678. Having heard of Flamsteed's astronomical proficiency, Halton called to see him at Derby during the Lenten assizes of 1666, and afterwards sent him Riccioli's 'New Almagest,' Kepler's 'Rudolphine Tables,' and other books on astronomy (Baily, Account of Flamsteed, p. 21). 'He was a person,' Flamsteed says (ib. p. 26), 'of great humanity and judgment, a good algebraist, and endeavoured to draw me into the study of algebra by proposing little problems to me.' Halton's observations at Wingfield on the solar eclipse of 23 June 1675 were communicated to the Royal Society by Flamsteed, who styled him 'amicus meus singularis' (Phil. Trans. xi. 664). In a letter to Collins of 20 Feb. 1673 Flamsteed mentioned that Halton was then translating Kinkhuysen's 'Moon-Wiser' into English, 'that I may have a view of it' (Rigaud, Correspondence of Scientific Men, ii. 160). A little later he speaks of observing with his quadrants, and on 27 Dec. 1673 told Collins that 'lately, in discourse with Mr. Halton, he was pleased to show me a straight-lined projection for finding the hour by inspection, the sun's declination and height being given' (ib. p. 171). Some of the sun-dials put up by him are still to be seen at Wingfield Manor; and a letter written from Gray's Inn in May 1650, describing a dial of his own invention, was published in the appendix to Samuel Foster's 'Miscellanea,' London, 1659. He married