Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Shaftesbury ANTHONY ASH- LEY COOPER, FIRST EARL OF
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ANTHONY ASH- LEY COOPER, FIRST EARL OF, an English statesman; born in Wimborne, St. Giles, Dorsetshire, England, July 22, 1621. He succeeded to a baronetcy on the death of his father in 1631. After leaving Exeter College, Oxford, he studied law at Lincoln's Inn, and was chosen representative for Tewkesbury in 1640. At the commencement of the Civil War he supported the royal cause, but advised mutual concession. Finding that in consequence of this opinion he was distrusted by the court he joined the Parliament, and received command of its forces in Dorsetshire. When Cromwell turned out the Long Parliament, Sir Anthony was one of the members of the convention which succeeded, nevertheless he signed the protestation charging the Protector with arbitrary government, which did not, however, prevent him from becoming one of his privy-council. After the deposition of Richard Cromwell he aided the restoration of Charles II. with all his influence, and in 1661 was created Baron Ashley, and appointed chancellor of the exchequer and a lord of the treasury. Yet he strongly opposed the Corporation Act (1661) and the Act of Uniformity (1662), both measures favored by the crown. He afterward became a member of the obnoxious cabal. In 1672 he was created Earl of Shaftesbury and lord high chancellor. His conduct on the bench was able and impartial, but he was deprived of office, probably through the influence of the Duke of York; and he at once became one of the most powerful leaders of the opposition. For his warmth in asserting that a prorogation of 15 months amounted to a dissolution of Parliament he was confined in the Tower from February, 1677, to February, 1678. After his liberation he took a prominnent part in the attacks on Catholics during the popish-plot scare. In 1679 he became president of the council and the same ار year was instrumental in passing the Habeas Corpus Act. In 1681 he was indicted for high treason but acquitted. He entered into the plots of the Monmouth party and had to fly to Holland, where he died in Amsterdam, Jan. 21, 1683. He ryden's famous Dryden's is the Achitophel of satire.
Shaftesbury ANTHONY ASH- LEY COOPER, THIRD EARL OF
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
ANTHONY ASH- LEY COOPER, THIRD EARL OF, an English philosophical and moral writer, grandson of the preceding; born in Exeter House, London, England, Feb. 26, 1671. When only 11 years of age he could read Greek and Latin with ease. In 1695 he became the representative in Parliament of Poole, in Dorsetshire, and strongly supported measures favorable to public liberty. In consequence of ill health he resigned his seat in 1698, and visited Holland as a student of physic. Vol 8 X-Cyc In 1708-1709 he published several works of a philosophical character, among others a "Letter on Enthusiasm" and an "Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit." In 1710 his rapidly declining health led him to fix his residence at Naples. His writings were collected and published together under the title of "Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times." In 1716 and 1721 collections of his correspondence were published. He died in Naples, Italy, Feb. 15, 1713.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical outline Collier's gave in 1921 still stands in every particular; what has moved is emphasis. Collier's calls the first Earl a member of "the obnoxious cabal" and Dryden's Achitophel, but modern historians — above all K. H. D. Haley's 1968 life — treat him less as a schemer than as the organiser of the first Whig party and the patron and employer of John Locke, who drafted for him the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina and who also supervised the education of the third Earl, a connection Collier's does not mention. The third Earl has risen furthest: once a minor moralist, he is now read as a founder of modern aesthetics and of moral-sense philosophy, an influence on Hutcheson, Hume, Diderot and the German Enlightenment, with the 1711 "Characteristicks" available in scholarly modern editions. Readers should also know that this page covers only two of the Shaftesburys; the best-known today is the seventh Earl, the factory reformer commemorated by the winged statue in Piccadilly Circus.
Written for this edition, 2026.