out as a passenger Mr. Arbuthnot, the English ambassador, to Constantinople, where he continued while the negotiations were pending, and on their failure brought Mr. Arbuthnot back to Malta. The Endymion was afterwards one of the fleet which, under Sir John Duckworth, forced the passage of the Dardanelles, 19 Feb., 3 March 1807, in which last engagement she was struck by two of the enormous stone shot, upwards of 2 feet in diameter, and weighing nearly 800 lbs.; fortunately without sustaining much damage.
In December 1811 Capel was appointed to the Hogue, on the North American station, where he continued during the war with the United States. In June 1815 he was nominated a C.B., and in December 1821 was appointed to the command of the Royal Yacht, where he remained till advanced to be rear-admiral, 27 May 1825. On 20 May 1832 he was made a K.C.B., and from May 1834 to July 1837 was commander-in-chief in the East Indies, with his flag in the Winchester of 50 guns. He became a vice-admiral on 10 Jan. 1837; he was further advanced to be admiral on 28 April 1847, and on 7 April 1852 to be G.C.B; He was in command at Portsmouth 1848–52. He died on 4 March 1853. He married, in 1816, Harriet Catherine, only daughter of Mr. Francis George Smyth, but had no issue.
[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biog., iii. (vol. ii.) 195; O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict.; Gent. Mag. (1853), vol. cxl. pt. i. p. 540.]
CAPEL, WILLIAM, third Earl of Essex (1697–1743), eldest son of Algernon Capel, second Earl of Essex, and Mary, eldest daughter of William Bentinck, first earl of Portland, was born in 1697. In 1718 he was appointed gentleman of the bedchamber to George II when Prince of Wales, an office in which he was continued after the prince's accession to the throne. In 1725 he was made a knight of the Thistle, and in 1722 he was constituted lord-lieutenant of Hertfordshire. In 1731 he was appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the king of Sardinia at Turin, an office which he discharged till 1736. He was in 1727 appointed keeper of St. James's and Hyde Parks, but resigned this position on 4 Dec. 1739 on being appointed captain yeoman of the guard. On 12 Feb. 1734–5 he was sworn a member of the privy council, and on 20 Feb. 1737–8 he was made a knight companion of the Garter. He died on 8 Jan. 1742–3, and was buried at Watford. By his first wife, Jane, eldest surviving daughter of Henry Hyde, earl of Clarendon, he had four daughters, and by his second wife, Elizabeth Russell, youngest daughter of Wriothesley, second duke of Bedford, he had four daughters and two sons. Of the sons the elder died young, and the second, William Anne (1732–1799), succeeded him in the peerage.
[Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges, iii. 484–5; Clutterbuck's History of Hertford, i. 242–4.]
CAPELL, EDWARD (1713–1781), Shakespearean commentator, son of the Rev. Gamaliel Capell, rector of Stanton in Suffolk, was born 11 June 1713 at Troston Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds. He was educated at Bury grammar school and Catharine Hall, Cambridge. In 1737 he was appointed deputy-inspector of plays by the Duke of Grafton, from whom, in 1745, he also received the post of groom of the privy chamber. In discharging the duties of deputy-inspector he occasionally acted with little discretion, as when he refused to license Macklin's ‘Man of the World’ under its original title, ‘The True-born Scotchman’ (Biogr. Dram., ed. Jones, iii. 15–16). His official position gave him leisure to devote himself to his favourite pursuit—the study of Shakespeare and of Elizabethan literature. He published in 1760 ‘Prolusions, or Select Pieces of Ancient Poetry.’ In this collection appeared a reprint of the anonymous play, ‘Edward III,’ which Capell tentatively assigned to Shakespeare. Eight years afterwards (1768) he published his edition of Shakespeare in ten volumes, with a dedication to the Duke of Grafton, grandson of the patron who had appointed him deputy-inspector. In the dedicatory epistle he states that he had devoted twenty years to the preparation of the edition. An introduction, chiefly bibliographical, was prefixed, but the commentary was reserved for separate publication. Capell aimed at supplying in the first instance an accurate text based on a careful collation of the old copies, and he did his work very thoroughly. The first part of the commentary—notes to nine plays, together with the glossary—appeared in 1774. As it met with little success, he recalled the impression and determined to publish the entire commentary, in three quarto volumes, by subscription. The printing of the first volume was finished in March 1779, and the second volume was ready in the following February; but subscribers' names were difficult to procure, and Capell did not live to see the publication of his labours. He died 24 Feb. 1781. In 1783 the complete work was issued in three volumes, under the title of ‘Notes and Various Readings to Shakespeare.’ As a textual critic Capell was singularly acute, and his
