LIAM GEORGE KEITH]. By that time (9 Nov.) the commissariat fort on which the troops depended for their supplies had been lost. The cantonments were commanded by the adjacent hills; their boundary was of no defensive strength, and was nearly two miles long. There was only one British regiment, the 44th, and this, like the rest of the troops, had lost heart. Elphinstone, infirm and unstable, asked the advice of every one, but would delegate authority to no one. Macnaghten, the envoy, energetic and self-confident, had much to say to the military measures, and Shelton found himself charged to carry out operations of which he disapproved either the principle or the details. His own unyielding temper was ill suited to such a position.

On the 10th he led an attack upon the Rikabashee fort, which lay within four hundred yards of the north-east angle of the cantonments. He had twice to rally his men before the fort was taken, and the 44th had nearly one hundred men killed or wounded. On the 13th he was sent out to dislodge the Afghans from the Behmeru hills, where they had placed two guns half a mile north of the cantonments. The Afghans were driven off and the guns brought in; but the hills were soon reoccupied, and a fresh sortie made ten days afterwards with eleven hundred men proved a discreditable failure. The enemy gathered in great numbers; their matchlocks had a longer range than the British muskets; the troops refused to charge when called upon, and at length fled back to the cantonments. Before the middle of November Shelton had come to the conclusion that the force could not maintain itself through the winter, either in the cantonments or in the BallaHissar, and that it ought to retreat on Jellalabad before snow fell. On the 24th Elphinstone advised Macnaghten to negotiate; but it was not until 11 Dec., when only one day's provisions remained, that Macnaghten met the Afghan chiefs in conference. He was treacherously shot by Akbar Khan on the 23rd, and on 6 Jan. the retreat began [see MACNAGHTEN, SIR WILLIAM HAY.]

In the continuous fighting of the next five days Shelton's stubborn courage was conspicuous, and he did all that could be done in a hopeless case. But at Jugdulluk on the 11th he was called upon to accompany Elphinstone to a conference with Akbar Khan, and to remain with the latter as a hostage for the evacuation of Jellalabad. He thus escaped the final catastrophe. He was well treated, and was released with the other prisoners on 21 Sept. when Sir George

Pollock [q. v.] and Sir William Nott [q. v.] had reoccupied Cabul.

Before that time Elphinstone, who was also detained by Akbar Khan, was dead. No one survived but Shelton, upon whom the indignation roused by such a disaster could fasten. He was not popular, and he met with hard measure. On 20 Jan. 1843 he was brought before a court-martial at Loodiana on four charges: (1) ordering preparations to be made for retreat without authority; (2) using disrespectful language to the general within hearing of the troops; (3) entering into clandestine correspondence with Akbar Khan to obtain forage for his own horses while the envoy's negotiations were going on; (4) suffering himself to be taken prisoner at Jugdulluk by want of due precaution. He was acquitted on all charges except the third, and the court held that that matter had been disposed of and duly censured at the time. They added the opinion that he had given proof of very considerable exertion in his arduous position, of personal gallantry of the highest kind, and of noble devotion as a soldier.'

He returned to England and resumed command of the 44th, which had been practically raised afresh at the depôt. He had become colonel in the army on 23 Nov. 1841, and had had the local rank of major-general in India. On 10 May 1845, when the regiment was quartered in Richmond barracks, Dublin, his horse bolted with him and fell, inflicting such injuries on him that he died three days afterwards. He left considerable property which passed to his nephew, Lieutenant William Shelton of his old regiment, the 9th. He received no medals or decorations for his many campaigns.

[Carter's Records of the 44th Regiment; Gent. Mag. 1845, ii. 197; Stocqueler's Memorials of Afghanistan, Appendix vii.; Eyre's Kabul Insurrection of 1841-2 (edition of 1879); Kaye's War in Afghanistan; Naval and Military Gazette, 13 April and 17 June 1843.]

E. M. L.

SHELTON, SHELDON, or SHILTON, SIR RICHARD (d. 1647), solicitor-general, was the elder of the two sons of John Shelton (d. 1601), a mercer, of Birmingham, by his wife Barbara, daughter and heir of Francis Stanley of West Bromwich. He studied law at the Inner Temple, and had the good fortune to be employed by the Duke of Buckingham on his private affairs. Buckingham made him one of his council, and was probably the means of Shelton's appointment as a reader at the Inner Temple in 1624. To the same influence he owed his selection as solicitor-general in October 1625; he was knighted by Charles I

