Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Blaydes, Frederick Henry Marvell

by William Gowland Field

BLAYDES, FREDERICK HENRY MARVELL (1818–1908), classical scholar, born at Hampton Court Green on 29 Sept. 1818, was third son of Hugh Blaydes (1777–1829) of High Paull, Yorkshire, and of Ranby Hall, Nottinghamshire, J.P. and high sheriff for the latter county; his mother was Delia Maria, second daughter of Colonel Richard Wood of Hollin Hall, Yorkshire. James Blaides of Hull, who married on 25 March 1615 Anne, sister of the poet Andrew Marvell, was a direct ancestor.

After his father's death in 1829, Blaydes was sent to a private school at Boulogne, and thence, on 14 Sept. 1831, to St. Peter's School, York, where he became a free scholar in June 1832 and gained an exhibition before matriculating at Oxford, 20 Oct. 1836, as a commoner of Christ Church. John Ruskin, about five months his junior, was already a gentleman commoner there, and Thomas Gaisford [q. v.] was dean (of. Ruskin, Præterita, 1900, i. 371). In 1838 A Blaydes was elected Hertford scholar and v a student of Christ Church, and in Easter term 1840 4 was placed in the second class in literae humaniores along with (Sir) George Webbe Dasent [q. v. Suppl. I] and James Anthony Froude [q. v. Suppl. I], He graduated B.A. in 1840, proceeding M.A. in 1843.

After a long tour (which he described in family letters) through France and Italy in 1840-1, finally spending a week in Athens, he returned to Oxford in Aug. 1841. and issued an edition of Aristophanes' 'Birds' (1842), with short Latin notes. Ordained deacon in 1842 and priest in 1843, he accepted the college living of Harringworth, Northamptonshire. Harringworth was Blaydes' home for forty-three years (1843-86). A staunch 'protestant,' he joined on 10 Dec. 1850 the deputation from his university which, headed by the Chancellor, the Duke of Wellington, presented an address to Queen Victoria against the 'papal aggression' (The Times, 11 Dec. 1850).

But Blaydes' interest and ample leisure were mainly absorbed by classical study. In 1845 he published an edition of a second play of Aristophanes the 'Acharnians.' In 1859 he published in the 'Bibliotheca classica' three plays of Sophocles. The reception of the book was not altogether favourable, and a difference with the publishers (Bell & Daldy) led him to issue separately the four remaining plays with Williams & Norgate. He reckoned that he gave more than twenty years to Sophocles, and, with intervals, more than fifty to Aristophanes.

Blaydes resigned his benefice in 1884, and from 1886 lived at Brighton. In 1907 he moved to Southsea, where he died, retaining his vigour till near the end, on 7 Sept. 1908; he was buried in Brighton cemetery.

Scholarship meant for Blaydes what it had meant for Elmsley at Oxford, for Person and Dobree at Cambridge. With the later and more literary school of Sir Richard Jebb in England and von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff in Germany he had small sympathy. Verbal criticism and the discovery of corrupt passages mainly occupied him, and his fertile and venturesome habit of emendation exposed his work to disparagement (N. Wecklein in Berliner philologische Wochenschrift, 28 Jahrgang, 1908, No. 20). Yet not a few of his emendations have been approved by later editors (S. G. Owen in Bursian's Jahresbericht uber die Fortschritte der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 1909; Biographisches Jb. pp. 37 ff.) His own views on the editing of classical texts will be found in the introduction to his ‘Sophocles,’ vol. i., and in the preface to ‘The Philoctetes of Sophocles,’ 1870. The University of Dublin made him hon. LL.D. on 6 July 1892; he was also a Ph.D. of Budapest, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Letters at Athens.

Blaydes made a hobby of homœopathy and delighted in music, being an accomplished singer and naming his third son, George Frederick Handel, after the composer. To St. Paul's school, where his eldest son was a pupil, he was a munificent benefactor. In 1901 he presented to it the greater part of his classical library, amounting to 1300 volumes, with many framed engravings, principally of Italian scenery, now hung in the dining hall. In following years he gave many specimens of marble from the Mediterranean basin, together with more pictures, books, and a large collection of curios. The ample fortune which his first wife brought him he spent to the amount of 30,000l. on his studies, collections, and the printing of his books.

Blaydes married firstly, in 1843, Fanny Maria, eldest daughter and eventually (on the death in 1874 of her only brother, Sir Edward Henry Page-Turner, 6th baronet) one of the coheiresses of Sir Edward George Thomas Page-Turner, of Ambrosden, Oxfordshire, and Battlesden, Bedfordshire; she was killed in a carriage accident, 21 Aug. 1884, leaving issue three sons and four daughters. Blaydes' second wife was Emma, daughter of Mr. H. R. Nichols.

Blaydes' principal publications were:

1. ‘Aristophanis Aves,’ 1842.
2. ‘Aristophanis Acharnenses,’ 1845.
3. ‘Sophocles,’ 1859 (vol. i. of the ‘Bibliotheca classica’ edition).
4. The ‘Philoctetes,’ ‘Trachiniæ,’ ‘Electra,’ and ‘Ajax’ of Sophocles, 1870–5.
5. ‘Aristophanis quatuor fabulæ,’ a collection subdated 1873–8.
6. ‘Aristophanis comici quæ supersunt opera,’ 1886.
7. ‘Aristophanis comœdiæ’—his best work; in 12 pts. dated 1882–1893.
8. Nine sets of ‘Adversaria’ on various authors, 1890–1903.
9. ‘Æschyli Agamemnon,’ 1898; ‘Choephoroi,’ 1899; ‘Eumenides,’ 1900.
10. ‘Spicilegium Aristophaneum,’ 1902; ‘Spicilegium Tragicum,’ 1902; ‘Spicilegium Sophocleum,’ 1903.
11. ‘Sophoclis Œdipus Rex,’ 1904; ‘Œdipus Coloneus,’ 1904; ‘Antigone,’ 1905; ‘Electra,’ 1906; ‘Ajax,’ 1908; ‘Philoctetes,’ 1908.
12. ‘Analecta Comica Græca,’ 1905; ‘Analecta Tragica Græca,’ 1906.
13. ‘Miscellanea Critica,’ 1907.

[The Pauline, No. 170, pp. 172 ff. (with portrait); Oxford Magazine, 29 Oct. 1908; private information; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]

W. G. F.