Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives by Henry Francis Cary
page 130 of 337 (38%)
page 130 of 337 (38%)
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His Latin compositions are nearly as excellent as his English. The few hendecasyllables he has left, have more of the vigour of Catullus than those by Flaminio; but Flaminio excels him in delicacy. The Mons Catharinae contains nearly the same images as Gray's Ode on a Prospect of Eton College. In the word "cedrinae," which occurs in the verses on Trinity College Chapel, he has, we believe, erroneously made the penultimate long. Dr. Mant has observed another mistake in his use of the word "Tempe" as a feminine noun, in the lines translated from Akenside. When in his sports with his brother's scholars at Winchester he made their exercises for them, he used to ask the boy how many faults he would have:--one such would have been sufficient for a lad near the head of the school. His style in prose, though marked by a character of magnificence, is at times stiff and encumbered. He is too fond of alliteration in prose as well as in verse; and the cadence of his sentences is too evidently laboured. FOOTNOTES [1] There is a little memoir of James St. Amand, in the preface, that will interest some readers. He was of Lincoln College, Oxford, about 1705, where he had scarcely remained a year, before his ardour for Greek literature induced him to visit Italy, chiefly with a view of searching MSS. that might serve for an edition of Theocritus. In Italy, before he had reached his twentieth year, he was well known to the learned world, and had engaged the esteem of many eminent men; among others, of Vincenzo Gravina, Niccolo Valletto, Fontanini, Quirino, Anton Maria Salvini, and Henry Newton, the English Ambassador to the Duke of Tuscany. Their letters to him are |
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