at Hampton Court on the 31st. He was elected to parliament for Bridgnorth on 17 Jan. 1625-6, and for Guildford on 3 Feb. sitting for the former constituency; but in the commons his lack of debating power and general incompetence rendered him no match for Coke and the opposition lawyers (cf. GARDINER, vi. 240, 243, 268, vii. 44, 366). In November 1625 he was placed on a commission to compound with recusants. On 6 March 1627-8 he was re-elected for Bridgnorth, and in 1628 was appointed treasurer of the Inner Temple. In February 1628-9 he defended Montagu's appointment as bishop of Chichester, and in December 1633 was placed on a commission to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England and Wales. In October 1634, being, according to Clarendon, 'an old, illiterate, useless person,' Shelton was forced to resign, and was succeeded by Sir Edward (afterwards Lord) Littleton [q. v.] He retired to his manor of West Bromwich, which he acquired from his cousin William Stanley in 1626, and lived there unmolested during the civil war. He died in December 1647, and was buried at West Bromwich on the 7th. By his wife Lettice (d. 1642), daughter of Sir Robert Fisher of Packington, Warwickshire, he had no issue, and West Bromwich passed to John, son of Shelton's brother Robert.

[Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1625-34 passim; Gardiner's Hist. of England, vols. vi. vii.; Clarendon's Rebellion, v. 204; Dugdale's Origin. Juridiciales, pp. 168, 171, and Chronica Series, p. 107; Metcalfe's Book of Knights; Off. Ret. Members of Parliament; Shaw's Staffordshire, ii. 127; Willett's West Bromwich, pp. 13, 14, and pedigree ad fin.; Simms's Bibliotheca Staffordiensis.]

A. F. P.

SHELTON, THOMAS (A. 1612), first translator of Don Quixote' into English, may possibly be identical with the Thomas Sheldon who was fourth son of William Sheldon of Broadway, Worcestershire (a kinsman of Edward Sheldon [q.v.] of Beoley (cf. NASH, Worcestershire, i. 145). One Thomas Sheldon, described as a gentleman of Worcestershire, matriculated from Oriel College, Oxford, at the age of fifteen, on 23 Nov. 1581, and was refused the degree of B.A. when he supplicated for it on 10 Feb. 1584-5 (Oxf. Univ. Reg. Oxf. Hist. Soc. II. i. 227, ii. 105). Shelton seems to have entered the service of Theophilus Howard, lord Howard of Walden, afterwards second earl of Suffolk [q. v.] Acquiring a knowledge of Spanish, he during 1607, at the request of a very deere friend that was desirous to understand the subject,' translated '[the first part of] the Historie of Don-Quixote, out of the

Spanish tongue, into the English.' The task only occupied him forty days. The first part of Cervantes's novel originally appeared at Madrid early in 1605. Shelton used a reprint of the original Spanish, which was issued at Brussels by Roger Velpius in 1607. But after his friend had glanced at his rendering Sheldon cast it aside, where it lay 'long time neglected in a corner.' At the end of four or five years, at the entreaty of friends, he was content to let it come to light,' on condition that 'some one or other would peruse and amend the errors escaped, his many affairs hindering him from undergoing that labour.' On 19 Jan. 1611-12 the work, whether with or without another's revision, was licensed for publication to Edward Blount and William Barret, under the title of 'The delightfull history of the witti knight, Don Quishote.' Shelton signed the dedication to Lord Howard of Walden, describing himself as 'his honour's most affectionate servitor.'

The book at once achieved the popularity that Cervantes's work has always retained in this country. References to episodes in Don Quixote's story were soon frequent in English literature. As early as 1613 Robert Anton concluded his 'Moriomachia' with an allusion to the 'little dangerous Combate' between Don Quishotte and the Barber, about Mambrinoes inchaunted Helmet.' Beau mont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle,' which burlesqued in Cervantes's spirit the extravagances of heroic romance, was also published in 1613, but the publisher asserted that it was written a year before Shelton's translation appeared. That Dulcinea appealed to public taste is proved by the publication of a ballad on her history in 1615. A lost play, entitled 'Cardenio,' which was acted at court on 8 June 1613, was, as its title proves, a dramatised version of an episode in Cervantes's novel. Humphrey Moseley entered the piece on the 'Stationers' Register' in 1653 as the work of Fletcher and Shakespeare, but no copy is extant to prove or disprove the allegation. There is no other evidence that Shakespeare was acquainted with Shelton's achievement.

Very few copies of the original edition of Shelton's translation of the first part survive. A perfect copy, constructed from two less perfect copies, belongs to Mr. Henry Yates Thompson; other good copies are at the British Museum, in the libraries of Clars College, Cambridge, of Wadham College, Oxford, and of Mr. Leonard Courtney (cf. Times, November 1896), and one was formerly in Lord Ashburnham's collection.

