Samuel Pegge (the younger)

Infobox Person
name = Samuel Pegge (the younger)


image_size = 200px
caption = The Pegge coat of Arms. The Pegge family are originally from Shirley, Ashbourne. A distant relative is Catherine Pegge, a mistress of Charles II of England. [ [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50706 Magna Brittanica] , Daniel and Samuel Lysons, Volume 5, 1817]
birth_date = 1733Dictionary of National Biography now in the public domain]
birth_place =
death_date = 1800
death_place =
education =
occupation = Aniquarian
spouse = Martha Bourne and Goodeth Belt
parents = Samuel Pegge the elder
children = Sir Christopher Pegge and Charlotte Anne

Samuel Pegge - the younger (1733-1800) was an antiquarian, poet, musical composer and lexigrapher. He was the son of Samuel Pegge and their work is frequently intertwined. [http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/iss/library/speccoll/bomarch/bomjune06.html The Samuel Pegge lexicographical manuscripts - June 2006] Kings College Manuscripts by Katie Sambrook. Accessed 26 September 2007] He was the only surviving son of Samuel and his wife Anne, daughter of Benjamin Clarke, esq., of Stanley, near Wakefield, Yorkshire.

After receiving a classical education at St. John's College, Cambridge, he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, and by the favour of the Duke of Devonshire, lord chamberlain, he was appointed one of the grooms of his majesty's privy chamber and an esquire of the king's household. On 2 June 1796 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. [(Gough, Chronological List, p. 69)] He died on 22 May 1800, and was buried on the west side of Kensington churchyard, where a monument, was erected to his memory.

Music

Pegge acquired a considerable proficiency in music at an early age. He composed a complete melodrama both the words and the music in score. Many catches and glees, and several of the most popular songs for Vauxhall Gardens were written and set to music by him. He was also the author of some prologues and epilogues which were popular including a prologue spoken by Mr. Yates at Birmingham in 1760. He also wrote an epilogue spoken by the same actor at Drury Lane on his return from France; and another epilogue, filled with pertinent allusions to the game of quadrille, spoken by Mrs. Yates at her benefit in 1769, 1770, and 1774. He was likewise the author of a pathetic elegy on his own recovery from a dangerous illness, and of some pleasant tales and epigrammatic poems.

Family

By his first wife, Martha, daughter of Dr. Henry Bourne, an eminent physician of Chesterfield, he had one son, Sir Christopher Pegge, M.D. (1764-1822), and a daughter, Charlotte Anne, who died unmarried on 17 March 1793. He married, secondly, Goodeth Belt, aunt to Robert Belt, esq., of Bossall, Yorkshire.

His son, Chistopher, was a well known Doctor in Oxford and also delivered lectures in Mineralology at Oxford University and in 1800 they purchased a cabinets of minerals off him which was to be part of the establishment of that subject at the university. [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=kBcBAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA3-PA15&lpg=RA3-PA15&dq=%22christopher+pegge%22&source=web&ots=AdEkGyodlN&sig=gsmFYNqsWl0Ayn0yceh-U3j4A-E Memorials of Oxford] , By James Ingram, John Le Keux, Frederick Mackenzie, pub 1837 accessed on line October 2007]

Christopher Pegge, together with Wall and Bourne was one of the three most important doctors in Oxford in the early nineteenth century. G.V.Cox [ G.V. Cox (Recollections, p.133] quotes the following rhyme about them, entitled"The Oxford medical trio": I would not call in any one of them all, For only "the weakest will go to the Wall"; The second, like Death, that scythe-armed mower, Will speedily make you a peg or two lower; While the third, with the fees he so silently earns, Is "the bourn whence no traveller ever returns".Another rhyme, about Sir Christopher Pegge, went: Like Circe Sir C. can prescribe a mixt cup, But mixtures Circeian beware to drink up [ [http://www.headington.org.uk/oxon/doctors/physicians/index.htm Headington.org] ]

amuel's major works

# "An Elegy on the Death of Godfrey Bagnail Clerke, M.P. for Derbyshire, who died on 26 Dec. 1774," printed at Chesterfield.
# " Brief Memoirs of Edward Capell, Esq. 1790, in Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes " (i. 465-76).
# " Curialia ; or an Historical Account of some Branches of the Royal Household", 5 parts, London, 1782-1806, parts iv. and v. were edited by John Nichols.
# "Illustrations of the Churchwardens' Accompts of St. Michael Spurrier-Gate, York" in "Illustrations of the Manners and Expences of Ancient Times" 1797.
# " Memoir of his father, Dr. Samuel Pegge', in Nichols's " Literary Anecdotes " (i. 224-58).
#" [http://books.google.com/books?id=OnASAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA414&lpg=PA414&dq=%22samuel+pegge%22+music&source=web&ots=orhdlA5-Z6&sig=ZEzlaBMD9eNB6kOGJn8AzZw6K34 Anecdotes of the English Language ; chiefly regarding the Local Dialect of London and its Environs] ", edited by John Nichols, London, 1803, 2nd edit, enlarged, "to which is added a Supplement to the Provincial Glossary of Francis Grose", edited by John Nichols, London, 1814, 3rd edit., enlarged and corrected, edited by H. Christmas, London, 1844.
# "Curialia Miscellanea; or Anecdotes of Old Times, regal, noble, gentilitian, and miscellaneous, including Authentic Anecdotes of the Royal Household" edited by John Nichols, London, 1818

References