an ordinary minister, whether beneficed or unbeneficed, was at the time only permitted to read ‘plainly and aptly (without glossing or adding) the Homilies,’ and was not allowed to preach without a license from the bishop of the diocese certifying that he was a ‘sufficient and convenient preacher’ (49 Canon). With relation to Angel's suspension Laud writes in his ‘Diary:’ ‘In Leicester the dean of the Arches suspended one Mr. Angell, who had continued a lecturer in that great town for these divers years without any license at all to preach, yet took liberty enough. I doubt his violence hath cracked his brain, and do therefore use him more tenderly, because I see the hand of God hath overtaken him.’ Clark tells us that Angel was subject to great spiritual darkness, wherein Richard Vines relieved and comforted him, and it is to his religious fervour, which produced this mental distress, that Laud refers.
In 1650, at Leicester, Angel differed with the Independents (or congregationalists), having refused to sign their famous ‘Engagement.’ The Mercers' Company of London stepped in to relieve him. He was appointed by them lecturer at Grantham, in Lincolnshire, and he remained there until his death in 1655. Even Anthony à Wood is constrained to quote fully the tributes that contemporaries paid him. He wrote, or rather published, little. His ‘Right Government of the Thoughts, or a Discourse of all Vain, Unprofitable, Idle, and Wicked Thoughts’ (1659), and his ‘Right Ordering of the Conversation’ (1659), and ‘Preparation for the Communion’ (1659), and ‘Funeral Sermon for John, Lord Darcey’ (1659), are of the rarer books of later puritans. He is penetrative and wise in counsel, energetic and powerful in appeal.
[Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iii. 397; Laud's Works, v. 325–6; Brook's Lives, iii. 236; Clark's Lives, i. 50.]
ANGELL, JOHN (fl. 1758), a professional shorthand writer, of Dublin, and professor of the art there, published in 1758 ‘Stenography, or Shorthand Improved; being the most compendious, lineal, and easy method hitherto extant. … By John Angell, who has practised his art above 30 years,’ London, 1758, 8vo. It contained an historic preface, commonly ascribed to Dr. Johnson, though it has no trace of that author's style. Angell, indeed, on one occasion visited Johnson, who was not favourably impressed with his abilities as a reporter. ‘Mr. Samuel Johnson, A.M., London,’ was a subscriber to Angell's work. It was favourably commended to the public in 1770 by the Dublin Society, presided over by the lord-lieutenant. There was a second edition in 1782, sold by M. Angell in Lincoln's Inn Passage, London; and the method reached a fourth edition (without date), sold by the same publisher. Angell's shorthand, based on the lines more successfully followed up by Gurney, was never very popular. It is a variation of the system of W. Mason. He was the author of an ‘Essay on Prayer’ (London, 1761, 12mo), to which were annexed specimens of prayers of several eminent dissenting ministers in London, taken by the editor in shorthand.
[Lewis's Hist. of Shorthand, p. 122; Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Fitzgerald, i. 462; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
ANGELIS, PETER (1685–1734), painter, was born in Dunkirk on 5 Nov. 1685. His real name was Angillis, as is shown by the registry preserved in his native place. We have chosen to keep the name Angelis, which is that by which in England he has always been known. Other forms are Angiles, Angelus, Anchillus, &c. Van Gool says that he knew ‘Anchilus’ in London in 1727, and that he had then been settled there eight years. It seems indeed to be the fact that he came to England about 1719. Redgrave gives 1712 as the date of his arrival, which is certainly too early, because we know that he was painting in Antwerp in 1716, and some time between September in that year and September 1715 he was enrolled there a member of the Painters' Guild of St. Luke. These facts receive confirmation from the unpublished ‘Notices’ of Jacob Van der Sanden, now or lately in the possession of Mme. Moons Van der Starten of Antwerp. Sanden says that ‘Angillis,’ having come to Antwerp, worked for the painter, Jean Baptiste Bouttats; that he went next to Düsseldorf, came back again to Antwerp, and remained three years. In 1728 he sold his pictures by auction and went to Rome. Amongst them were the four copies after Rubens and Snyders, now in the ‘Hermitage’ at St. Petersburg. The originals of these pictures were at Houghton, so it seems probable that the sale took place in England. He stayed three years in Rome, and his pictures were much esteemed. His reserved manner and disinclination to exhibit his work are said, however, to have damaged him from a worldly point of view. On his return from Rome he made a stay at Rennes, in Brittany, and was at once so overwhelmed with employment that he settled and died in that city in 1734. While in England his portrait was painted by Hans Huyssing.