In the summer of 1614 Felipe Roberto of

Tarragona published a volume impudently purporting to be a second part of Cervantes's novel. The author gave himself the burlesque pseudonym of the 'Licenciado Alonzo Fernandez de Avellaneda, natural de la villa de Tordesillas.' The deceit prospered; 'Avellaneda' was generally identified with Cervantes himself, and Edward Blount, one of the publishers of Shelton's translation of the first part of Cervantes's genuine work, obtained a license on 5 Dec. 1615 from the Stationers' Company to publish an English rendering of the spurious sequel. But this scheme went no further. Already, on 5 Nov. of the same year, Cervantes had obtained at Madrid authority to publish his own continuation of 'Don Quixote,' and this was in the hands of readers in the closing days of the year. Early in 1616 the Spanish text was reprinted at Brussels, and an English translation of that version was soon projected by Blount. This was published in 1620 with a dedication addressed by the publisher to George Villiers, then Marquis of Buckingham. No mention of Shelton's name is made in any part of the volume, but internal evidence places it to the credit of the translator of the first part. With the second part was published a new edition of the first, and the two were often bound up together. The second edition of the first has little of the bibliographical value that attaches to the first edition. The chief marks of distinction between the two are that while the first has 549 pages of text, the second has 572, and each page of the first is enclosed in black lines, which are absent from the second.

Shelton's complete translation was reissued in a folio volume in 1652 and in 1675, and in four 12mo volumes in 1725 and 1731. In 1654 Edmund Gayton [q. v.] based upon Shelton's text his entertaining 'Pleasant Notes on Don Quixote.' A luxurious reprint, with admirable introductions by Mr. James Fitzmaurice Kelly, appeared in 1896 in the series of Tudor translations edited by Mr. W. E. Henley.

Though Shelton's version bears many traces of haste, and he often seizes with curious effect the English word that is nearest the sound of the Spanish in defiance of its literal meaning, he reproduces in robust phraseology the spirit of his original, and realises Cervantes's manner more nearly than any successor. Subsequent English versions of Don Quixote,' all of which owed something to Shelton's effort, were published by John Phillips (1631-1706) [q. v.] in 1687; by Peter Anthony Motteux q. v.] in 1712; in 1742 by Charles Jervas, who un

justly charged Shelton with translating from the Italian version of Lorenzo Franciosini (Venice, 1622); by Tobias Smollett in 1755; by A. J. Duffield in 1881; by John Ormsby in 1885; and by H. E. Watts in 1888.

[Fitzmaurice Kelly's Introductions to his reprint of Shelton's translation, 1896, vols. i. and iii.; the English version of Don Quixote, translated respectively by A. J. Duffield, John Ormsby, and H. E. Watts. Care must be taken to distinguish the translator of Don Quixote from Thomas Shelton [q. v.], the puritan stenographer, some of whose publications have been wrongly assigned to the translator.]

·

S. L.

SHELTON, THOMAS (1601-1650?), stenographer, descended from an old Norfolk family, was born in 1601. It is probable that he began life as a writing-master, and that he was teaching and studying shorthand before he was nineteen, for in 1649 he speaks of having had more than thirty years' study and practice of the art. He produced his first book, called Short Writing, the most exact method,' in 1626, but no copy of this is known to exist. In 1630 he brought out the second edition enlarged, which was 'sould at the professors house in Cheapeside, ouer against Bowe church.' He is styled author and professor of the said art.' Another edition was published in London in 1636. In February 1637-8 he published his most popular work, called Tachygraphy. The most exact and compendious methode of Shorthand Swift Writing that hath ever yet beene published by any. Approved by both Unyversities." It was republished in 1642, and in the same year Shelton brought out a catechism or 'Tutor to Tachygraphy,' the author's residence being then in Old Fish Street. A facsimile reprint of this booklet was published in 1889 by R. McCaskie. In 1645 he was teaching his "Tachygraphy' at the professors house, in the Poultry, near the Church.' Editions of this work continued to be published down to 1710.

