-
land confuses Shirwood with William, archdeacon of Durham, whose benefactions were the beginning of University College, Oxford.
[Leland's Comment. de Scriptt. Brit.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. pp. 668–9; other authorities quoted.]
SHOBERL, FREDERIC (1775–1853), author, was born in London in 1775, and educated at the Moravian school at Fulneck, near Leeds. Having settled in London, he became, with Henry Colburn [q. v.], the originator and co-proprietor of the ‘New Monthly Magazine,’ which began on 1 Feb. 1814. For some time he acted as editor, and contributed original articles and reviews. He was long associated with Rudolph Ackermann [q. v.], whose ‘Repository of Arts’ he edited from the third to the seventy-second number (March 1809 to December 1828). He conducted Ackermann's English annual, ‘The Forget-me-not,’ from its first issue in November 1822 till its twelfth in 1834. He also edited Ackermann's ‘Juvenile Forget-me-not’ from 1828 to 1832 (five volumes). From 27 June 1818 to 27 Nov. 1819 he was printer and publisher of the ‘Cornwall Gazette, Falmouth Packet, and Plymouth Journal,’ a conservative paper issued at Truro. He died at Thistle Grove, Brompton, London, on 5 March 1853, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery on 12 March. By his wife Theodosia, who died on 18 Dec. 1838, he had two sons: William, who was first an assistant to H. Colburn, and then a publisher at 20 Great Marlborough Street; and Frederic, who was printer to Prince Albert, at 51 Rupert Street, and died on 22 March 1852, aged 48.
The best known of his original works were:
- ‘A History of the University of Oxford,’ 1814.
- ‘Narrative of Events which occurred in and near Leipzig before, during, and subsequently to the Engagements in 1813 and 1814;’ 10th edit. 1814.
- ‘A History of the University of Cambridge,’ 1815.
- ‘An Historical Account of the House of Saxony,’ 1816.
- ‘Picturesque Tour from Genoa to Milan,’ 1820.
- ‘Present State of Christianity and of Missionary Establishments,’ 1828, founded on a work by J. H. D. Zschokke.
- ‘Natural History of Quadrupeds,’ 1834.
- ‘The Public Building of Westminster described,’ 1835; 2nd edit. 1838.
- ‘Prince Albert and the House of Saxony,’ 1840.
- ‘Persecutions of Popery,’ 2 vols. 1844.
With J. Nightingale and others he continued Brayley and Britton's ‘Beauties of England and Wales,’ and he compiled vol. xiv., containing Suffolk, Surrey, and Sussex, 1813. With M. Retzsch he brought out ‘Gallerie zu Shakespeare's dramatischen Werken,’ 1828. He edited ‘The World in Miniature,’ 1827, 43 vols., and ‘Excursions in Normandy,’ 2 vols. 1841, and executed a large number of translations from, among others, Klopstock, Kotzebue, Alfred de Vigny, Thiers (the French revolution), and Chateaubriand.
[Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 315; Gent. Mag. 1853 i. 446, May 1852 p. 532; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. 1869–81, pp. 352, 646, 1229; Timperley's Cyclopædia of Literary Anecd. 1842, pp. 933, 954; Allibone's English Lit. 1871, ii. 2089; Athenæum, 12 March 1853, p. 324.]
SHORE, JANE (d. 1527?), mistress of Edward IV, is stated (Bell, Huntingdon Peerage, p. 24; Life and Character of Jane Shore, 1714, p. 4) to have been the only child of Thomas Wainstead, ‘a mercer of a good figure and reputation in Cheapside, London.’ She was born in London and ‘honestly brought up.’ Her father chose for her husband William Shore (Gairdner, Richard III, p. 90), a goldsmith who resided in Lombard Street, and was, to quote the cautious words of Jane's anonymous biographer, ‘a man of a very fair character both for religion and morals.’ Possibly he was related to Richard Shore, who was an alderman in 1505. It is said that Lord Hastings, who may have met her owing to her father's business lying much at court, tried to induce her to become his mistress; and that he even schemed to carry her off by night, but was defeated in his design by the repentance of a maid who was his accomplice (Bell, Huntingdon Peerage, p. 25).
Jane appears to have become mistress to Edward IV about 1470; over him she exercised the greatest influence. ‘For,’ says More, the best authority, ‘a proper wit had she, and could both rede well and write, mery in company, redy and quick of aunswer, neither mute nor ful of bable, sometime taunting without displesure and not without disport.’ Edward delighted in her merry disposition (Hall, Chronicle, p. 363). According to More, the king's ‘favour, to sai the trouth (for sinne it wer to belie the devil), she neuer abused to any man's hurt, but to many a man's comfort and relief; where the king toke displeasure she would mitigate and appease his mind; where men were out of fauer, she wold bring them in his grace.’ There is an ancient tradition, that it was Jane's intervention that saved Eton and King's Colleges from destruction (cf. Maxwell-Lyte, Hist. of Eton College, p. 80).
On the death of Edward IV Jane's troubles began. Mr. Gairdner's theory (Richard III, p. 87) that she was employed as a go-between by Hastings and the queen is very reasonable. We know that soon after Edward's death she