6

Shelton, who was a zealous puritan, published in 1640' A Centurie of Similies,' and in the same year he was cited to appear before the court of high commission, but the offence with which he was charged is not specified. In 1649 his second system of stenography appeared under the title of 'Zeiglographia, or a New Art of Short Writing never before published, more easie, exact, short, and speedie than any heretofore. Invented and composed by Thomas Shelton, being his last thirty years study.' It is remarkable that the alphabet differs from the tachygraphy of 1641 in every respect excepting the letters q, r, v, and z. It is, in fact, an entirely original system. On its appearance Shelton was still

living in the Poultry, and there he probably died in or before October 1650. The book continued to be published down to 1687. Many subsequent writers copied Shelton or published adaptations of his best-known system of tachygraphy,' which was extensively used and highly popular. Old documents between 1640 and 1700, having shorthand signs on them, may often be deciphered by Shelton's characters, though the practice of adding arbitrary signs sometimes proves a stumbling-block. It was in this system that Pepys wrote his celebrated 'Diary,' and not, as frequently stated, in the system erroneously attributed to Jeremiah Rich [q. v.], (BAILEY, On the Cipher of Pepys's Diary, Manchester, 1876).

An adaptation of the system to the Latin language appeared under the title of 'Tachygraphia, sive exactissima et compendiosissima breviter scribendi methodus,' London, 1660, 16mo. This adaptation was described and illustrated in Gaspar Schott's 'Technica Curiosa,' published at Nuremberg in 1665. It was slightly modified by Charles Aloysius Ramsay [q. v.], who published it in France as his own.

About 1660 there appeared in London, in 64mo, 'The whole book of Psalms in meeter according to that most exact & compendious method of short writing composed by Thomas Shelton (being his former hand) approved by both vniversities & learnt by many thousands.' It is uncertain whether Shelton's or Rich's Psalms were published first. They appeared nearly together; both were engraved by T. Cross; and the size of each is 2× 1 inches.

Portraits of Shelton are prefixed to the 'Tachygraphy,' to the Latin edition of that work, and to the 'Book of Psalms' (GRANGER, Biogr. Hist. of England, 5th ed. iii. 195, iv.76). [T. Shelton, Tachygrapher, by Alexander Tremaine Wright (1896); Byrom's Journal, i. 66, 165, ii. 15; Faulmann's Grammatik der Stenographie; Gibbs's Historical Account of Compendious and Swift Writing, p. 45; Gibson's Bibl. of Shorthand; Journalist, 18 and 25 March 1887; Levy's Hist. of Shorthand; Lewis's Hist. of Shorthand; Pocknell's Shorthand Celebrities of the Past (1887); Rockwell's Shorthand Instruction and Practice (Washington, 1893); Cal. State Papers, Dom. (1640), Pref. p. xxiv; Zeibig's Geschichte der Geschwindschreibkunst.]

T. C.

SHELVOCKE, GEORGE (A. 16901728), privateer, entered the navy, according to his own account, some time before 1690 (Voyage, &c., p. 26). He is said to have served under Benbow. From 1707 to 1713 he was purser of the Monck (Paybook of the

Monck). He says in his 'Voyage' that he was a lieutenant in the navy, and this is confirmed by the unfriendly narrative of his shipmate, William Betagh, himself also an ex-purser in the navy. No passing certificate, however, can now be found, nor does his name appear in any existing list of lieutenants. Betagh says that in 1718, being destitute and on the point of starvation, he applied to a London merchant, whom he had formerly known, for relief, and that this merchant not only relieved him, but offered him the chief command of a couple of ships which were being fitted out to cruise against the Spaniards with a commission from the emperor. When, shortly afterwards, war was declared by England, the owners determined that their ships should sail under English colours; and as Shelvocke, by his disregard of orders and extravagant dealings at Ostend, had forfeited the confidence of the owners, they removed him from the chief command of the expedition, appointing one John Clipperton in his room, and to be captain of the Success, the larger ship, and Shelvocke, subordinate to Clipperton, to be captain of the smaller ship, the Speedwell of twenty-four guns and 106 men. The arrangement was ill-judged, for Shelvocke seems to have been as unfit for the second as for the first post; and conceiving a grudge against Clipperton, to have determined from the first that he would not work with him. The two ships sailed together from Plymouth on 13 Feb. 1718-19, but taking advantage of a gale of wind a few days later, Shelvocke separated from his consort, and by his delays in going to the appointed rendezvous at the Grand Canary, and afterwards at Juan Fernandez, did not fall in with her again for nearly two years. This, as a matter of fact, is substantiated by his own account. Betagh, who was engaged as 'captain of marines' on board the Speedwell, with a special order from the owners that he was to mess with the captain, describes Shelvocke as behaving at this time and through the whole voyage in a rude unofficer-like manner, more becoming a pirate than the captain of even a

private ship of war. He was, he says, often drunk, quarrelsome, and abusive; and meeting with a Portuguese ship near the coast of Brazil, he hoisted an ambiguous ensign which made her captain believe he was a pirate, and extorted from him, as ransom, a large sum of money and a considerable quantity of valuable merchandise. At St. Catherine's, on the coast of Brazil, he waited for a couple of months, apparently to make sure of not falling in with the Success, which was, indeed, already past the

Straits of Magellan; but, according to his own account, detained by the mutinous temper of his crew, the most unruly set of rascals he had known in his thirty years' service as an officer,' whom he only succeeded in bringing to order by the assistance of M. de la Jonquière, the future antagonist of Anson, but at this time on his way home from the Pacific in command of a French ship which had been in the Spanish service. The story, as told by Shelvocke, is utterly incredible, and is said by Betagh to be absolutely untrue.

In going round Cape Horn the Speedwell was driven as far south as latitude 61° 30', and, the weather continuing very bad, an incident occurred which has been embalmed in literature by Coleridge in the 'Ancient Mariner.' Shelvocke's account of it is: 'We all observed that we had not had the sight of one fish of any kind since we were come to the southward of the Straits of Le Maire, nor one sea-bird, except a disconsolate black albatross, who accompanied us for several days, hovering about us as if he had lost himself, till Hatley, my second captain. . . imagining from his colour that it might be some ill-omen, after some fruitless attempts, at length shot the albatross, not doubting, perhaps, that we should have a fair wind after it' (SHELVOCKE, pp. 72-3). Neither fair wind nor the poetic calm, however, followed. It was upwards of six weeks from the death of the albatross before they sighted the coast of Chili in latitude 47° 28′ south, and during the whole time we had continual contrary winds and uncomfortable weather.' Wordsworth, who had recently been reading Shelvocke's Voyage,' suggested the albatross incident to Coleridge in November 1797.

After dallying on the coast for a couple of months, Shelvocke at last went to Juan Fernandez, to find that Clipperton, after long waiting, had left it three months before. He now went down the coast capturing several small prizes, and among others a vessel of a hundred tons burden, 'laden with cormorants' dung which the Spaniards call Guana, which is brought from the island of Iquique to cultivate the Agi or cod-pepper in the vale of Arica' (ib. pp. 164, 171; BETAGH, pp. 101). After sacking and burning Payta, and learning that two or three Spanish ships of war were on the coast, from which on two different occasions he had a narrow escape, Shelvocke resolved to go back to Juan Fernandez and wait for a more favourable opportunity. He anchored there on 11 May, but a fortnight later, in a fresh wind and heavy swell, the cable parted and

the ship was thrown on shore, where she became a complete wreck. That this was not attended with much loss of life would seem to have been due to Shelvocke's presence of mind and good seamanship at a very critical time. The provisions were for the most part saved; but such treasure as had been collected was reported to be lost, being possibly secreted by Shelvocke, with the exception of eleven hundred dollars, which were divided among the crew as theirs by right of having saved them.

From the remains of the Speedwell they were able to build and rig a small vessel of about twenty tons, in which, on 6 Oct. 1720, they sailed from Juan Fernandez, and after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to seize some larger ship, they captured the Jesu Maria of two hundred tons burden, which the Spaniards offered to ransom for sixteen thousand dollars. Under the circumstances, however, the ship was of more value than any ransom, and the Spaniards were dismissed in the little bark which was given to them. Shelvocke and his crew then went north, and at the Isle of Quibo fell in with the Success, from which they had separated in the chops of the Channel nearly two years before. Clipperton was much displeased with Shelvocke's conduct, and wished to suspend him from the command, but was obliged to forbear as it seemed doubtful whether, after the loss of the Speedwell, he had any authority over him. He called him, however, to account for the owners' property, and having examined his statement, refused to associate with him unless he and his crew delivered up the money which they had, illegally as he maintained, divided among them. As they refused to do this, the ships separated the next day, Clipperton very unwillingly supplying the Jesu Maria with a couple of guns and some stores of which she was in need. The Success shortly afterwards went to China, and, being found unseaworthy, was sold at Macao. Clipperton and his men then divided their booty, which, after putting on one side the owners' moiety of 6,000l., gave 419 dollars to each able seaman, and 6,285 dollars, being fifteen shares, to Clipperton. The 6,000l. was put on board a homewardbound Portuguese ship, which was accidentally burnt at Rio de Janeiro, and not more than 1,800l. was saved for the owners. Clipperton went home in a merchant ship, but died in Ireland a few days after his arrival.

Shelvocke, meantime, at Sonsonate, captured a fine ship of three hundred tons, named the Santa Familia; and when in